Will DNC Success Sway Colorado Swing State Voters?

Barack Obama is coming 'home' to Denver to reclaim the spirit of the Democratic National Convention held here two months ago, and to bring this swing state into the fold for the 2008 Presidential election.

Last week's news in Denver included images of a very pleased Mayor Hickenlooper reporting excellent financial results for the city from the Democratic National Convention. Since I come from Boston where the eventual calculation of a 'net' result was a bit more sobering, my first question was about the numbers. The news reports danced around that issue, mentioning that there were some other ways to look at the situation - for instance, the revenue was concentrated in a small area of the city, and other areas may have been actually 'starved' for revenue as locals stayed away. Cherry Creek, for example, is a nationally or even internationally known shopping and dining area that was even rumored to be the new home of Britney Spears at one point - but it too experienced a significant downturn in business during the DNC.

What I realized, though, was that I had heard that one of the reasons the DNC was held in Denver was the anticipation that Colorado was going to be a key state in the Presidential election. If the residents had a favorable impression of the Democrats, they might be more inclined to vote for them in November. Here we are, just before the election, announcing that the Democrats effectively dropped $266 million in our city, at least until the rest of the math is done later. It seems the least we could do is vote for a group that brings such prosperity!

It's a different story, too, from Boston, which calls itself 'the Hub of the Universe.' Denver is still wrestling with the phrase 'cow town,' and would dearly love for visitors to see it for what it really is. The DNC was a shot in the arm in a lot of ways, and though local residents paid the price in quite a few ways, the government and local businesspeople who rely on national and international reputations saw it as a very positive event, much as the Chinese government saw the Olympics.

Hopefully, it also will put the fiasco of the building of Denver International Airport, once the first thing that came to mind about Denver to out-of-towners (automated suitcase mayhem in particular) in the past. I recently learned that one of the tongue-in-cheek explanations for the DIA acronym was 'Democrats in Action', by the way. Now, we really do have a very different picture of how the Democrats in Denver can pull off something very big. Barack Obama and Joe Biden could easily benefit enormously from it as well.

With Barack Obama scheduled to appear on Sunday in Civic Center Park, the location which for residents was most filled with DNC memories, the spirit of the event is likely to boost his image in Colorado in the last days of the election. For some Coloradans, Obama is like an adopted son, having brought out unexpected thousands back in January, then leading up to his approximately 80,000 at his acceptance speech with lots of space reserved for many local folks, and now targeting to beat his recent 100,000 record this weekend in Denver.

'DNC fiscal jolt: 266 million', Joanne Kelley, http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/16/study-dnc-brought-266-million-denver/

'Huge Obama crowds: 100000 in St Louis, 75000 in KC', Margaret Talev, William Douglas, http://www.kansascity.com/449/story/856019.html