Like researchers poking that half-frozen, fake Sasquatch carcass last week, Democrats are descending upon Colorado to look for the moderate “new Democrat” and to study its companion species, the “Western Democrat.”
But, like Bigfoot, they may find the new Democrat is more myth than reality.
Denver was chosen to host the Democratic National Convention not just for the backdrop of purple mountain majesties but for the deep purple political streak that runs through this once-red state.
Democrats figured there were secrets to be mined here in the high country, where their party in 2004 gained control of the state legislature for the first time since John F. Kennedy and where, in just a few short months, Democrats could gain a 7-2 edge in Colorado’s Washington delegation. That’s a complete reversal in just four years.
By showcasing those gains, and the new Democrats elected here and elsewhere in the traditionally Republican Interior West, they hope to put a more moderate veneer on their party heading into November.
But here’s the secret: The Democrats who have won statewide in Colorado, or in traditional GOP strongholds, campaigned as either moderates or conservatives.
That’s not so easy to replicate nationwide.
And here’s the other problem: It’s not so easy to govern that way.
U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar ran as a conservative in 2004 when he knocked off Republican beer magnate Pete Coors. In 2006, Gov. Bill Ritter campaigned as a pro-business moderate.
As campaign strategy, it’s been mostly flawless. But as a way of governing, it’s been mostly folly.
With the old vestiges of his party pulling him back to the left, new Democrat Ritter shelved his pro- business agenda during his first year as governor and signed an executive order granting collective bargaining rights to every state employee.
Then, just as the economy grew sluggish and sales-tax revenues began to taper off, he presided over a budget that added more than 1,300 new employees to state payrolls.
So far, he’s used his political capital to freeze property taxes (which his opponents are calling a tax hike) and to ask voters to end a tax break for energy companies (which his opponents are calling a tax hike).
A tax-hiking, labor-loving new Democrat? Say it ain’t so.
To be fair, it can’t be easy to be a Democrat and govern a state where Democrats are outnumbered 2 to 1 by Republicans and unaffiliated voters.
So you end up with a moderate Democrat who says moderately nothing and whose accomplishments are moderately thin.
Want to know how carefully Sen. Salazar walks that moderate tightrope? His planned speech at the DNC this week elicited this headline from the Rocky Mountain News: “Salazar to hail America at DNC.”
Now that’s going out on a limb.
The new Democrats, it seems, have become the old Democrats as a more liberal leadership emerges.
Bill Clinton, who became the prototype new Democrat in the 1990s — balancing the budget and attacking welfare — is third or fourth fiddle at this convention, which features the likes of Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama.
Ironic, isn’t it? National Democrats envy the success of Democrats in the West, yet continue to produce candidates for president who are, in fact, more liberal than the previous candidate, each of whom has lost, since Clinton.
Don’t look for the new Democrats here. Head east to the Republican National Convention, where Sen. Joe Lieberman is speaking.
Heck, John McCain might be the best example of a new Democrat who’s running this year.
Editorial page editor Dan Haley can be reached at dhaley@denverpost.com.
