In 2004, Colorado Republicans controlled the governor’s mansion, both U.S. Senate seats, five of the state’s seven congressional seats, and both houses of the state legislature. Only 48 months later, the state’s Democrats found themselves in that very same position.
Experts on both sides of the aisle agree that what happened in Colorado from 2004 to 2008 (during which time registered Republicans outnumbered registered Democrats statewide) was about much more than the anti-Republican political environment. It was, in the words of former Clinton staffer Rob Stein, the result of a “more strategic, more focused, more disciplined, better financed” progressive movement at the grassroots level.
And if Stein has his way, Colorado is just the beginning. Under the auspices of a group of over 80 super-wealthy donors called the Democracy Alliance, progressives are spending $110 million to export their Colorado blueprint to over a dozen states in 2010, including Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Even with the Obamacare wind at their backs, Republicans across the country face some of the most sophisticated state-level organizations ever assembled. The degree of GOP success in November may depend on how well the party understands and adapts to this new reality.
To maximize on the opportunities of the 2010 election cycle, Republicans should keep in mind four vital lessons from the Colorado experience:
1. The party is dead. In Colorado, campaign-finance reform reduced contributions to political parties — as McCain-Feingold did on the federal level. While Colorado Republicans struggled to fund get-out-the-vote efforts through the state GOP, Democrats scrapped the party altogether and replaced it with a network of independent nonprofit entities. Funded primarily by the “Gang of Four” — multimillionaires Rutt Bridges, Tim Gill, Jared Polis, and Pat Stryker — the shadow Democratic party became the most powerful political entity in the state.
2. It’s the political infrastructure, stupid. Beginning in 2004, Colorado Democrats decided to think long term. “It used to be a big problem on both sides, but especially the Left, that they would put money in . . . during election years and then the day after the election everything would shut down,” notes Michael Huttner of ProgressNow, a key organization in the Left’s new political infrastructure. Through the shadow party’s network of nonprofit entities, the Gang of Four and other major donors direct life-sustaining dollars into an infrastructure that now exists in odd years as well as even ones. As Jon Caldara of the conservative/libertarian Independence Institute puts it, “To win, you need to win the battle of ideas and put foot soldiers on the ground. And you can’t do that without a long-term infrastructure.”
3. State legislative races are a bigger deal than you think. For years, big donors focused their money on high-profile statewide and federal races, with only mixed results to show for it. But in Colorado, the Gang of Four recognized that their money could be decisive in state races. By flooding traditionally sleepy local campaigns with cash, the Gang of Four helped Democrats take both houses of the state legislature — even as George W. Bush carried many of those same districts. The Gang of Four understood that state legislatures, invisible as they are to most large donors, not only are the farm teams for higher office, they are the engines that drive many key policy issues. And with state legislatures preparing to draw new congressional maps, the road to control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the next decade runs through state capitols.
4. A house divided against itself cannot stand. “Starting in the early 1990s, a civil war started within our party between moderates and conservatives that over time resulted in Democrats’ winning state legislative seats that historically had been Republican,” says Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican party. At the same time, Colorado Democrats decided to focus on one goal: winning elections. Under the discipline imposed by the Gang of Four’s purse strings, unions, environmentalists, trial lawyers, and other left-leaning groups put aside their differences to unite around that objective. “It’s simple,” said Gang of Four member (and now congressman) Jared Polis. “You approach it with a business mentality. You say, ‘Our goal is to establish a Democratic majority.’ What’s the best way to do that? Let’s not talk about issues. Let’s not talk about ego. They’re all off the table.”
If none of these ideas sound particularly revolutionary, it’s because they aren’t. “It’s not rocket science,” says former Democratic state house majority leader Alice Madden. But unless Republicans can learn these simple lessons from Colorado, they’ll find it hard to win outside their traditional strongholds.
– Rob Witwer is a former member of the Colorado house of representatives and co-author of The Blueprint: How the Democrats Won Colorado (and Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care) (Fulcrum Books).