Congrats, Senator-Elect Udall

It's official: Colorado is a Blue state. As much as it pains me to say it, congratulations to Senator-elect Mark Udall. I can only hope Republicans draw the correct lessons from this election result.

Farewell to the campaign. The eyes of Colorado are now upon Mark Udall to see how he will govern.

Hill Consulting: Udall 43, Schaffer 38; Rasmussen: Udall 51, Schaffer 44

Facing a stiff national political headwind, Bob Schaffer no doubt is currently trailing in Colorado's race for the U.S. Senate. But polling distortions have Lefties gleefully imagining that Mark Udall leads by 11 - or even 14 - points. Okay, let's get real for a moment.

Hill Research Consultants, a firm with an excellent track record in Colorado, sent a memo to its client the Bob Schaffer campaign yesterday with some heartening news:

As you know, following the financial turmoil in the markets, ballot shares for the Republican candidates, John McCain and Bob Schaffer, were down. But I am pleased to report that in the past three days there has been a return to the Republicans, narrowing the deficit to just outside the margin of error.

What are the results according to Hill's tracking survey?

Mark Udall 43
Bob Schaffer 38
Other candidates 6
Undecided 13

And according to Hill, the characteristics of the undecided voting population indicate they likely will break in Bob Schaffer's direction. At this stage in the game, Mark Udall remains the beneficiary of some national anti-Republican sentiment and the favorite to prevail on November 4. Rasmussen has Udall ahead by seven, 51-44.

But it ain't quite over yet.

Bob Schaffer Accepts GOP Nomination

Bob Schaffer began his acceptance speech with a tribute to his recently deceased grandmother, Mary Schaffer, born in 1914, an inspiration to his life and campaign.

Schaffer began the substance of his remarks by highlighting the need for reform within the Republican Party and his independent record of challenging GOP leadership, on No Child Left Behind and on earmarks.

But Democrat leadership is wrong more often, he correctly observed. Schaffer compared Democrat calls for "change" to putting lipstick on a pig. The zinger of the speech: What do you call a system of sustained, liberal, one-party rule? "In Colorado, we call it Boulder." Without mentioning his opponent by name, Schaffer reminded the party faithful of Dennis Kucinich's Boulder-like Department of Peace proposal. Subtle, but effective.

Bob Schaffer then focused on the expected philosophical themes that undergird his campaign and unite him with the Republican Party:
- His support of free markets
- Protecting individual rights
- Empowering families to make the most important decisions about health care & education (aka school choice)
- The need for energy independence
- Freedom-based health care, not government-run health care

In case you need a sense of the audience, Bob Schaffer's biggest applause came from his citation of the Declaration of Independence, that our inalienable rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" come from God.

Bob Schaffer closed on a personal note, honoring his wife Maureen, "another strong Schaffer woman" and each of his five kids: Mary, named for her great-grandmother; Sarah, with the best penmanship in America. His oldest three children are all military officers in training - Jenny, Emily, and Justin - which provided a springboard to credit those serving in our military overseas as an inspiration for those on the homefront: "Don't you think we owe them the same kind of courage here at home?"

The audience rose to its feet with the powerful conclusion that draws the clear contrast between Bob Schaffer and his opponent: "Freedom is better than bondage. Liberty is better than bureaucracy. Winning on the battlefield is better than losing."

Colorado Voter Registration And Party Affiliation--April Update

The latest numbers from the Secretary of State's office--

Republicans--1017738
Democrats--900823
Unaffiliated--1013548
Total--2932109

SvU's voter affiliation tracker has been updated:

Previous coverage here.

**Update--
As it gets closer to the election, these numbers will help to predict the final outcome as voter turnout percentages (overall), party voter support for candidates (percentage of registered party members that vote for their party's candidate), and the great unknown of the unaffiliateds. Democrats must have the unaffiliateds break their way if the parties' own voters show up in roughly the same proportion and vote in roughly the same percentage. The GOP still owns the pure registration advantage over Democrats, and a high voter turnout and a split independent vote will tilt the advantage ever so slightly in favor of the GOP (at least in general election voter terms). Even a slight advantage may do nothing more than stanch the bleeding of recent electoral losses. Coattails of each party's nominee will also likely provide further help (or hindrance) to the state's Senate candidates and other downticket elections.

Safe prediction? Turnout will be somewhere between 80 and 90% in 2008.

In Schaffer v Udall Battle, Coloradans Offered Clear Choice

"The two likely candidates in this year's U.S. Senate contest, Rep. Mark Udall, a Democrat, and former Rep. Bob Schaffer, a Republican, served side-by-side in Congress from 1999 through 2002. Over those four years, they cast 2,036 votes together, often on symbolic or non-controversial matters. And yet they still managed to disagree more than half the time - 1,078 times, to be precise"--Rocky Mountain News

As the Rocky Mountain News points out, Senate candidates Bob Schaffer and Mark Udall are as different as night and day:

If you think Rep. Mark Udall, a Democrat, and former Rep. Bob Schaffer, a Republican, disagree on 1,000 different things, that's close.

