Blogger Notes

I met with Matt Garrington, a field director for Environment Colorado, today (not for our project) and we discussed CO politics. He noted that the red/purple/blue phenomenon is highly dependent on how independent voters poll. !! So, I suggest we add this to our focus. The problem, of course, is finding independent voters to talk with ... but I'll work on that.

I found this article in the Colorado Independent, and also this, and I'll look for other sources this weekend.

See you all on Monday, 2/2 at 3:45 in the usual spot.

Judith

Title: A Bolt of Blue: Colorado's recent presidential voting history

The Team: Mara Auster, Andrea Sutherland, Corey Jones, Allison Sandza, Judith Houlding

Purpose statement: To examine Colorado’s historical trends of voting democratic in presidential elections and to understand the significant variables that have contributed to the current shift toward its status as a blue state. After investigating the information and trends, we will also theorize how Colorado will vote in the future.

Scope and scale: Our focus is on presidential elections in Colorado since World War II. We are investigating geographic, economic, generational, and industrial variables in presidential elections in Colorado. We will also investigate the possible influence of "green" industry/conservation politics. A history of voting blue since 1940 will help provide framework and context for our project. We will also discuss what effect the 2008 Democratic National Convention had. We will not investigate the history of state politics, past Democratic governors or legislative body.

Media goals: We plan to utilize photo slideshows, audio slideshows and video footage taken in interviews as well as archival video footage of the DNC or past historical events that are relevant to our project's purpose. We would also like to create an interactive map that functions like a
timeline of voting history in presidential elections since WWII.

Who will do what: Mara is doing much of the still photography; Allison and Corey will help with video footage; the rest are print and Web implementation.

Possible Obstacles: Obtaining Census data prior to 1980 may prove difficult. As with any project, some people may object to being filmed/photo'd or recorded. More obstacles may occur in the coming weeks.

- Here are the votes I’ve compiled so far … these numbers reflect the recent shift from red to blue. I’m going to create an excel spreadsheet for all these statistics. There are a couple other Web sites that provide numbers from previous elections … but I’d like to dissect the sites first to determine which ones are best.

2008
Barack Obama/Joe Biden (DEM) – 1,288,576; 53.66% (elected)
John McCain/Sarah Palin (REP) – 1,073,589; 44.71%

2004
George W. Bush/Dick Cheney (REP) 1,101,256 (elected)
John Kerry/John Edwards (DEM) - 1,001,725
Total votes: 2,147,224

2000
George W. Bush/Dick Cheney (REP) - 883,748 (elected)
Al Gore/Joe Lieberman (DEM) - 738,227

1996
Dole/Kemp (REP) - 691,848
Clinton/Gore (DEM) - 671,152 (elected)

Source: Colorado Secretary of State Elections Center (http://www.elections.colorado.gov/DDefault.aspx?tid=398&vmid=1149)

1992
Bill Clinton/Al Gore (DEM) - 629,681; 40.13% (elected)
George H.W. Bush/Dan Quayle (REP) - 562,850; 35.87%

- Check out this CNN graph I found. It seems Colorado’s voter turnout (as a percentage of the voting age population) has consistently been above the national average:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/pre/CO/history.html

- Interesting article from the Rocky that adds a little bit of perspective to things:
http://m.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/sep/27/colorado-election-history-101/

* I’ll start looking into potential expert sources this weekend/next week as well.

CHJ

For the multimedia, I want to concentrate on the personal stories throughout Colorado in the different areas that could affect the votes. I want to include the following areas if I have the time to get all of them done:

Industries (ideally mining and farming)
The Hispanic community
Rural areas
The Denver/Boulder metro area

I think these will give balance to both sides. I'm going to try to find contacts who will let me follow them around for a couple days at time. I'll get interview audio or video while they talk about their political views and why they have them and make flash audio/video slideshows which I will probably try to divide up for each individual story. We could also mix in audio or video of the interviews of the official people, so let me know if you need a good recorder and you can borrow mine. Even if you have a cheap recorder, if you don't have a good mic the audio probably won't be good enough to use so let me know and you can use mine. Also, if any of you want to shoot photos or video that's fine by me and we can share the multimedia.

A site I found that is going to be helpful for all of us is http://projects.rockymountainnews.com/apps/news/politics/elections/colorado-county-profiles/ which has the demographics, including industry, and past presidential election results of each county. Pueblo County, with a large Hispanic population, has voted blue pretty consistently. Gunnison and Garfield Counties with mining as one of their larger industries have voted mostly red in the past 50 years.

If you guys find any good contacts that you think I should have in the multimedia, let me know please! Otherwise, I will find them on my own and give you guys their number if you want to use them in the articles.

Let me know if you guys want me to change anything about what I have planned so far. Hopefully, I'll start shooting within the next two weeks.

Mara

hi gang, i called over to boulder county democrats today and spoke with Susan, the office manager there. i am going to go interview her a week from today (next thursday) at 10 am at their office on walnut. she said it was fine if i brought a video camera so if we wanted to do that we could.

i am going to speak with her thursday about who else she knows for an interview as well and i figured we could kind of hop along like that.

have a great weekend!

ABS

Here's a list of our individual concentrations. Please add any edits or clarifications you see fit as we continue to develop our ideas and methods. I say we each write individual posts that go a little deeper as we start to refine our own responsibilities and goals.

CHJ

Corey - incidents of voting democratic since 1940 and historical factors
- expectations for future

Andrea – demographics

Mara – multimedia/audio slideshow: faces/personal stories from different areas (or industries) of the state

Allie – impact of the convention

Judith – generational aspects (and possibly conservation related stuff: green movement)

I found some links to Democratic organizations in Denver.

The DNC site, colorado branch:
http://www.democrats.org/a/local/west/colorado/

Coloradodems.org Blog:
http://blog.coloradodems.org

(The DNC site redirects you to coloradodems.org, but it doesn't seem like they have anything going on right now, there's not text anywhere (including the press link) except for that blog)

The convention website:
http://www.demconvention.com/

Boulder County Democrats:
http://bouldercountydems.org/

I'm going to call the coloradodems.org number tomorrow to see if there's a time next week we can meet for a pre-interview or actual interview. I'm a little disorganized right now, I know, but here's what I've found so far. In a bipartisan effort, should I contact the GOP of Colorado for their response to the convention as well?

ABS

Our journalistic purpose is as follows: To examine Colorado’s historical trends of voting democratic in presidential elections and to understand the significant variables that have contributed to the current shift toward its status as a blue state. After investigating the information and trends, we will also theorize how Colorado will vote in the future.

From Judith: I'm looking at generational differences in Colorado voting, primarily how the boomers voted, and what is their effect, if any, on Colorado's "blue" status.

I found this article in The Atlantic, Dec. 2007, that talks about boomer politics on the national scene:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/obama

And this blog on Colorado Confidential may point me to some good sources:
http://www.coloradoconfidential.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1710

And this site:
http://www.coloradoboomers.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=21

Some demographic info:
http://www.colorado.edu/libraries/govpubs/popindex.htm
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0126/p15s02-lihc.html

Contradictory info:
http://www.examiner.com/x-654-Baby-Boomer-Examiner~y2008m9d26-Older-voters-in-battleground-states-favor-Obama

National Census Data:

2000 Census

1990 Census

1980 Census
(click on Colorado - Ch. AB)

1950-1970 Data

State Census Data:

1950-2000 Census

1990 Voter Age Range
have to set age ranges

2000 Voter Age Range
have to set age ranges

Race (in excel/pdf files)


I gotta run to work but I'll post more tomorrow :) ~ AS