Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean has envisioned a new political geography for the 2008 presidential campaign in which his party competes seriously for Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. The combined electoral votes in those states exceeds that of Florida, a swing state that usually goes to the GOP in presidential elections. If Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico were truly in play for the Dems, it would relieve the pressure on them to invest so much time and money in Florida.

The Democrats, for example, have a good chance to win both the governor's office in Colorado and in Denver's suburban 7th Congressional District today. Both of those jobs are now held by Republicans.

Representative Mark Udall of suburban Denver's 2nd District, considered safe in his bid for re-election today and a likely Senate candidate in 2008, told U.S. News that he and other Rocky Mountain Democrats are a different breed. Udall says they value their independence from liberals in Washington, take more conservative or centrist positions, and bill themselves as problem solvers rather than ideologues. He says the Republicans have mistakenly gone too far right and lost the support of moderates and swing voters in the West.