Can Hillary Clinton win the Intermountain West?

In between traveling from Washington state and going to Iowa, Sen. Hillary Clinton is due in Denver today for a campaign rally at the Auraria campus, expected to draw 2,000 people, who'll have the added attraction of opening act Big Head Todd and the Monsters.

We'll be listening for a specific pitch from Clinton to the eight-state Intermountain West, which has trended Republican in presidential elections, but where Democrats have made significant gains in state and Congressional seats.

Some Western Dems fear that Clinton, if the party's presidential nominee, could be a drag on candidates lower on the ticket, according to an L.A. Times story last month:

"She's carrying huge negatives out here," said Floyd Ciruli, an independent Colorado pollster who said Democratic congressional candidates would have to highlight their differences with the national party to be successful next year. "It's that liberal East Coast image that is so hard to sell in the West."

Clinton strategist Mark Penn put out a memo last Friday, making the case for Clinton taking the West. In it, he summarized polling data and claimed Clinton's strength among a range of constituencies, particularly women and Latinos:

"And because of her unique ability to take advantage of changing demographics, Hillary can also turn Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and Montana from Red to Blue. Bill Clinton was the only Democrat since 1968 to win these states, and Hillary Clinton is the only Democrat positioned to win them in 2008."

A recent SurveyUSA poll in New Mexico, sponsored by an Albuquerque TV station, found either Rudy Giuliani or John McCain narrowly ahead of Clinton. Meanwhile, by a bigger margin, she led both Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.

Sen. Barack Obama, campaigning in Nevada over the weekend, claimed that he, not Hillary Clinton, appeals to Western sensibilities. He told the Las Vegas Sun:

“There’s not a lot of patience in the West for ideology. I think folks in the West are much more concerned with results, practicality, common sense. That suits my style of politics. I’m not coming from the tradition of spending all my time bashing Republicans.”

The GOP-bashing by Clinton - and bashing by GOP candidates of her - portends a ferocious general election campaign if she is the Democratic nominee. A New York Times analysis found that Clinton's name permeated Sunday nights' GOP candidate debate in Florida.

Rudy Giuliani has a twist on a win the West strategy by claiming he's the only Republican candidate who can put in play traditionally Democratic states including the West Coast: California, Oregon and Washington.

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