Democratic Convention Watch: Denver looking for momentum from election


Thursday, November 09, 2006

Denver looking for momentum from election

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More on the impact of the mid-terms on Denver’s bid to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention:

The Mile High City is hoping that a rising Democratic tide in Colorado and the West will lift its chances of hosting the party’s 2008 convention. Officials involved in Denver’s bid for the convention say their prospects against rival New York City improved on Tuesday as Colorado voters put a decidedly Democratic stamp on the state. “I think our chances are now better,” says Denver City Council member Rosemary Rodriguez, who serves on the city’s convention bid committee.

Democrats in Colorado this week reclaimed the governorship after eight years of GOP rule, captured a House seat that had been Republican since 2002 and strengthened their majorities in the state House and state Senate. Colorado Democrats will hold four of seven U.S. House seats, a U.S. Senate seat and, for the first time since Dwight Eisenhower was president, control both the Legislature and governor’s office.

Elsewhere in the West, Democrats picked up a Montana Senate seat, two House seats in Arizona, and re-elected governors in Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona. Five of the eight mountain West states will have Democratic governors starting in 2007; prior to the 2002 election, they had none.

“We’ve had a lot of success in the West, and it seems to us here in Colorado that the way to keep it up is to focus on the western U.S.,” says Steve Farber, a Denver attorney who co-chairs the city’s convention effort. “Democrats need to look at the Rocky Mountain West as their hope for the future,” adds Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. “We’re ready we have the facilities, we have the most beautiful state in the nation.”

Well, New York and the whole Northeast also had a good night on Tuesday, so let’s keep this all in perspective.

Denver looking for momentum from election2006-11-09T23:21:00-05:00MattDenver bid|