Mayberry and Peyton Place

Yes, Colorado turned blue. But in western Colorado’s Delta County, the GOP prevailed, giving the nod to the McCain-Palin ticket. Democratic congressman John Salazar fared best, getting about 45 percent of the vote. Not one Democratic candidate won here, from the top to the bottom of the ticket. I know something about being a Democrat […]

Swayed by an alliance of the Mormon Church, evangelicals and Catholic bishops, voters decided yesterday to use two states’ constitutions to ban marriage for gays and lesbians … … even though, I’ll interject, constitutions are normally intended to ensure the civil rights of minority groups. California’s Proposition 8 was the most intense gay-marriage battle ever […]

California’s raft of green ballot measures this election looked like the start of an enviro-revolution. Almost. Proposition 7  would have required California to generate 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050, and Proposition 10 would have authorized a $5 billion bond issue to promote alternative energy and alternative fuel vehicles, with about […]

As the Barack Obama wave swept much of the West, carrying fellow Democratic candidates to many victories, the Republicans in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming proved to be more resistant. John McCain won the presidential races in all three states. In the Congressional races, the Democrats apparently took one House seat that had been held by […]

As ABC News put it, “the traditionally red state of Colorado has seen a wave of blue voters.” The state picked Obama for president, probably boosted by high turnout among Hispanics, 20 percent of the state’s voters. The last time Colorado went blue was in 1964, for Lyndon Johnson. Dems now control both U.S. Senate […]

The pundits  may have waited until the last possible second on election night to call California, along with Oregon and Washington, and pronounce Democrat Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States, but there was never really any doubt that the electoral-vote-heavy-weight Golden State would embrace the Illinois Senator by a wide margin.  With […]

Prior to yesterday’s election, New Mexico was just about evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. While Dems controlled the State House and Senate, and a Dem lived in the Governor’s mansion, two of the three U.S. Congressional seats were held by Republicans and the state was represented by one Republican and one Democrat in the […]

I had grand plans of coming to the office this morning and writing definitive post-election blogs about the races we’ve been following in Washington and Oregon. But it’s almost time for lunch, and the two most interesting races — Dave Reichert vs. Darcy Burner for Washington’s 8th Congressional District and Gordon Smith vs. Jeff Merkley […]

Well, there weren’t too many surprises coming from McCain’s home state yesterday. All of the incumbents, even Harry Mitchell, D, in the 5th Congressional District, held onto their U.S. Congressional seats, and the Mac nabbed the state’s presidential contest, albeit by a narrower margin than most talking heads expected. Ann Kirkpatrick, D, bagged only open […]

Their names are familiar, but not the way we know “John McCain” or “Barack Obama.” They raised a total of about $6 million  — compared to more than $650 million raised by Obama and $360 million raised by McCain. In case you missed it, Ralph Nader (independent, raised $3.9 million), Bob Barr (Libertarian, $1.3 million), […]

Gun activists believe — perhaps correctly — that the future of their hobby is bound up with the financial health of the companies that make guns. That’s why the NRA campaigned so heavily for the 2005 gun liability bill, which keeps gun manufacturers and dealers from being held responsible for crimes committed using their products. […]