Colorado part 3 Colorado, Presidential Politics

There is yet another way to look at Colorado’s electorate.

Pro-life Democratic Governor Ritter sees 13% of the electorate as moral conservatives that won’t vote for even a pro-life Democrat because he is a Democrat. He sees 16% as Fox News conservatives who would privatize almost everything. In contrast he sees 20% of the electorate as very liberal Democrats. Those figures alone would argue that a conservative will beat a liberal in a statewide contest in Colorado, but it also leaves a big middle to be distributed. In the middle are 37% who are government pragmatists and 14% who are moral pragmatists.

… the moral pragmatists, [Governor] Ritter explained, “do have issues around gay marriage and they have issues having to do with abortion, but at the same time they don’t want those issues to bog down government’s ability to deliver appropriate functions.”

These voters were the key to Ritter’s [Democratic] victory. “If you win among the liberals, and you win all the government pragmatists, then you’re over fifty per cent…But you may not win all the government pragmatists for one reason or another. So you have to carve into those moral pragmatists, and I think the reason we won pretty significantly was because we carved heavily into that group.”

Senator Obama in his acceptance speech spoke to the moral pragmatists and talked about finding “the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.” His ability to do that may well determine who wins Colorado’s electoral votes.

Leo Brown | September 6, 2008 | Comment on This Post (0 so far) Permalink: Colorado part 3 Colorado, Presidential Politics

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