Colorado, writes National Journal's always insightful Ronald Brownstein, is"America, writ small." "A microcosm," he goes on, "of the forcesdestabilizing American politics."
Of course, Colorado is not entirely typical of the nation. It has America'slowest rates of obesity, for example -- because of a young population andbecause most Coloradans live a mile or more above sea level. You burn morecalories there just getting out of the car and walking to the mall.
Colorado has also been a success story for the Democratic Party. It votedtwice for Barack Obama after years of voting Republican for president. Ithas a Democratic governor and Legislature, and two Democratic U.S. senators-- a complete reversal from 10 years ago.Much of that Democratic success can be ascribed to a few high-techmillionaires and trust-funders who banded together and shrewdly spent bigbucks to advance Democratic and liberal causes, a process describeddefinitively by Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard.
But in the second Obama term, as things go sour for the president, they'realso going sour for Colorado's liberal Democrats.
Like Obama after 2008, Colorado Democrats may have overinterpreted theirvictories. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, despite many advantages -- thecongenial personality of a brew-pub proprietor, a popular record as mayor ofDenver -- won in 2010 with only 51 percent of the vote. And he was helpedwhen the Republican nominee's campaign imploded and firebrand former Rep.Tom Tancredo ran as an independent.
Democrats have had only narrow majorities in the Colorado Legislature.Nevertheless, they went ahead with a liberal agenda, passing civil unionsfor same-sex couples, in-state college tuition for children of illegalimmigrants and renewable energy requirements.
After the movie theater massacre in Aurora, they passed a gun-control lawwith universal background checks and limits on gun magazines.Like Obama Democrats in Congress, they were heavy handed. On gun control,they didn't allow citizens against the law to testify, contrary to Coloradocustom. In response, gun control opponents got the necessary signatures toforce recall elections of two Democrats.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other gun control advocates spentthousands against the recall. And both Democrats held seats where BarackObama won about 60 percent of the vote in 2012. But both were soundlydefeated last September.
In the meantime, Hickenlooper's job rating plunged below 50 percent when,though theoretically a supporter of capital punishment, he granted areprieve to a murderer convicted of killing four people at a Chuck E. Cheesein 1993.
Worse was to come.
Hickenlooper has some credibility as an educationreformer, from his appointment of Michael Bennet, now U.S. senator, to runDenver's schools, to his support of state Sen. Mike Johnston's teachertenure reform bill.In 2013, the Legislature passed an education bill promising new reforms anda new school finance formula that would take effect once voters approved$967 million in additional funding. Amendment 66 included raising the stateincome tax from 4.63 percent to 5 percent for incomes under $75,000 and 5.9percent for those over.
Amendment 66 supporters -- including Bill and Melinda Gates, MichaelBloomberg and Colorado teacher unions -- spent some $12 million in supportof the amendment.
Last week, Colorado voters rejected Amendment 66 by a 65 percent to 35percent margin. It carried only in Denver and Boulder counties. Voters inthe other 62 counties turned it down.
This was a much more smashing defeat than political insiders expected.Coming as it did during the rocky Obamacare rollout, it looks like arejection of big government generally and of the proposition that moregovernment spending will produce better results.
It was an especially stinging defeat for teacher unions, which also failedto oust a reform-minded school board in exurban Douglas County, south ofDenver, and saw a pro-union school board thrown out in Jefferson County, themixed suburbs west of the city.
This does not necessarily spell defeat for Hickenlooper or the Democraticlegislative majorities. As Brownstein points out, Colorado Republicans havebeen fielding stunningly weak candidates for major office in recent years.Weak candidates and the ultimately unsuccessful vote by 11 counties tosecede from the state "have attached a whiff of extremism" to the state'sRepublican Party, Brownstein writes.
But like voters nationally on Obamacare, Colorado voters seem to berejecting liberal policies Democrats assumed would be widely popular. An
interesting lesson from "America, writ small."
Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner (www.washingtonexaminer.com), is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of "The Almanac of American Politics." To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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