Colorados Republicans
by James Champion
Colorados Republicans
by James Champion
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Colorado, at the front of the Rocky Mountains and at the front edge often
of cultural change can claim to be the typical American state, but in many
ways it is not. Colorado is far away from just about any other population
center. Colorado is an island of nearly four million people that is surrounded
by the sea of the great plains of the Rockies. With vistas of vast emptiness
it is mostly an urban state. Where more than half its people live in metropolitan
Denver and four-fifths in the urban strip paralleling the front range,
where the Rockies rise from the mile-high plateau. Colorado as a society
has been subjected to lots of unsettling changes .Colorado seems to be
in the process of a transition as we head into the next century.
Colorado started off with a boom, brought on by the discovery of gold and silver in the in the canyons of the Rockies. Evidence of this mining boom can be seen still in the opera houses and the storefronts of Cripple Creek, built when Denver was just a village on the creek that is the South Platte River. Then Denver grew, as a meatpacking, banking and also became a manufacturing center, and the state capital it became the region headquarters of the federal government That was when growth become evident by the orderly neighborhoods and the lush trees and pleasant parks of older Denver neighborhoods. Then came the booms of the 1960s and the high energy-priced 1970s, when the Denver skyline sprouted new buildings overlooking the Capital's golden dome. Sports entrepreneurs built even more ski resorts and year round mountain condominiums. Young people looking for a beautiful environment settled where the front range of the Rockies rear up over the High Plains, for them Colorado was to them a geography of hope. A newcomer named Dick Lamm who was a liberal and a democrat would go on to become governor, he went on to become elected three times. The 1970s would prove to be a great time for liberals, who included Lamm, Gary Hart, Patricia Schroder, Tim Wirth, all of them were democrats, and none of them natives of Colorado,set the tone for Colorado civic life and political struggles for most of two decades. They took prosperity for granted , opposed the war in Vietnam and looked with condescension at American power abroad. They wanted to preserve the environment and set limits on development..Their first success came in 1972, when they persuaded voters to reject the 1976 Winter Olympics, in quick succession Schroeder and Wirth were elected to Congress. Lamm was elected Governor and Hart Senator, and Democrats won the legislature. Republicans surged back to take the legislature in 1976,they have held it since.and to retain an open Senate seat in 1978, as Colorado took advantage of the energy boom of 1974-82. It was a time of business of business success and excess, Denver was the base of several billionaires and also the infamous Silverado Saving and Loan; the environment was cleaned up in many ways , but Denver tends to have bad air quality, known as brown clouds. The governments plutonium plant at Rocky Flats north of Denver was shut down in 1989 for safety violations. The original Denver liberals gave way to other Democrats who worked in cooperation with the private sector. Roy Romer, was elected in 1986 to become governor, and reelected to serve until 1998. Former Denver Mayor Federico Pena (now secretary of energy), who promoted a new convention center, Coors Field baseball stadium, and the giant Denver International Airport 25 miles from downtown. Airports can serve as a metaphor for Colorado's course in the 1990. Up through the 1980s the state's prime airport was Stapleton, a typical product of the combination of business leaders and government operators who ran Denver until the Denver liberals came along. The leaders in business proclaimed Stapleton could not handle future traffic and persuaded voters in 1990 to build DIA at a predicted cost of $1.7billion. DIA was considered a government dinosaur built by the Denver liberals. The Colorado Springs Airport was expanded quietly and without fanfare. This was done by the fathers of the city that has become a symbol and spokesman for conservative trends, that is increasingly important |