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Did Ritter speak for Colorado?Groups react to governor’s remarks on ‘Meet the Press’Peter Marcus, DDN Staff WriterTuesday, July 1, 2008 |  | | MEET THE GUVS — Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, center, and Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, right, enjoy a laugh with host Tom Brokaw, far left, during Saturday night’s taping of NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Photo courtesy of Gov. Freudenthal’s office. |
Contradictory to what Gov. Bill Ritter said Sunday on national television, independent Colorado voters will vote for Sen. John McCain, not Sen. Barack Obama when they cast their vote for president this fall, said the chair of the Colorado Republican Committee.
Dick Wadhams also said it will be a challenge for Obama to attract the Hispanic vote — a much different take than Ritter who said the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee will win “hands down” among Hispanic voters. Ritter, a Democrat, made his comments on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday in a broadcast from Jackson Hole in Wyoming, site of the annual Western Governors’ Association meeting this week. Tom Brokaw interviewed Ritter along with Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal.
Ritter also caught heat Monday for comments he made on the show regarding immigration.
Independent, moderate voters
But it was on the topic of independent and Hispanic voters that Republicans most objected. Wadhams said the reason independent and moderate Colorado voters will not vote for Obama is because they learned lessons after voting for Ritter, who he said campaigned on a moderate platform but then turned out to be a “far left Democrat.”
“What we saw two years ago when Bill Ritter campaigned for governor was a candidate with a moderate conservative agenda. But what we see for the most part is that he has not governed that way,” said Wadhams. “Independent voters voted for him because they thought he was moderate. They will not fall for that charade again, this time in the case of Barack Obama.”
Wadhams pointed to Ritter’s executive order allowing state employees to collectively bargain, as well as his School Finance Act that raised new revenues by freezing property taxes in most Colorado school districts. He said those issues appeal to the far left, while Ritter campaigned on a moderate agenda.
“The problem for Obama is that he can’t masquerade as a moderate like Bill Ritter did,” said Wadhams. “Obama has a clear voting record supporting tax hikes and kowtowing to a union agenda, and also in terms of energy, he wants to shut down domestic exploration. Increasingly, these will be major issues in this campaign.”
Ritter, however, believes Colorado voters are independents who will vote for Obama.
“The people of Colorado are independent thinkers, they’re future looking and they’re also optimistic,” Ritter said on “Meet the Press.” “I think (Obama’s) captured that language in his campaign. The things that he’s talked about are very much things that resonate with the people of the West and certainly the people in Colorado.”
Hispanic voters
Colorado’s 41st governor said Obama will also likely win the Hispanic vote in Colorado because of the same “optimistic” message.
“I think when the campaign is really Obama and McCain and Hispanic voters are paying attention to what the two different candidates are saying about their issues and how they view the future, Obama wins, I think, among Hispanics hands down, and he does that because he has a language about education that really is, again, it’s about optimism but it’s also about reforming the system, and I think Hispanic voters pay attention to that,” Ritter said on “Meet the Press.” “They care that the job creation happens across all kinds of lines, socioeconomic lines, and I think they’re going to be excited about Barack Obama in a far bigger way once the spotlight is on him and on his issues that really will matter to them.”
Dr. Luis Torres, an associate professor of Chicano studies at Metropolitan State College of Denver, said Ritter is correct to say that education and job creation are the top issues to the Hispanic population, but he called it premature to say Obama would win the state’s Hispanic vote “hands down.”
“I would not have used that term (‘hands down’) of course, but certainly Sen. Obama is really going to resonate for many reasons for Latinos,” he said.
Sen. Hillary Clinton captured the majority of the Hispanic vote during the primaries, but Torres said much of that support will likely transfer to Obama’s campaign. He agreed that Obama shares an optimistic message when it comes to education and job creation that will appeal to the Latino community. A recent education survey by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities was answered by Obama, but not by McCain, said Torres, which indicates Obama’s greater dedication to Hispanic issues like education, he said.
Obama is also the younger candidate, which Torres said is appealing to Hispanic voters, whose average age is 27 years old.
But Wadhams said McCain has an excellent relationship with the Hispanic population and will give Obama a run for Colorado’s Latino vote.
“John McCain (R-Ariz.) has always had great appeal with Hispanic voters, not only in Arizona but across the country and I think in the case of Colorado in 2008, I think Sen. McCain will challenge Barack Obama for Hispanic votes,” he said.
Immigration issues
Meanwhile, Ritter was criticized by fellow Coloradan Congressman Tom Tancredo for saying Sunday that recent “serious” immigration reforms in Colorado have hurt the construction, service and agricultural industries.
“(Reforms in 2006) had its impact on farms and ranches and hotels and the service industry, and some of it is not because illegals aren’t there, but because legal immigrants viewed it as becoming a less friendly place,” Ritter said on “Meet the Press.” “We rely on foreign-born workers in the construction industry, the service industries and the agricultural industry, and it really does hamper our ability to get foreign-born workers in if we don’t have really a sensible immigration policy, which I think the country currently lacks.”
Tancredo’s office, however, said it is strict reform that helps legal residents to find the jobs they deserve.
“We continually hear the claim that ‘crops will rot in the fields’ or companies will go bankrupt if we do not have a great influx of illegal labor,” said T.Q. Houlton, a spokesman for Tancredo, R-Littleton. “Time and time again this claim is refuted by evidence.”
Houlton said after the Greeley Swift & Company federal raids in 2006, “there were lines out the door with legal workers looking for jobs.”
The pro-choice plank
Ritter was also asked to speak on the topic of pro-choice. The anti-abortion Catholic said just as Democratic voters were able to overlook his anti-abortion philosophy when voting for the next governor of Colorado, they’ll be able to do the same when voting for a president.
“I suspect (pro-choice will) be a plank in the platform, and it has been a plank in the platform for a very long time, but that doesn’t mean that as a party, that we don’t very much embrace people who might have different views. And I’m a great example of that,” he said.
Pat Waak, chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, agreed that Democrats are able to unite despite individual, personal beliefs.
“The Republican party for years and years and years has tried to define Democrats by wedge issues. But people don’t buy that anymore,” she said. “The top issues out there are health care, education, jobs and the economy, and the War in Iraq. Those are the issues we will focus in on … the other side will try to divide us … but we’re not going to let that happen.”
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