[Eeyore]

^

I was upset with the lower turnout in Pueblo as well but keep in mind this was a national trend and was by no means a "Pueblo" issue as stated in the National Journal. Pueblo just represented the issue more then the large cities like Denver or the coasts or even Colorado Springs as they all did what was expected. I still say that the economy will get better, I heard on Meet the Press yesterday that the unemployment rate should be around 8% by the end of 2011, then you will see the democrats excited again and the independents will vote for the democrats so I think President Obama will be easily re elected.

Also, one last thing. The city of Pueblo has not changed as we still passed both the 1/2 cent sales tax for primary jobs and the bond issue to re model Memorial Hall by over whelming amounts and all the democrats on the local level won by a wide margin as well. The problem was Pueblo did not have the turn out to over power Grand Junction. That is most likely a fluke just like when Pueblo had the votes to over power Denver a few years ago when we had a ridiculously high turn out and they had a ridiculously low turn out.

As far as Grand Junction and Pueblo. I just don't see Grand Junction growing past Pueblo. Sure, they have had a decent time recently while Pueblo has struggled but even so the city of Grand Junction is a lot smaller then the city of Pueblo at 53,662 (Pueblo is about 104,000) and the MSA is smaller then the Pueblo MSA at 146,093 (Pueblo MSA is 160,000). Plus on top of that if you look at the fundamentals of both cities Pueblo's is stronger as we have more of diversified economic base with manufacturing and energy production and is close to Fort Carson and has a lot of military of its own with the USAF pilot school plus has the flag ship university for the region. While Grand Junction just has a college and is a one industry town, energy related. On top of that Pueblo is on the front range urban corridor and will be the key connection to New Mexico when the HSR gets built. Then Pueblo has developments planned that overshadow anything Grand Junction has. Some have started as I have shown in the Pueblo thread and some are still on hold for the economy to get better. On top of all this Pueblo remains the center for agriculture in the state and even now the people on the governors team are from Pueblo for agriculture. So I just don't see Grand Junction ever passing us up in fact I think in the long run this will be as close as they get, population wise that is.