Swing State Swing: Colorado

We asked our chief political writer, David Paul Kuhn, to get in a car and drive from Portland, Maine to Portland, Ore., via all the Battleground States – those states expected to be the most hotly contested in the presidential election. Armed with a pen, laptop, camera and plenty of No Doz, Kuhn is sending back dispatches that will offer impressions and snapshots of a country making up its mind.

COLORADO
Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs is the conservative of conservative America. In local and state assembly races, more Libertarians than Democrats ran for office in 2002. It is the beginning of the intellectual Bible Belt, and the home of James Dobson's influential Focus on the Family ministry.

George W. Bush is sure to win this part of Colorado. That even here you can find a turncoat, as a staunch GOP ideologue might call Theresa Blair, is a problem for the president.

Theresa is either the exception that proves the rule of the Right, or a harbinger of bad tidings for Republicans. She voted Bush in 2000. Colorado Springs's El Paso County did by a margin of 65%-34%.

But in 2004, Theresa refuses to back Bush. Life has changed for the 34 year old. In her own words, she can no longer afford her Republicanism.

She works as a cashier 45 hours a week. She goes to school for 20 hours. Health insurance costs are siphoning any money she hoped to save.

"Things for me financially are a lot different than where they were four years ago," says Theresa, who appears to have no time for sun, for counting calories, or for doing anything with her straight black hair.

"I've noticed a big difference in health care availability for people my age that are trying to put themselves thorough life and school and stuff."

Counting money at the register, as customers slowly file in and out of the pantry, Theresa explains that she will be the first in her family to vote Democratic.

"What I pay out of pocket isn't worth what I get for the coverage," she adds. "I would like to see that change, not just for myself but for a lot of other Americans too."

A customer blurts impatiently, "Can we check out now." A man in his twenties is exasperated by the three-minute pause as Theresa talks politics. She hurriedly steps to the register as headlights come and go, filling the darkness of Colorado's hazy mountain highways.

He's voting for John Kerry because his family did. When asked his own political reasoning, he repeats: "My dad was a Democrat and I'm a Democrat. He was a Catholic and I'm still a Catholic."

Born 16 miles to the north of the small-industrial town of Trinidad, where the city's name stands high on an arid plateau that once marked the Santa Fe Trail for wagon-trains, Orlando explains tersely that there is nothing else to explain. Again, his dad was so he is.

Nodding, shrugging like there is reason is clear, Orlando walks off to his semi-truck, carrying a red cooler and thermos, as he has in 1949.

Fred hopes for patience stateside. He can't pronounce the name of the radical and rebellious Shiite cleric. Nonetheless, he's seen enough wars to know the nature of al-Sadr's cause - Get America out - and again, Fred hopes for patience.

He voted George W. Bush in 2000. So did Colorado, by a 9-point margin. This is barely a swing state. Increasingly Republican since the early 1990s, Colorado has been swinging GOP since not backing Bill Clinton in 1996, and the ascendancy of GOP candidates in downstate races.

"I'll probably vote again for [Bush]," explains Fred, his voice scratched and waning. "I admire him for starting something and trying to stay with it and finish. Some of the things in regards to veterans, I'm a little unsure. I've heard too many stories where he might be thinking about cutting out some of the benefits, and I think the veterans need'em."

Fred came here in 1998 to retire. He has a gaunt-wrinkled face. His tone is quiet, slow to be voiced, scratched with age.

"I got tired of retirement and I started this up to have something to do," he says, chuckling quietly. "I've doing this for about 55 years, so it's something else. I'm kinda lost without it." Family photos line the wall behind. The Denver migrant relishes the slower pace here, so working is a good thing. It's at his speed.

Trinidad Gold Works is his business. It's doing all right. This a small town, Fred explains. Most people here he thinks tend to lean conservative.

"Kerry at times sounds like he's got some good qualifications. I like a man that's makes up his mind what he's going to do and sticks to it," Fred says. "Kerry's been a little, ah, hasn't been quite stable enough in saying and doing what he believes in."

Fred has a place in the back of his shop where he sleeps on weeknights. On weekends he goes to his ranch outside of town. This is the place he purchased for retirement. He passed through here 45 years ago and decided then to move here, someday.

Fred relishes having no neighbors. "It's the only way," he says. He can forget civilization and get lost in the stark plateaus breaking the arid plains of southern Colorado.

"I love it up there," Fred says under his breath. "You can see forever."

He glances back down at the newspaper and explains that regarding Iraq, "It's something that I think had to be done."

Fred continues, his hand trembling while he speaks, "There was too much talk of connections between bin Laden and Saddam and I think bin Laden has gotta go, and anyone connected to him has gotta go."

The man who had to go for being "connected" was Saddam Hussein.

Whatever division exists in this country over the war in Iraq, he says this is not the America of the Vietnam era.

"I haven't seen anybody burning flags like they did during Vietnam," he continues. "I had two stepsons who served in Vietnam. Anytime, servicemen are involved in a foreign mess, I feel like we ought to stand behind them and not be divided because I don't think that helps our morale. And I think morale is part of winning the party."

Later, Fred completes this point. He says "people are very interesting," his eyes drawn back in reflection.

"You know the American people, like to win," Fred continues. "They don't like to lose and they don't like to have things drug out. And I think sometimes when they get drug out too far, why they lose interest. I hate to say it, but I think that's the way it is."
By David Paul Kuhn