The Bill Richardson Blog

Everyone reading this blog should get used to something. I am from Colorado, I love my home state very much, and I can prove (with math) why it is the greatest state in the union. Thus, it should be no surprise to you that I have gathered a little evidence that Colorado is the most likely state to get its primary moved up with Iowa and NH.

There will be, of course, at least two such states. But this is the Bill Richardson Blog, and the southwestern primary is the one that concerns us because the Southern one is going to be a battle between the Clinton Arkansas machine and the Edwards charm offensive. If the Gov (I like this nickname for him, am I wrong on this? it sounds authoritative) can pick up the southwestern primary and either Iowa or New Hampshire, then he will be in pole position to run the table.

So, what’s the evidence that it’s Colorado, and what does that mean for Richardson?

First of all, this article reports officially that the primaries added will go to 2-4 states that have populations of five million or less, and minority populations of 15 percent or more. The fine gentlemen over at The Next Prez have done the work of looking up what states those are for us: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and South Carolina.
We can rule out Alaska and Hawaii immediately. Their remote location means it is impossible to get there cheaply, and the whole point of these new primaries is to encourage cheap, retail campaigning. (That’s what makes New Hampshire so perfect. Retail politics is what that state is built for.)

You can also scratch, in my opinion, any place that’s the home state of a known 2008 contender. That would just be wildly unfair and Howard Dean (who, as chair of the DNC, will have a lot of pull on how this goes down) doesn’t owe any loyalty to anyone who’s known to be in the race right now. So say goodbye to Delaware (Biden), as well as New Mexico (who else).

Connecticut and Rhode Island are too New England–we have New Hampshire to gauge the Northeast. Plus, our previous post noted (go check the link there for the original article) that the likely geographies for these new primaries are the South and the West.

So that leaves us with Alabama, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. Of those states, only two are really Western. Colorado and Nevada. I think that Colorado is the plain choice between the two. Las Vegas is not conducive to “retail politics,” and the media markets there are incredibly expensive for obvious reasons. While you have Carson City and Reno and everything, in general, the state just isn’t conducive to primary campaigning. I also feel like the status of Harry Reid as minority leader (ideally, by 2008, majority leader) might take it out of the running on the off-chance that he decides to get involved, for the aforementioned fairness reasons.

It’s Colorado, folks. It’s all right there in the open. In 2008, Democratic candidates are going to be pounding the pavement in the city’s increasingly numerous Democratic enclaves–from granola Boulder, to big-city Denver, to Pueblo, the union town. Southwestern Colorado will get its turn too, and you can expect many a town hall meeting in Durango. So: how does this affect the Gov?

Here’s what springs to mind, based on my own knowledge of my home state.

1. Taxes. Colorado has an extremely, extremely low tax burden. There are a million ways to calculate these things, but I have heard “lowest in the country” many times. This is no surprise: low taxes are an article of faith in much of the Western US. The Gov’s reputation as a tax-cutter (see our previous item on gasoline taxes) will help him here, especially when contrasted with his major rivals.

2. Immigration. Not being a border state, Colorado isn’t as hot-button as New Mexico when it comes to immigration. That doesn’t stop people from forming opinions, though. Andrea already covered the Gov’s smart immigration strategy, and I can’t see any reason it wouldn’t go over well in Colorado. If nothing else, he knows more about the issue than his rivals will, and will be able to talk intelligently about why immigration and illegal immigration matters. Stay away from the whole driver’s license thing, though.

3. Water. Coloradans, especially those on the Western Slope, are fixated on this issue with white-hot intensity. I don’t know a lot about the Gov’s water policies–I have made it my business to discover them in the coming days–but this will absolutely play a role. I have a hard time imagining him getting out-debated on the issue by Hillary Clinton, though. Water is one of those things you don’t get the significance of unless you’re there. The Colorado Springs airport has no-flush toilets, and many restaurants still don’t serve water unless you ask for it specifically. Just a sample. A generic national message that does not include water policy absolutely cannot work to win a Colorado primary.

In this way, it’s sort of like Iowa’s ethanol thing, except it’s more divisive. You can’t just be like, “I’m pro-water,” and expect that to be it. (In Iowa, you take the ethanol pledge and you’re pretty much done.) Anyway, it will be interesting.

You heard it here first, folks. Colorado primary. First in the West.