DemNotesBlog for Colorado Democrats by State Party First Vice Chair Dan Slater

I spent yesterday in Arvada, walking with Sara Gagliardi in Jefferson County’s House District 27. Sara is running against Republican Bill Crane, who has been AWOL in representing the District since joining the legislature. Indeed, House District 27 is an ideal opportunity to pick up a House seat — Crane narrowly won in 2004, by only about 4 points.

If HD 27 is an ideal pick-up opportunity, Gagliardi is the ideal candidate for that opportunity. Gagliardi has long been an active Democrat, and has worked on enough campaigns to know what it takes to win. She’s a nurse, and I’ve always known her to be a strong proponent of labor. She’ll bring a great perspective on health care issues at a time when we will need to be addressing a lot of health care issues in 2007 and 2008.

Sara and I got through most of an entire precinct yesterday. I had several good conversations with voters who had a variety of issues on their minds — and all, regardless of party, were open to new leadership in the Legislature. More importantly, I knocked on an awful lot of Republican doors — and not one person mentioned the incumbent to me. Indeed, I’m not even sure that Bill Crane has yard signs — as I drove through a number of Arvada neighborhoods and streets, I did not see even one. However, I did see dozens of Gagliardi signs.

After 2004, in early 2005, I had a conversation with a legislative leader. I asked where we might have opportunities to pick up Republican seats — to play offense — in 2006. The response wasn’t promising. 2004 was that good for us. But now, we’ve got several very realistic opportunities to pick up Republican-held seats, and this seat is toward the top of that list. If you live in Jefferson County, or in the north Metro area, please do whatever you can to help Sara Gagliardi win this critical seat. Call Sara at 303-467-0619 to volunteer, or visit her website to contribute or volunteer at:
http://www.saragagliardi.com/

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Just a quick note: wasn’t it nice this morning to wake up and see the Headline in the Denver Post: “GOP Haven Under Siege: 5th District Race”? If you want somebody leading a siege, Lt. Col. Jay Fawcett would be a good choice.

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I’m sure many of you saw the news this past week about the 47 Congressional endorsements of Denver’s 2008 Convention bid. 47 Democratic Members of Congress sent a letter to DNC Chair Governor Howard Dean in support of the DNC’s picking Denver for the 2008 Convention site. I’ll post the list of members at the end of this post. Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

Although once solidly a red portion of the country, Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West are rapidly trending blue. In fact, Democrats now control Gubernatorial seats in Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming, maintain control of at least one house in most of the state legislatures throughout the West and the number of Democratic Congressional leaders continues to increase.

It is critical to the outcome of the 2008 Presidential elections that the Democrats focus long overdue attention on the West. In recent decades, the Western United States have seen rapid growth in cities such as Las Vegas, Denver, Phoenix and Salt Lake City and political ideologies and representation have changed accordingly. The
Democratic Party must seize the opportunity and take advantage of the changed political landscape of the West and take back the White House in 2008.

The newer news today is that New York — the sole remaining obstacle to Denver’s bid — is apparently having difficulty raising money. New York’s always claimed that their biggest advantage was the unparalleled ability to pull in money to pay for the Convention. Well, that boasting is being called into question in an article in the New York Times:

New York City’s bid to land the 2008 Democratic National Convention is in jeopardy because Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is spread so thin with fund-raising commitments that he may not be able to raise the money from private donors needed to pay for it, an official said on Thursday.

Finally, here’s the list of Congressional endorsements, from the press release sent by the Denver 2008 Host Committee:

Diana DeGette (CO-01)
Brian Baird (WA-03),
Bart Gordon (TN-06),
Mike Ross (AR-04),
Neil Abercrombie (HI-01),
Charlie Melancon (LA-03),
Jay Inslee (WA-01),
Darlene Hooley (OR-05),
Stephanie Herseth (SD – At Large),
David Wu (OR-01),
Adam Schiff (CA-29),
Leonard Boswell (IA-03),
Shelley Berkley (NV-01),
Dan Boren (OK-02)
Tom Lantos (CA-12),
Ron Kind (WI-03),
Ike Skelton (MO-04),
John T. Salazar (CO-03),
Jim McDermott (WA-07),
Bob Etheridge (NC-02),
Marcy Kaptur (OH-09),
Dennis Moore (KS-03),
Raul Grijalva (AZ-07),
Rahm Emanuel (IL-05),
Gene Green (TX-29),
Joe Baca (CA-43),
Earl Pomeroy (ND-At Large),
Solomon Ortiz (TX-27),
Silvestre Reyes (TX-16),
Bill Jefferson (LA-02),
Sam Farr (CA-17),
Juanita Millender-McDonald (CA-37),
Artur Davis (AL-07),
Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34)
Xavier Becerra (CA-31),
Dale E. Kildee (MI-05),
Hilda Solis (CA-32),
Alcee L. Hastings (FL-23),
Peter DeFazio (OR-04),
John Conyers (MI-14),
Bob Filner (CA-51),
Dennis Kucinich (OH-10),
Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05),
Rick Larsen (WA-02),
Dennis Cardoza (CA-18),
Mark Udall (CO-02)