More from the Colorado Independent.  Could this be the start of a new, bipartisan approach to immigration in Colorado?  Can there be any stranger bedfellows than those mentioned below?  What’s next?  Tancredo and the Ghost of Corky Gonzalez?  (ha ha!  can you just imagine that?):

Now that the election is over, it’s apparently time to hunker down with immigration. And who better to do that than a group that, on its face, will bring every imaginable perspective to the table? We’re talking Polly Baca to Pete Coors; Kay Norton to John Hickenlooper; Bill Ritter to Bill Owens.

On Friday, University of Denver Chancellor Robert Coombe will announce the new group as part of the college’s Strategic Issues Program (SIP) will study immigration.

Past University of Denver SIP panels have hashed out everything from the state’s economy to its water supply and constitution.

Two years ago, the Colorado Legislature passed what former Gov. Owens termed the toughest in America dealing with immigration. Among the laws passed during a special session called to deal with the immigration issue in Colorado: new applicants for public benefits must prove they are in the United States legally; and employers must certify their employees’ legal statuses.

At a Friday press conference, Chancellor Coombe will detail what the newly formed group will tackle in the coming year.

Posted: November 13th, 2008 under Colorado Independent.
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Cara Degette at the Colorado Independent is news flashing us on some great numbers that came out from the election:

A blogger at ColoradoPols has crunched a bunch of election numbers in several interesting ways, and determined that of Colorado’s five largest counties, four went for Barack Obama. Only El Paso County, a reliable GOP stronghold, went John McCain’s way. And, the pol noted, Denver and Boulder counties turned out to be way more Democratic than El Paso County was Republican.

The presidential election results are based to the most recent data published by the Denver Post.

Here’s the breakdown of the big counties:
Jefferson 283,468 votes — 54.69% (Obama)
El Paso 264,407 votes — 58.97% (McCain)
Denver 259,647 votes — 75.29% (Obama)
Arapahoe 232,167 — 55.29% (Obama)
Boulder 159,469 — 72.33% (Obama)

In another interesting view, the pol, who goes by the moniker Precinct854, determined the five counties that registered the highest Republican presidential turnout were sparsely populated and rural, with all but Rio Blanco on the eastern plains.

Here’s the GOP breakdown:
Cheyenne 80.11% (890)
Washington 77.77% (1935)
Rio Blanco 77.38% (2425)
Kiowa 76.27% (630)
Lincoln 74.27% (1683)

And, of the five highest-percentage counties that went for Obama, San Miguel in southwestern Colorado came out on top, with 77.06 percent.

Here’s the Democratic breakdown:
San Miguel 77.06% (3,345)
Denver 75.29% (195,499)
Costilla 73.40% (1,236)
Pitkin 73.74% (7,260)
Boulder 72.33% (115,339)

This is really interesting to us at Liberal Latina, because of the high numbers of new and Latino voter registrations that were gathered in those very same four counties (other than El Paso) have also seen a growth spurt in the number of Latino/Hispanic residents.

Keep this in mind, mi gente.  Just because you see a family with undocumented/legal resident members doesn’t mean that no one in that household can vote.  We all know that even though Mami and Papi can’t probably vote yet, there are plenty of young people of voting age that can.  I read a statistic recently that every month 35,000 young Latinos turn old enough to vote!

And even if Mami and Papi can’t vote this time around, chances are that they have completed all citizenship requirements by the time the next general election comes around…or even sooner!  Don’t forget that you are eligible to apply for citizenship after 5 years as a legal resident.

Voter registration needs to be constant, year-round activity for the Latino population.  The Democratic Party better be along for the ride at every step of the way in this process!  Talk to your neighbors.  Keep them informed about politics and how progressive agendas are good for them.  When they’re ready to vote, get in touch with the Democratic Party branch in your area and get them registered!  We can’t afford to pass this up!

Posted: November 13th, 2008 under Colorado Independent.
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As you saw on the 2008 Youth Vote Map, Colorado is one of the states for which we have no exit poll data on young voters. Early in the evening on election night, CNN reported exit poll data showing Obama losing the Colorado youth vote 47 - 53 percent.

Based on that data, the NY Post wrote:

Colorado was the only state that Obama flipped from Bush’s 2004 result without winning the youth vote — he lost 47-53 among that age group there, perhaps due to the large military presence in that state.

The story was also picked up by PolitickerCO.

Unfortunately (or, fortunately), the story turned out to be false. Something was dramatically wrong with the exit polling data, and before the night was through CNN replaced the 47 - 53 percent youth figures with “N/A.” As of this writing, the exit poll still shows “N/A” for its 18 - 29 data.

No one seems to know what went wrong (though I’ve got a few inquiries out at the moment), however the folks at New Era Colorado were able to get a local pollster to go on record about state polls leading up to election day. Here’s what they had to say about the Colorado youth vote:

RBI conducted a number of statewide surveys among likely voters over the course of the 2008 election season and Obama was never behind in the Colorado youth vote. In fact, RBI’s last statewide survey just days before the election showed Obama receiving over 60 percent of the 18-34 vote.

Yes, RBI’s numbers are for 18 - 34, not 18 - 29, but it seems unlikely that the numbers would be substantially off considering that the Gen Xers in the 30 - 34 category tended to be more conservative, rather than more liberal. Any bias they introduced into the data would likely swing in McCain’s favor, not Obama’s.

It always seemed fishy that Colorado youth would swing towards McCain. The state is trending blue for a while now, it’s got a great progressive infrastructure, and a growing Hispanic population - all recipes for Democratic support. It’s good to know that is likely still the case. I’ll post more if I get a good explanation for why the exit polling was so flawed.

Mike Connery is a CIM correspondent at Future Majority.com and expert on the youth vote.

Posted: November 11th, 2008 under Colorado Independent.
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