SOUTH PARK, Colo. — The project is striking in its ambition: a sprawling research institution situated on a ranch at 10,000 feet above sea level, outfitted with 32,000 volumes, many of them about the Rocky Mountain region, plus artists’ studios, dormitories and a dining hall — a place for academics, birders, hikers and others to study and savor the West.More.
It is the sort of endeavor undertaken by a deep-pocketed politician or chief executive, perhaps a Bloomberg or a Buffett. But the project, called the Rocky Mountain Land Library, has instead two booksellers as its founders.
For more than 20 years, Jeff Lee, 60, and Ann Martin, 53, have worked at a Denver bookshop, the Tattered Cover, squirreling away their paychecks in the pursuit of a single dream: a rural, live-in library where visitors will be able to connect with two increasingly endangered elements — the printed word and untamed nature.
“It’s everything, really,” Ms. Martin said of the role the project has played in her life, and that of her husband, Mr. Lee. “It’s not really about us. It’s something for Colorado, for this region.”
They have poured an estimated $250,000 into their collection of 32,000 books, centering the collection on Western land, history, industry, writers and peoples. There are tales by Norman Maclean; wildlife sketches by William D. Berry; and books on beekeeping, dragonflies, cowboys and the Navajo. The couple said that groupings of books would be placed around the ranch, organized by theme: mining, railroads, fur trade, Native American tribes, natural history, astronomy.
Their library has a broad range of potential audiences, they said, from elementary school pupils to literature enthusiasts and Ph.D.s.
“The connection to nature — we know this place will give that to people,” Mr. Lee said. “Even if they don’t pick up a book.”
“What would America be like if we loved black people as much as we love black culture?”Watch: "Amandla Stenberg: Don't Cash Crop On My Cornrows."
The bird was believed to have been shot with the arrow about two weeks ago.
It remains unclear who shot the arrow, but authorities say if a shooter is identified, that person may face multiple charges. “They should be caught and incarcerated for it,” Chino Hills resident Heather Grant said. “Animal abuse is disgusting.”
Damn. That speech was absolutely incredible. So much American pride. #Rubio2016
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) April 13, 2015
When President Obama claimed the Democratic nomination en route to the White House, he planted his party flag in this Rocky Mountain capital, vowing to end Washington's dysfunction and find elusive consensus around issues such as immigration, guns and abortion.Hillary isn't going the reassemble the Rockies for the Democrats. They're making a big mistake.
Running as a different breed of Democrat — one more pragmatic and sensitive to the unbridled ethos of the region — Obama captured several Western states that the Republicans had won four years earlier, and came surprisingly close in two others.
Afterward, there was heady talk among Democrats of making the Mountain West a reliable part of their presidential base, safely tucking Colorado and Nevada alongside the blue bastions of California, Oregon and Washington, and turning Republican-leaning Arizona and Montana into a pair of tossup states.
But after the last several contentious years, none of that has happened. If anything, the interior West has grown even more competitive, as Republicans rolled up big midterm victories last year in Colorado and Nevada. They kept single-party control of Arizona's capital and, from all appearances, pushed Montana off the table for Democrats.
The ups and downs of Obama and his party, the Republican comeback after two losing presidential campaigns, and the demographic changes remaking the face of the country have been broadly writ across the Rocky Mountain West, and what happens here could go a long way toward deciding which party wins the White House in 2016.
With no candidate hailing from the region, and no special affinity for likely Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton or any one of the Republican hopefuls, the fight is likely to be close, especially in Colorado, which has lately seen more political upheaval — shifting control of the state Senate, a pair of lawmakers recalled in a fight over guns, a rural secession movement — than just about any state.
Even Obama supporters, including some who helped put him in the White House, say he has fallen short of the goals set forth that August 2008 night in Denver, and of the political aspirations that followed. Washington appears more dysfunctional than ever, immigration, guns and abortion remain political flashpoints and the national party is still viewed in much of the libertarian-leaning West with the same degree of suspicion.
"As a candidate there was more hope for Obama," said Dave Hunter, a veteran Democratic strategist in Montana, which Obama came close to winning in 2008, only to lose badly four years later. "But the reality, once he became president, was that he looked more like a typical Democrat than many people thought he was going to be."
WASHINGTON—Hillary Clinton was once seen as a liberal voice pulling her husband and party to the left. Today, on the brink of her announcement that she is running for president, some Democrats think she isn’t liberal enough.More.
What troubles them are her ties to Wall Street and Bill Clinton’s centrist economic record. They don’t like that she appears more comfortable with bipartisan compromise than populist calls to fight banks and other business interests, and wonder if she stands with them on other issues.
“There’s a general uncertainty of where she stands on key economic issues,” said Roger Hickey, co-chairman of the liberal advocacy group Campaign for America’s Future. “A lot of people would prefer to have someone who is a real populist crusader, who is clear about what she would do.”
