Trail Mix: Colorado’s Battleground Status Cemented

Despite comments last month about Colorado water that raised eyebrows statewide, Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, should play well in the West, a group of Republicans said this week.

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., defended McCain’s explanation about comments he made last month about the Colorado River Compact, which drew the ire of Democrats and Republicans.

In an interview with the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper, McCain had broached the subject of reopening the 86-year-old compact for renegotiation, an idea that is anathema in upper-basin states like Colorado that want to keep their mountain snowmelt.

Allard said McCain was misunderstood.

“When those comments were reported in the paper, I was shocked, because that wasn’t my understanding of Sen. McCain—and the rest of the delegation’s—on the Colorado River Compact,” he said, adding that McCain sent him a letter shortly afterward to clarify his position.

“His letter makes it clear that his position is that he favors using the (Colorado River) Commission as the managing body which will meet periodically to hear the views and concerns raised by the various states,” he said.

He added that any effort outside the commission to change the compact, which dictates how much water flows among seven western states, would be met with resistance from himself and his Democratic colleague, Sen. Ken Salazar.

Mountain states like Colorado would stand to lose if the compact is ever renegotiated, because thirsty lower-basin communities in Arizona and California would demand more water.

“I don’t think that is a lingering issue; I think he quickly clarified his position,” Allard said.

Allard spoke to Colorado reporters on a conference call Wednesday with Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and Rich Beeson, the Republican National Committee’s political director, about McCain and Palin’s chances in the West.

Democrats smell blood in the gains they’ve made in the region in recent years, and Democratic leaders took every opportunity during the Democratic National Convention in Denver last month to talk about their hopes for the region turning blue.

But Beeson, Allard and Wilson said it won’t happen because Sen. Barack Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, have liberal records, for one thing.

Beeson said Democratic attempts to move into the West before November are a “head fake” given Obama’s recent focus on the rust-belt and Great Lakes states.

“They’ve done this sort of head fake into a lot of different states under the auspices of spreading the map out. I think that was a cover for the lack of organization in those upper Great Lakes states” like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, he said.

Beeson grew up in Kiowa County and said he doesn’t think Obama and Biden will play well in rural Colorado—at least not as well as other Democrats, like Gov. Bill Ritter and Salazar.

“When you look at Colorado, their electoral success with Ritter and Salazar, they ran as centrist, moderate Democrats,” Beeson said, noting that neither had a voting record before taking office.

“(Senate candidate and U.S. Rep.) Mark Udall, Obama and Biden can’t run as centrist moderate Democrats. They’ve got votes and I think that is going to make them unpalatable to the voters of Colorado,” he said.

Recent polls show McCain and Obama close in Colorado, which could be one of the most important battleground states this fall.

A poll released Monday by Rasmussen Reports has Obama at 49 percent in Colorado and McCain at 46 percent.

Rasmussen also found McCain is viewed more positively, with 61 percent of Coloradans holding him in high regard compared with 54 percent for Obama.

Barr-Paul ‘08?

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman, invited libertarian hero Ron Paul to be his running mate this week.

Barr sent Paul a letter, calling him one of the “few American patriots” who exist today, and asking him to seriously consider Barr’s offer.

Barr had asked Paul to seek the libertarian nomination earlier this year, but Paul declined. He is still a Republican and ran for his own party’s nomination until the very end, racking up only a handful of delegates but a substantial amount of money and grassroots support.

Barr acknowledged Paul’s attempt to change his party from the inside, but said moving on to a third-party option is a better way.

“Change in politics and public policy in America cannot and will not be done from within the current, two-party system,” he said at a news conference Wednesday at the National Press Club in Washington.

Barr already has a running mate, however: fellow libertarian Wayne Allyn Root. But Root said in a statement from the campaign that he would “sacrifice anything to advance the cause of liberty” and would step aside if Paul was interested.

No word yet on whether the Ron Paul Revolution will be headed to the Libertarian Party.

Trail Mix is a compendium of notes from the Colorado campaign trail compiled by FC Now reporters.