Can Obama cowboy-up in the West?

(Barack Obama, D-Ill., puts on a cowboy hat handed to him as the candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination leaves a rally in Austin, Texas, in February 2007. Lm Otero / AP)

By Jim Tankersley

GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. -- Just south of Denver off Interstate Highway 25 sits an acre of bluejeans and belt buckles and pointed-toe boots. It's called Sheplers, and inside, it holds perhaps the two biggest challenges facing Barack Obama in his quest to corral the Mountain West: suburbanites and cowboy hats.

Like a pair of Wranglers fresh from the dryer, it could be a tough fit.

The Democratic Party has come to Denver this week to show off its new cowboy cred: a regional winning streak that has party leaders pining for a blue sweep of Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Montana in November. Together, those states boast more electoral votes than Ohio, and polls suggest voters are torn between Obama and Republican John McCain, an Arizonan who would be the first truly western president since Ronald Reagan.

To claim them, analysts and political leaders say, Obama will need to replicate most or all of the winning formula Democrats have honed here over the past several years. He'll need to sway independent suburban voters who value problem-solving over party labels. And he'll need to saddle up to farmers and ranchers across the vast rural West without coming off as a phony -- even though he doesn't match the image or the ideology of the most of the region's successful Democrats.

Western Democratic strategists believe he can do it, by telling his life story, by focusing on energy and water policy, and by spending time and money in sparsely populated, conservative-leaning farm and mining towns. Most importantly, they say, Obama must look a stubbornly independent region in the eye and earn its respect.

Read all about Obam's Mountain West challenge in today's Chicago Tribune.

In the mountain states, said Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), "people vote for a person if they know the person, if they trust the person, if they believe the person is going to strive to find pragmatic solutions to problems."

Salazar won his seat in 2004, the same year as Obama. Salazar's campaign and his profile epitomize the winning formula employed by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, who all ran as pro-gun, fiscally conservative, law-and-order moderates.

Salazar is a former state attorney general from a tiny agricultural community in southern Colorado's San Luis Valley. He campaigned heavily on national security and rural concerns. His Senate ads featured him in boots and a white cowboy hat. He won by roughly the same number of votes in Colorado as President George W. Bush.

Obama, in contrast, is a South Side Chicagoan battling GOP attempts to label him as one of the most liberal members of the Senate. He's partial to baseball caps. Someone handed him a black cowboy hat at a Texas rally last year, and when he put it on, he looked more Howdy Doody than John Wayne.

Republicans say the voting record, in particular, will hurt Obama among the independent voters who dominate the Mountain West. Rural voters, said Dick Wadhams, the Colorado GOP Party chairman, "do not have anything in common with [Obama's] liberal policies."

Democrats think they might, especially on alternative energy -- a new boom industry here -- and the most recent farm bill, which Obama supported and McCain opposed. Strategists also say the region's rapid growth, particularly among Democratic-leaning Hispanics, has tipped states more in their favor; in Colorado, for example, Republicans' advantage over Democrats is half what it was six years ago.

Mike Stratton is a Denver political consultant who advised both Salazar and Richardson. He admits Obama probably doesn't fit the West as well as they do. "He's not Hispanic, he's not a cowboy," Stratton said. But, he added, "He could win here."

It doesn't always take a cowboy to win in the West. Cary Kennedy, the Democratic state treasurer from Denver, beat a popular Republican farmer/legislator with a message of trust and accountability. On her wall at the state Capitol hangs a picture of Obama at a 2004 rally with Salazar and some congressional candidates. In the shot, Salazar is wearing a white cowboy hat.

Obama's head is bare.

jtankersley@tribune.com