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THE BULLETIN • Sunday, November 14, 2010 A7
LOOKING BEYOND THE MIDTERMS
CALIFORNIA
Into 2011, even opposites can sound alike
Marijuana backers see silver lining in defeat
By Kirk Johnson New York Times News Service
ESTES PARK, Colo. — How are Americans thinking about the future after the great reshuffling of the deck on Election Day that carried Republicans into power in the House of Representatives and across the constellation of state capitals? If you ask Lizzie Adams and Wendy Craddock that question, you get a strikingly similar answer, even though Adams is a passionate supporter of President Barack Obama and Craddock is a Republican who believes that the tea party movement, to which she belongs here in Larimer County, will reshape and reclaim America. Both said this election, whether out of defeat or victory, was a renewed call to action and engagement — an alarm signal to push harder than ever in support of steadfast convictions. Many other voters, in a postelection swing through this deeply divided, fought-over county, expressed a similar thought: Election over, game on. “It’s a call to participation,” said Adams, 49, a yoga instructor. “I’m planning to just show up and see what I can do. Now more than ever, we have to just keep showing up. Obama needs us on his team.” Craddock, 58, a small-business owner, said her energy was brimming over, too, pointing full speed ahead toward reversing everything Obama and the Democrats have done in the past two years. “I think this is going to end up probably being the best thing in American history that’s ever happened,” she said. “We have awakened.” Larimer County, a historically Republican part of northern Colorado that, like the state as a whole, is becoming harder to predict, cemented its position as a bellwether on Election Day. The results — especially in the closely watched Senate race, won by Democrat Michael Bennet — provided a mirror of the statewide tally. Bennet, the incumbent, won Colorado with 47.7 percent of the vote, to 46.8 percent for the Republican candidate, Ken Buck. In Larimer, Bennet got 47.8 percent of the vote. Many voters here, interviewed on a recent gray and frigid day threatening snow at 7,500 feet in the mountains, said they thought that gridlock in Washington and a stalemate over partisan politics were possible outcomes with a divided government and a passionately aroused, divided population at home. But while some said that gridlock and a failure by the Republicans to compro-
New York Times News Service photos
ABOVE: People cross Main Street in Estes Park, Colo. Optimism was surprisingly easy to find last week in the post-election terrain of Larimer County, a battleground in a deeply divided swing state, but so, too, was a kind of determination to hold politicians accountable. LEFT: People on either end of the political spectrum see a call to action in the results. Louise Johnson and her brother Milton Sebelik disagree on politics but agree on something larger. mise with Democrats in solving problems would lead to a backlash in two years, others said the opposite — that failure to push vehemently enough on Republican promises like repealing the health care overhaul would be enough to replenish voter anger and lead to a second wave of change. “What’s crucial is that they listen,” said Annyce Stone, a college professor and Republican who was working on her laptop at a downtown coffee shop. “If they don’t listen, I think they’ll be voted out.” Others said divided government might not be so bad. Amy Hamrick, 34, a Democrat and the owner of Kind Coffee, a
roaster and coffeehouse on Estes Park’s main street, said history made her optimistic about the next two years. “In the Clinton and Reagan eras, when the power balanced out a little bit, they actually ended up figuring more stuff out,” she said. In a resort town like Estes Park, perched at the eastern entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park and heavily dependent on tourism, thinking hard about the future is perhaps a geographic predilection: There is always a busy season to plan for, or a slow one to muddle through. A kind of endemic optimism might be part of that mix as well, in a local economy where the hope of ever
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more tourists arriving over the horizon is deeply engrained. But personal optimism does not necessarily mean a rosy outlook about the nation and its path ahead. Lyle Jensen, 74, a retired mechanical engineer and a Republican, said he had become concerned about the future for his grandchildren, mainly because of the debt loads he fears they will be burdened with. So he is starting a new business, selling a line of healthy chocolate products, as a way to help them find their way into the unwritten future. “I think my grandkids are going to need it,” he said. A friend of Jensen’s sitting across the table from him having coffee, Bob Berman, said the problem was not at all with the country’s direction, but with the pace of change. “The direction we’re going in is good; I’d like to see it move faster,” said Berman, 65, an unaffiliated voter who said he mostly votes for Democrats and still supported Obama. Some people said they were more or less just crossing their fingers in thinking about the future. Hal and Lou French, 82 and 85, both voted straight Republican and both expressed bright hopes that Republicans in Congress would make good on promises, especially on the health care repeal. And if they do not? “We’ll probably just vote for them again,” French said with a shrug. Milton Sebelik, 84, and his sister, Louise Johnson, 90, no longer even talk about politics, meanwhile. Sebelik, a retired postal worker and a Democrat, said he was counting on Obama to hold back Republicans in Congress. “I think Obama is going to have to give in to some of their demands, but he will exercise his veto pen.” Johnson, by contrast, fully expects the Republicans to roll back the programs associated with Obama’s first two years. Looking forward to the next election, she favors Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who sought the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 2008. “I try not to get in arguments with him,” Johnson said, glancing over at her brother, standing next to her at a Veterans Day celebration at the Estes Park Senior Center. “Only once in a while, once in a while.” For all their differences, though, Sebelik and Johnson both said that what unites them, love of country, is stronger than politics. They both served in the military in World War II, Johnson in the Navy, Sebelik in the Army. “We have our differences, but it’s America all the way, for both of us,” Sebelik said.
New York Times News Service SAN FRANCISCO — Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana in California, received more votes than the Republican nominee for governor. It also received untold news coverage, bringing the debate a new level of legitimacy in the eyes of many supporters. And while it lost — with 46 percent of the vote — its showing at the polls was strong enough that those supporters are confidently planning to bring it back before voters in California, and perhaps other states, in 2012. Support for legalization has increased for years, particularly in the Western states, where 58 percent agree, according to Gallup. But in an off-year election, one critical demographic for the “yes” side simply did not show up: the youth vote. And proponents still face a series of challenges, including winning over older voters as well as wary elected officials from both parties. And while advocates say Proposition 19 was a high-water mark for the movement, many acknowledge the road to legalization will also require a more detailed message to overcome persistent cultural concerns about pot.
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