{"id":73498,"date":"2016-08-04T01:01:55","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T07:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-at-center-of-presidential-campaign\/"},"modified":"2016-08-04T07:01:55","modified_gmt":"2016-08-04T07:01:55","slug":"colorado-at-center-of-presidential-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-at-center-of-presidential-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado at center of presidential campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Democratic
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives Wednesday at a rally at Adams City High School in Commerce City.<\/span>Andrew Harnik\/Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

COMMERCE CITY \u2013 If Colorado isn\u2019t a battleground state anymore, the campaigns for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump must not have received the memo.<\/p>\n

Both camps made stops in Colorado on Wednesday, with Clinton speaking in the Denver area, and Trump\u2019s running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, speaking at dueling events in Denver, and another scheduled for the evening in Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n

The campaign events come despite some political analysts, including CNN, moving the state from \u201cbattleground\u201d to \u201clean Democrat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado stop marked the first time Clinton landed in the Centennial State since becoming the first woman to earn a major party\u2019s nomination for president last week at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Pointing to the significance of Colorado\u2019s outdoor recreation industry \u2013 especially in places such as Southwest Colorado \u2013 Clinton said, \u201cI want you to know that as president, I will defend and protect America\u2019s public lands.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thrust of Clinton\u2019s remarks was around jobs and the economy. The Democrat toured a Denver tie maker, Knotty Tie, ahead of her event at Adams City High School in Commerce City.<\/p>\n

During a tour of the facility, Clinton criticized her Republican rival for outsourcing branded products to other countries instead of making them in America.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I was walking through \u2026 I was thinking to myself, \u2018I wish Donald Trump could meet all of you and see what you are making here,\u2019\u201d Clinton said.<\/p>\n

The business hires African refugees to produce ties, pocket squares, bow ties and scarves. Clinton mentioned Colorado tie makers in her acceptance speech at the DNC.<\/p>\n

Knotty Tie made a reddish pink tie for Clinton with her logo, of which she said, \u201cThis would look really good on my husband.\u201d She also was given a scarf made by the shop.<\/p>\n

Clinton continued her attacks on Trump inside the high school gym in Commerce City, where 2,000 gathered. Another 1,000 were in an overflow room.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of man does business by hurting other people?\u201d Clinton asked.<\/p>\n

She claimed to have a plan to \u201cbuild an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.\u201d Clinton promised to make the biggest investment in jobs since World War II.<\/p>\n

Her plan includes connecting communities to broadband and bringing manufacturing back to America by investing in American companies. She also called for training educators to teach computer science, making college debt-free, making community college free and encouraging technical education. Raising the national minimum wage is also part of her agenda, as well as equal pay for women.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica\u2019s best years are ahead of us,\u201d Clinton said to a room that erupted in \u201cHillary!\u201d chants, as the audience waved signs that read, \u201cStronger together.\u201d<\/p>\n

She had some high-power Colorado Democratic support at the rally, including from Gov. John Hickenlooper and former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.<\/p>\n

Republicans turned the conversation on Clinton, criticizing her for attending a pricey fundraiser for her presidential campaign Tuesday evening near Aspen. The Aspen Daily News reported that the outdoor dinner on a ranch in Woody Creek cost between $10,000 and $50,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DNC may have tipped the scales for Hillary Clinton in the primary, but Colorado Democrats still haven\u2019t united behind her scandal-plagued candidacy,\u201d said Ali Pardo, an RNC spokeswoman. \u201cNo matter how many times Clinton visits, Centennial State voters already made up their minds: they can\u2019t and won\u2019t trust another Clinton in the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside the high school in Commerce City \u2013 a northern suburb of Denver \u2013 Clinton supporters piled into the small space, filling up limited parking and jamming streets around the venue. Supporters seemed to feel like the tide was turning in favor of Clinton, but they remained concerned with the prospect of a Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

Trump was in Colorado Springs and Denver on Friday, where thousands wrapped around streets surrounding the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and more packed into an event space at Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver later that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat scares me is when Trump supporters solidify it and say, \u2018He\u2019s only saying what we\u2019re thinking,\u2019\u201d said Kathryn Beerline of Littleton, who sold Clinton and \u201ctake a dump on Trump\u201d pins outside. \u201cWhat\u2019s scary is it\u2019s so many people.\u201d<\/p>\n

pmarcus@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clinton speaks in Denver area as Trump campaign holds dueling rallies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[266,13,664,315],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-73498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-election","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-president-donald-trump"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73498"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=73498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}