Obama has a mountain to shift in Denver

DENVER, COLORADO // Just a year and a half ago, Barack Obama mesmerised a crowd of 70,000 at Denver's Invesco stadium, delivering soaring rhetoric about hope and change as he accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president. With Mr Obama in the lead, Democratic politicians charged across this traditionally Republican state, winning every major political position and swinging Colorado from red to blue in the November 2008 election.

A little more than a year later, with the economy in tatters, healthcare reform a far cry from the sweeping change Mr Obama promised and one in 10 US residents out of a job, it looks like Colorado will again be a battleground state for the 2010 midterm elections. Mr Obama's approval ratings here have sunk to 48 per cent, putting the president two to three points lower in Colorado than his national average. That may not sound like much, but this mountain state has come to be viewed by many pundits as a harbinger of national trends.

"Over the last decade, Colorado has been like the canary in the mine shaft," said Floyd Ciruli, a Denver pollster. "And now, public opinion here has turned very sharply against the Obama administration." In this fiscally conservative state, many disapprove of the stimulus package of $787 billion (Dh2.9 trillion), saying it has failed to create jobs, according to Mr Ciruli. And as the Obama brand has lost its lustre here, state Democrats have started to struggle.

Bill Ritter, the state's governor, became the first official casualty, announcing on Wednesday that he would not seek re-election. Mr Ritter, who grew up on a farm and paired cowboy boots with business suits, was initially viewed as part of a new breed of liberals who would help deliver the western United States to the Democratic Party. But the recession scuppered Mr Ritter's campaign promises to overhaul public education and invest in the state's renewable energy industry. The governor also battled labour unions and failed to win over the state's conservatives.

Although he claimed he was bowing out to focus on his family, recent polls showed Mr Ritter was trailing eight percentage points behind the Republican front-runner, Scott McInnis. "Whenever a politician says they are leaving the race for their family, you know there is something more to it," said Josh Kraushaar, who is covering the 2010 elections for Politico, a website devoted to US politics. "Ritter saw the writing on the wall."

Republicans have also set their sites on Colorado's junior senator, the Democrat Michael Bennett, a relatively unknown candidate who has so far shown little charisma on the campaign circuit. Mr Ritter appointed Mr Bennett to replace the elected senator Ken Salazar, when he was selected by the president to become secretary of the interior. "Democrats could lose every race here in 2010," Mr Ciruli said. "And this is not just a Colorado phenomenon."

Last week, two other Democratic senators, including Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who chairs the powerful banking committee, stunned the country by announcing plans to retire. Stung by months of controversy over ethical issues, Mr Dodd admitted he was in "the toughest political shape" of his career. Meanwhile Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota, claimed he wanted to pursue other interests, sending Democratic strategists scrambling to find a viable alternative in the right-leaning prairie state.

On top of that, some of the most well-known Democratic senators, including the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and Barbara Boxer of California, are looking potentially vulnerable to Republican challengers, according to recent polls. Even if the GOP picks up just one seat in the Senate, Democrats would lose their 60-seat majority, a crucial number needed to avoid Republican filibusters. Other battleground states that swung Democrat in 2008, particularly Ohio and Pennsylvania, appear poised to hand the incumbent party some stinging defeats.

"What's perhaps most remarkable is that Democrats won many elections in these states riding on Obama's coattails," Mr Kraushaar said. "Now they are distancing themselves from him on the economy, his stimulus package and health care. It is a real sign of how far his star has fallen." As hostile as the political environment appears to be for Democrats, the needle has not swung in favour of the Republicans.

Conservatives are facing their own string of retirements, and even Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee chairman, has been only moderately optimistic about potential GOP victories in the midterms. Speaking to Fox News last week, Mr Steele said he expected to get "some nice pick-ups" in the House of Representatives but not a total upset. Analysts say voters may be souring on Mr Obama's promises of hope and change, but few have forgotten that it was a Republican administration that got the country in a mess in the first place.

"Voters are looking very negatively at both parties," Mr Kraushaar said. "The mentality seems to be 'throw all the bums out'." foreign.desk@thenational.ae