This page is part of an undergraduate assignment at Davidson College.

Competing for a state constituency that leans Republican especially on social issues, candidate Ken Salazar (D) triumphed with a broad message of experience and concern for Colorado.

Assessing the Campaign: Strategy

Salazar on Salazar

• experience:
• The “experience” message, displayed prominently in TV advertisements, addressed both Salazar’s character and issues the issues at stake. This one word encompassed endorsements from respected institutions (the police), innoculation against Coors’ anti-politician outsider message, and framed the terrorism issue to Salazar’s advantage as one of action and not party affiliation. ("Salazar..." 2004).
• Common man for CO:
• A health care ad links Salazar to the national debate and demonstrates sympathy with CO families: “Salazar understands what it’s like for us. He’s one of us.” Late October spots featured English and Spanish versions that showed that Salazar “still works weekends at his family’s ranch.” ("Salazar..." 2004)
• “Fighting for Colorado’s Land, Water and People”: the rural image allows scores environmental points without the leftist taint.
• New coalition: Whereas national Democrats pursued urban votes and ceded rural areas to Republicans, Salazar branched out beyond Denver and aggressively captured an advantage among Colorado rural voters (Crowley 2004).

Salazar on Coors:

• negative campaigner early in campaign ("Salazar..." 2004)
• disconnected: Early October ads slam Coors on his opposition to the popular Referendum A; quote Coors saying “I don’t know what a common man is”; and tie him to corporate drug interests (“Coors, Salazar…”). Salazar’s final campaign sprint targeted conservative rural areas, underscoring Coors’ lack of mass appeal (Sprengelmeyer 2004)
• untrustworthy: Salazar attacked Coors’ environmental and job creation records at his company.

Coors on Salazar? Innoculation

• politician? experienced: Salazar stresses his experience at home and contrasts himself with Washington’s neglect, thereby innoculating himself against Coors’ own anti-Washington message (“Salazar…”)
• Slavonly Democrat? Colorado’s interests, Centrist message and ubiquitous pickup truck (Couch 2004) provided defense “liberal” and “John Kerry” barbs.
• weak on defense? Strong on law enforcement and terrorism (see experience above).

Evaluating the Message: Negative campaigning norms

• Most prominent were implicit and explicit comparisons with Coors: experience vs businessman, common man vs wealthy elitist, Colorado vs business interest.
• Salazar eventually attacked and made several unfair exaggerations in his campaign imagery, most notably his transposition of Coors and Osama Bin Laden (“Groups…”). No one candidate could claim moral advantage on this point, however, as Salazar was no more disingenuous than the Coors campaign.
• Salazar’s campaign ran into significant tension between means and message when it issued a press release criticizing Coors for negative campaigning even as it engaged in the same (effective) media strategy.

Works Cited

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