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Ken Salazar's Campaign Strategy
Permission from Ken Salazar for U.S. Senate
Ken Salazar’s campaign message is that he is running on whom he is. While the message appears simple, his campaign team did an excellent job crafting his campaign strategy to its constituents. This strategy accentuates Salazar’s strengths, labels him as an experienced moderate with over 18 years of public service and exploits his opponent’s weaknesses.
One of the most notable obstacles for Salazar is the 181,000 Republican registration advantage that Republicans hold over Democrats (Bartels, Voters Favor 2). This factor often forces Democratic candidates to take unwarranted centrist positions on issues. Salazar, on the other hand, was naturally centered and his life’s story underlines his political rhetoric. Raised on a poor farm in the San Luis Valley, Ken Salazar’s life fits the profile of a common Colorado man (Bartels, Ken Salazar’s Story 7). Throughout his campaign, he continued to portray himself in this image by traveling the rural areas of the state in his 1994 green Ford pickup wearing his Stetson hat (Florio, Coors’ Fizz 1).
Furthermore Salazar positioned himself well on several wedge issues, allowing him to build coalitions with rural Americans, Latinos and many registered Republicans (Bartels, Voters Favor Salazar 1). Some of these issues include his position that only “minor changes” should be made to the Patriot Act. He, as well as Coors, opposes Amendment 36 (Crummy Senate rivals’ 2) and he strongly supports funding the federally mandated No Child Left Behind education program (Couch, Election 2004 2).
---See issues
Ken Salazar has also exploited many of the weaknesses of his opponent with carefully crafted negative advertisements. One of the reasons that Salazar won was that his campaign succeeded in giving Pete Coors many of the negative characteristics of an incumbent by having his connection to the brewery around his neck. In other words, while Coors didn’t have a voting record, he did have many policies that he implemented in his brewery. For example, many ads pointed out the brewery’s record as a polluter. Others that Coors wanted to lower the drinking age to 18 (Florio, Coors Fizz 1). Consequently while Coors tried to use his business credential as a positive platform for his political positions, polls shows that Salazar significantly countered his opponents’ efforts.
When you think of Ken Salazar, what are one or two things that first
come to mind?
| Attorney general | 30 % |
| Democrat | 16 % |
| Positive Values | 14 % |
| Generally like/know him | 6 % |
| Positive enviornmental record | 5 % |
| Water issues | 4 % |
| Nothing/don't know | 4 % |
| Pro-choice/stance on abortion | 2 % |
When you think of Pete Coors, what are the two things that come to mind?
| Beer/Coors | 33 % |
| Businessman | 27 % |
| Positive Values | 18 % |
| Rich/wealthy | 11 % |
| Inexperience | 8 % |
| Taxes | 5 % |
| Generally like/know him | 4 % |
| Gay-rights issues | 2 % |
(Bartels, Voters Favor Salazar 3)
See Pledge
© Davidson College, 2004, Department of Political Science, Davidson
College, Davidson, NC 28035
Send comments to Jacquin Gilchrist (Jagilchrist@davidson.edu)
Created: 9/22/2004. Last updated: 11/15/2004.
Political Science 318 - Strategy
and Ethics in Election Campaigns