From 1999 through 2002, when they worked across the aisle from one another in the U.S. House of Representatives, they cast opposite votes a whopping 1,078 times.

That long and detailed record makes the 2008 contest a rarity in state politics. Not since 1986, when Democrat Tim Wirth faced Republican Ken Kramer, have two one-time House colleagues gone head-to-head in a U.S. Senate race.

"Talk about a paper trail. This is a paper trail that leads into the Rockies for this Senate race," said Norman Provizer, a political science professor at Metropolitan State College in Denver. "They represent two very differing views on all kinds of issues. If you look at it from an issue perspective, they aren't Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum."

The Rocky Mountain News analyzed all 2,036 congressional votes, big and small, that Schaffer and Udall cast during their four years together in the House. It's more than enough to keep the ad-makers on both sides busy in the run-up to November.

Fair use prevents a lengthier quotation (the article is quite long and extensively researched), but here are a few highlights:

Schaffer's stance is first, Udall's second

Military issues

* IRAQ WAR: Resolution authorizing use of force against Iraq. (Oct. 10, 2002) YES NO

* SPENDING: An amendment that would have imposed a 1 percent, across-the-board cut on military programs. (May 18, 2000) NO YES

* RECRUITING: Amendment to education spending bill that would have prohibited funds from being used to block military recruiting at secondary schools. (June 13, 2000) YES NO

Homeland security

* ANTI-TERRORISM LAW: The anti-terrorism law, the Patriot Act, first enacted in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. (Oct. 12, and Oct. 24, 2001)YES NO

* ARMING PILOTS: Legislation to allow airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit as a defense against terrorism. (July 10, 2002)YES NO

Education

* SCHOOL CHOICE: Amendment to the proposed "No Child Left Behind Act" that would have allowed students from low-performing schools, or crime victims from "unsafe schools," to choose to attend private schools using public funds. (May 23, 2001)YES NO

Taxes

* BUSH TAX CUTS: Approval of White House-backed tax cuts of the "Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act of 2001." (March 8, 2001)YES NO

* TAX LIMITS: A proposed constitutional amendment requiring two-thirds majority votes to approve new tax increases. (June 12, 2002)YES NO

Takeaways?

This contest pits candidates from rival parties that present a clear difference in viewpoints. The common charge that most candidates in any election are "basically the same" can simply not be applied in this case.

Schaffer-Republican-Conservative

Udall-Democrat-Liberal

The move to the "middle" where both sides believe the election will be won features an unaffiliated voting bloc poised to become the largest pool of registered voters in Colorado. Schaffer acknowledges that the state's tilt has been blue since 2004; Udall realizes that he is not the "moderate" that either Sen. Ken Salazar or Gov. Bill Ritter were (or purported to be) when they ran statewide.

The most recent poll shows both candidates within the margin of error (Udall leads 46-43), a clear toss-up, in spite of the MSM's continued meme that the seat is really Udall's to lose.

The votes revealed (or re-revealed, in some cases, for those political junkies who have been following this blog) will be the subject of campaign fodder, political ads, and 527 mudslinging for the next 7 months.

The only thing that can be agreed on--the stature and importance of this race. Republicans see the seat as an opportunity to roll back further losses due to retirement and a generally unfavorable political climate that has persisted since 2006. Democrats envision not only a pick-up, but an advance toward the potential 60 vote filibuster-proof supermajority.

Exit question: with Republicans settled on Sen. John McCain as their nominee, and the Democrats witnessing a fierce race rage on between Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, which candidate stands to benefit from their respective party's nominee? Who is helped more, or flipping that proposition, who is hurt the least?

**Update:
Ryan Sager is rather pessimistic about the GOP's chances in the "interior West" unless Sen. Hillary Clinton is the nominee, but Daniel Larison has a different explanation for the region's recent trend to blue, and asks--is it really a recent development, and can short term trends be extrapolated into long term outcomes?

Colorado Voter Registration And Party Affiliation--March Update

From the Sec. of State's office, these updated figures for March 2008 of Colorado's voter registration numbers and party affiliation:

Democrats--893,472
Unaffiliateds--1,008,675
Republicans--1,015,993

Since February 2008:
Democrats +7,849
Unaffiliteds +5,672
Republicans +2,527

The trend since January 2004:



Takeaways--the rapid trend for the state's unaffiliated ranks continues, as Republican recovery rate lags behind that of both unaffiliateds and Democrats since early 2007.

It will also be important to watch the numbers heading into the summer, and especially the final two reports--September and October--following the Democratic National Convention. Should Recreate '68 and its allies create the disruption and mayhem they are so eager to achieve, it may not matter if unaffiliateds have overtaken Republicans as the largest voting bloc in Colorado. Voter backlash against the Democrats could be considerable statewide, if not nationally, especially if the Democrats add insult to injury by having a heated, brokered convention.

Stay tuned.

Cross posted from Slapstick Politics