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The Colorado PurpleThe state is finally taking a shine to Democrats. But is it blue enough to accept Obama?

By Christopher BeamPosted Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2008, at 4:22 PM ET

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Barack Obama. Click image to expand.DENVER—The good news for Barack Obama is that Colorado is more Democratic today than it was four years ago, when John Kerry lost the state by almost five percentage points. The bad news is that a Colorado Democrat is not necessarily an Obama Democrat.

In 2004, Democrats recaptured majorities in both chambers of the Colorado Legislature and replaced retiring Republican U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell with Ken Salazar, a pro-gun moderate. Two years later, they elected pro-life Democrat Bill Ritter as governor. Both men are part of a long tradition of conservative Colorado Democrats, and their statewide organizations will undoubtedly help Obama. Even more encouraging is the recent success of a semi-obscure five-term congressman from Boulder who is running for Colorado's open Senate seat. If Mark Udall can win in Colorado, the thinking goes, so can Barack Obama.

The problem is that Udall is not a typical Colorado Democrat. His district includes Boulder, the state's liberal enclave, and he has the voting record to match. He supports universal health care, civil unions, and abortion rights, and he opposes drilling on Colorado's Roan Plateau and the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Udall (the son of former Arizona congressman Mo Udall) also voted against the authorization of military force in Iraq in 2002.

Obama's positions line up well with Udall's. Because this is Colorado, however, Obama has to be careful not to identify his campaign too much with Udall's. To win the state, Obama needs the Salazar and Ritter voters in the center. Westerners like to describe themselves as "independent," but Colorado has the numbers to back it up. A quarter of the population—and a third of registered voters—has no party designation. These voters are most heavily concentrated outside Denver in Jefferson and Arapahoe counties.

The state has its havens of orthodoxy, like Colorado Springs, home to Focus on the Family, and the aforementioned Boulder. But most voters sit somewhere in between. Ask politicos in the state to describe an average unaffiliated voter, and you hear everything from "Wal-Mart moms" to small-business immigrants to anti-war pro-lifers to fiscally conservative environmentalists. The one thing everyone seems to agree on: "Unaffiliateds," supposedly, are put off by negative attacks.

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If so, the candidates—and the 527s that support them—didn't get the memo. Colorado attack ads make "Celebrity" look polite. One now-famous spot depicts two veterans mocking Udall for supporting a "Department of Peace." "Boulder liberal," they keep repeating. "Radical Islam wants Americans dead," the narrator tells us. "What part of dead does Mark Udall not understand?" Another ad portrays the Department of Peace as a hot-boxed VW bus. An ad against Udall's opponent, Bob Schaffer, a former member of the U.S. House, shows a club of 10-gallon-hat-wearing oil barons sitting around a poker table, toasting to "Big Oil Bob."

As for whether the ads work, the results are still unclear. Polls show Udall leading Schaffer by about five points. He's winning unaffiliated voters by a 2-to-1 margin. And of course, the Udall campaign claims the anti-Udall ads are doing more good than harm.

So why isn't there more coordination between Udall and Obama? At his appearances in Colorado last week, Obama was introduced by Ritter and Salazar. Udall spokeswoman Tara Trujillo unconvincingly cites logistics: "We don't know if Obama's going to be in town until a couple days beforehand."

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Christopher Beam is a Slate political reporter.
Photograph of Barack Obama by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images.
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