Tag: Rocky Mountain West

January, 2007, marked a milestone in Colorado. It was the first day of the legislative session — and the first time that Democrats controlled both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office since John F. Kennedy was president. When Gov. Bill Ritter took the floor, only one thing could have possibly upstaged the new governor’s arrival: the announcement, that day, that Denver had been selected the site of the Democratic National Convention for the first time in a century. The chambers erupted in cheers.

A year and a half later, Colorado has emerged as not only a battleground state, but as a symbol for the changing demographics of the American West and the new beginning of the Democratic Party.

Buck McVeigh has a bumper sticker that he uses in the presentations he makes as administrator of Wyoming's Economic Analysis Division. The bumper sticker...