The last Democratic Convention was held here exactly 100 years ago. Denver’s skyline has changed quite a bit since then, and so has our political landscape, which is part of the reason we were selected to host the convention. This isn’t just a Denver Convention; it’s a Rocky Mountain Convention that will shine a spotlight on a new generation of Western Democrats who are moving our region forward into a brighter future.

Colorado certainly lies at the crossroads of Old West and New West, and much of what we think of as uniquely American has its genesis in Colorado. We cherish our wide open mountain vistas, the magnificence of the cliff palaces built at Mesa Verde by the ancestral Puebloans, our rodeos, ranchers and cowboys, our tradition of a rugged individualism meshed with a love of community.

Denver, long ago nicknamed the Queen City of the Plains, is the gateway to the Rocky Mountains, where outdoor activities like skiing, snowboarding, camping, hunting, fishing, rafting, mountain biking and hiking beckon year-round. Our 54 mountain peaks with elevations higher than 14,000 feet — known as “Fourteeners” — offer the best climbing in America. One of them, Pikes Peak, served as the “purple mountain” inspiration for Kathy Lee Bates’s “America the Beautiful.” And despite the fact that it always snows on Monday night Broncos games — or baseball playoffs — we are blessed with more than 300 days of sunshine a year.

And that sunshine is becoming an ever-important part of the 21st century New West — where we are turning sunshine into solar power, where we are building an economy and creating thousands of new jobs around knowledge-based industries of the future like aerospace, bioscience and energy. In Colorado, we call it the New Energy Economy, and we have fast become a national and international leader on this front.

We are marrying our traditional energy resources, including our vast supplies of natural gas, with alternative sources such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. Colorado is guiding America toward a more secure and a more diverse energy future thanks to research giants like the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory. And the New Energy Economy, along with our overall business-friendly climate, is a key reason CNBC just named us one of the Top Five States to Do Business in America.

Our tech sector also was recently ranked No. 3 in the country because of the high concentration of tech workers, scientists and college-educated residents in Colorado. We boast the second-highest number of aerospace workers in the country, thanks in part to companies like Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance and many of the defense contractors that do work with our myriad military installations. Our bioscience and medical research community also is thriving, with new discoveries, new hope and new possibilities emerging almost daily.

Colorado is a foundation for our national security and home to six major military installations: the Air Force Academy, Fort Carson, Peterson Air Force Base, Schriever Air Force Base, Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base, and Buckley Air Force Base. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is also headquartered in Colorado. More than 50,000 military personnel and their families live and work in Colorado. As commander in chief of the Colorado National Guard, I state that we owe an extra salute to the citizen-soldiers of the Guard who protect us here at home during natural disasters and who provide critical mission support in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And as we celebrate the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, I like to remind the world that Colorado Springs is home to the U.S. Olympic Training Center, where many of America’s finest athletes spend years preparing for the competition of a lifetime.

Democrats are doing well in Colorado because we embody the values that make the West and our nation great.

We are an energetic, optimistic, and forward-thinking state that embraces our Western heritage as we look for new challenges. Colorado — like all of America — is most assuredly a land of opportunity.

Elected in 2006, Ritter is Colorado’s first governor in more than 35 years to have been born in the state.