Demos aim to woo Mountain West

Republicans dominated the Rocky Mountain West five years ago, boasting GOP governors in all eight states.

Today, half of those states are now led by Democrats. And if Democrats also win a tight gubernatorial race in Colorado this November, they will have leaders in most of the region.

That could explain the surge of national Democratic Party interest in what's also called the interior West, made up of Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona and Idaho.

A series of regional events in the past two years also has caught the eye of Democratic leaders, including the Democratic Leadership Council, the centrist wing of the party that opens its meetings in Denver on Sunday.

Democratic wins in the West in 2006 may indicate potential battlegrounds for the 2008 presidential election.

"There have been significant gains in the Western part of the country that has given hope to Democrats. That's why we're coming there," said Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, chairman of the DLC and a potential 2008 presidential candidate.

Although the West is often thought of as rugged Republican territory, Western leaders and those who study the region say that belief is about as accurate as the Marlboro Man.

"The interior West is more libertarian, more tolerant and has a 'leave me alone' attitude," said Ryan Sager, author of "The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party."

While Republicans have clearly dominated the West in elections, their success has more to do with the GOP's ability to paint Democrats with a broad stroke than with core GOP values, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer contends.

He said Republicans cast Western Democrats in the same mold as the stereotype of East and West Coast Democrats: anti-gun, rabid environmentalists who want bigger federal government.

Schweitzer, who won his 2004 race partly by vowing to preserve and expand access to public land for hunters and fishermen, said he made sure while campaigning that people knew he was a Western Democrat.

"I said, 'Who the hell are those people in the East and West Coasts anyway? They don't run our states out here,' " he said. "I told people, 'I'm a Montana Democrat.' "