This page is part of an undergraduate assignment at Davidson College
Colorado: Assessing Outcomes
Why Salazar Won: Competing Explanations
Compelling: From the beginning, Salazar designed a message strategy aimed at the political middle that succeeded at, when accompanied by his rural ties, winning votes in traditionally republican areas. While Coors attended high dollar soirées, Salazar spent the final days of his campaign touring towns like Grand Junction, Alamosa and Durango (traditional Republican, rural areas) in his old pickup truck (NJ.com 11/01). Election results show that his efforts paid off.
Not Compelling: Many analysts focus on Salazar’s superior fundraising as the explanation for his victory, saying it allowed him to mount a crushing advertising campaign against Coors. While fundraising was certainly beneficial, Salazar also entered the race earlier and did not have as competitive a primary as Coors. Additionally, though early on Salazar’s committee bought up the majority of the advertisement space for the end of October, the large number of advertisements by outside groups like Citizens for a Strong Senate was more damaging to Coors (Glazer). With outside support, Salazar was able to spend his money on positive advertisements.
Compromising Principles?
By the standards laid out in the assignment, neither candidate made obvious departures from their stated ideologies, but rather each were caught in relatively small compromising situations that damaged Coors the most.
Coors:
• Rarely offered detailed explanations of views or ideologies.
• Never managed to successfully associate himself with his company. He touted business experience and the brewery's success as reasons to vote for him, but still ran into trouble. First, he campaigned against gay marriage but his company sponsored a week long gay event. Then, it surfaced that his employees’ insurance covered abortion, which added to the accusations of hypocrisy because Coors is pro-life (Florio).
• These instances hurt his campaign greatly; Coors equated his company’s values to family values symbolic of Colorado (NJ.com 10/05). His values seemed to be contradictory to voters, however.
Salazar:
•Provided very detailed explanations of his views and principles on the campaign trail and on his website.
•Past actions as AG lent credence to his claims that he would reach across the aisle (RMN.com 10/9).
• Salazar received campaign contributions from the developer and firm that is backing a proposed Indian casino. Salazar’s office would represent the state in a lawsuit the tribal leaders and Steve Hillard, their financial backer, said they may file (NJ.com 9/17). The story never distracted from the campaign however, doing little to hurt Salazar (Coors sent back the contribution he received from Hillard).
While, like Coors, Salazar made no obvious departures from his stated ideology, that he was more explicit in the beginning (and did not have the same business entanglements) lends more credence to his principles.
Created by Carolyn Gilmor (cagilmor@davidson.edu) for POL 318 at Davidson College
Created: 12/05/04. Updated: 12/05/04