As a registered Independent in a battle ground state, I'm getting inundated by massive media efforts to get me to vote Republican. Colorado is a bit of a political anomaly; traditionally "red" states are Bible belted, poorly educated, agricultural with low-income households in contrast to the more highly educated, diverse and progressive "blue" states. A recent article in our local paper noted that Colorado is a boon to red states because the metro areas--who are ironically, rabidly liberal--raise the overall statistics for wealth and education in the red states as a whole. Outside of the Denver/Boulder corridor, the rest of the voting state is comprised mostly of small farming and mining communities, with the exception of the military/religious outpost of Colorado Springs. There's usually just enough bias to turn red, though in recent elections our Governor and most recently elected senator are Democrats.

With Colorado leaning Democratic for the first time in years, the GOP is barraging Indy voters with pleas to give Republicans another 4 years running the show. I've been counting now and everyday I get 3-5 pieces of mail begging for my vote. The first few weeks, the messages were simple: family values (whatever that means), lower taxes, etc. As the desperation increases however, the message is getting downright nasty: Obama is a terrorist, liberal voters are going to hell with Satan, etc.

And the phone calls... ugh! Despite being registered on the no-call list, I get 5-10 calls a day from Republican computers urging me to vote McCain, blah blah. In fairness, I've gotten nothing from the Democrats in the mail and one call from an unaffiliated party urging me to vote early. I've been asked a few poll questions too, and I always hang up-- I wonder if they count that as "undecided" in their results?

The bottom line is that my vote will always go for the candidate that promises the most freedom, equality and opportunity for the most people. I also lean very strongly towards responsible environmental practices, improving domestic education and non-violent global policies. Easy enough.

Only one more week to go... I'm thinking of turning my phone off until November 5th.

Posted by James Dziezynski @ 9:39 AM