Colorado Springs is beaming red

Colorado Springs is among the reddest of Republican strongholds. A Democrat hasn't won the presidential election here since 1964.Check the county clerk's office to see for yourself: Registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats more than 2-to-1. The county clerk insists that all waiting room TVs in the building play Fox News. He says if you don't like it, don't watch.

How we deal with your type
Not everyone in town always agrees with the president. About 1,000 people gathered to protest the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Colorado Springs police dispersed the crowd, which was blocking traffic, but was otherwise nonviolent, using tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and Tasers.

Fast Food Nation
Yep, that best-seller about hamburgers, which your smarty-pants liberal friends recommended, was based on Colorado Springs. Author Eric Schlosser wrote about the city, "Burger Kings, Wendy's and McDonald's, Subways, Pizza Huts, and Taco Bells, they keep appearing along the road, the same buildings and signage replaying like a tape loop. You can drive for 20 minutes, pass another fast food cluster, and feel like you've gotten nowhere." So what? We like it that way.

Focus on the Family
The city is the world headquarters for James Dobson's conservative colossus, where every day his "traditional values" radio show goes out to an estimated 2 million listeners. Dobson's organization doesn't like you. Focus employees made a video asking supporters to pray for "rain of biblical proportions" during Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field.

The Rev. Ted Haggard
Once one of the most influential evangelicals in the nation, Haggard was an adviser to President Bush. He was head of the National Association of Evangelicals. He built his New Life Church into the biggest in Colorado. It has 14,000 congregants. Sure, he has been out of the picture since he allegedly bought meth for a gay prostitute in 2006 and engaged in what he called "sexual immorality." But he completed his "spiritual restoration" earlier this year, so he could be back any day.

Air Force Academy
Sure, this government-run military academy is supposed to be secular, but many cadets have complained of a Jesus freak atmosphere of proselytizing, harassment and discrimination against nonevangelicals. Not into Jesus? Maybe try CU Boulder.

Armed to the teeth
Gun control, around here, means knowing how to hit your target. El Paso County has the highest number of concealed-carry permits in the state, 8,400. That means of every 1,000 people, about 14 are packing heat. The gun love doesn't stop there. The county sheriff encourages everyone to carry a gun. And the county commissioners designated an official "Friends of the NRA Day."

Chewy liberal center
There is one slightly blue slice of the city, stretching from Manitou Springs to downtown. It is home to liberal Colorado College, a lot of west-side, tree-worshipping hippies and the county's two state office-holding Democrats.

The John Jay Institute
for Faith, Society and Law
The mission of this charming little mansion full of young folks wearing scholar's robes is to "prepare Christians for leadership in public life" and battle the "prevailing pernicious trends of intellectual, moral, and artistic nihilism." Translation: Mint a new generation of Antonin Scalias and John Ashcrofts to get God in government.

I got your freedom
of speech right here
You might think a registered group of citizens holding peace signs on a public street in a St. Patrick's Day parade is the essence of free speech protected by the Bill of Rights. We think it's a bunch of troublemakers who should have their signs broken by the cops and be hauled off to jail. So there.

Renewable energy
Colorado Springs' city-owned utility has repeatedly opposed legislation to require alternative energy, such as wind and solar. Instead, we like to showcase our own brand of renewable energy in the center of town: good old American-made coal, which naturally renews itself every 50 million years or so.

Cold War wonks
Worrying about the Russians may have gone out of style at your lefty cocktail parties, but at Cheyenne Mountain air station (aka NORAD) we're still watching those former Commies, at a cost of $175 million a year, to make sure they don't lob a nuke our way.

Where it all started
No Democrat's tour of the city is complete without a visit to The Broadmoor hotel. In 1986, George W. Bush celebrated his 40th birthday here, getting loaded on what he called "The four B's" - beer, bourbon and B&B. He woke up with a hangover, decided he was throwing his life away, swore off booze, found Jesus, and headed down the road to becoming president. D'oh.

Ronald Reagan Highway
To liberals, he was a more embarrassing part of the 1980s than shoulder pads. To us, he was the Republican JFK.

Rep. Doug Lamborn
Lamborn won his congressional seat in 2006 by vowing to be a conservative's conservative (no gay rights, no taxes, no illegals). True to his word, he was given a 100 percent rating by the American Conservative Union, meaning he voted for conservative bills every time.

Schriever Air Force Base
This razor-wire stronghold on the plains is the brain center for more than 170 Department of Defense satellites. What are those satellites doing? Are ?they spying on you? You'll never know because if you try to find out, the guards? are authorized to shoot you.