Interesting note from the New Democrats, way back in 1998

From a column by Jennifer Veiga, a Colorado state senator, in the New Democrat, the DLC magazine:

As White House pollster Mark Penn and others have noted, the New Democrat message provides our best hope of staying competitive in suburban areas. We've had tremendous population growth in Colorado recently, much of it in the suburbs. If Democrats don't do well there, they can't do well statewide. Our rural base has all but vanished. In the Colorado House, 20 of our 24 Democrats are from metropolitan areas. The next reapportionment after the 2000 census will only intensify the importance of the suburbs in the Colorado legislature. We must have a message that sells in suburban districts.

Democrats have a real opportunity. The right wing of the Colorado Republican Party is becoming very powerful. Almost every moderate Republican legislator is drawing conservative opposition in the primaries. The state GOP is imposing a litmus test -- in their words, a "moral contract" -- on all its candidates.

Moderate, centrist Democrats appeal both to the conservative wing of our party and to moderate Republicans who do not buy into their party's new right-wing agenda.

Two things of importance to be taken from this piece.

One, it reiterates what is happening all over the West (except maybe the Washington State Republicans have learned this lesson) the more the Republicans feel their oats, the further right they will go, leaving the middle open. More crazy Republicans, more sane Democrats winning elections.

Also, if losing the so called exburbs wasn't warning enough, Democrats need to be competative in the burbs and the new urban areas. Thats pretty much all there is out West. Like Sen. Lautenburg will tell you if you ask, those old dusty cities don't cotton to no Republicans, so we have to get with the new growth.

Emmett O'Connell | November 28, 2004 | Comment on This Post (0 so far) Permalink: Interesting note from the New Democrats, way back in 1998

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