December 03, 2011 02:16 AM UTC

Chasing Andrew

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• by: Colorado Pols

Corroborated with our own sources, this bit of gossip posted today by the Colorado Statesman appears to be entirely accurate as of this writing:

[F]rom deep (arctic deep) in the Andrew Romanoff camp we’re able to report that the former U.S. Senate hopeful and speaker of the Colorado House is still undecided about getting into the 2012 race in the new 6th Congressional District. But he’s home now from visiting his Dad in Ohio and is besieged by many people who are encouraging him to get in it already. Thinking seems to be that Romanoff could wallop current Dem candidate Joe Miklosi – or more likely, force him out of a primary – but the real challenge remains incumbent Republican Mike Coffman…[t]hen again, if the court approves the current maps, the new CD 6 is a heck of a lot friendlier to Dems than ever before. Andrew is supposedly crunching numbers… And although this didn’t come from Andrew, we know he’s being pressured by some big names to jump into the fray. They’ve promised that money will follow… [Pols emphasis]

Sources tell us it’s 50-50 as to whether he’ll get in the race, and no announcement one way or the other has been scheduled to date. Look for a statement or some clue from Andrew around mid-December, and if he does decide to do it (emphasis on if), a campaign kick-off after the first of the year.

What we’ve heard is that mid-December, or more to the point as soon as the new congressional district map is finalized, is pretty much the deadline for Andrew Romanoff to make a decision about throwing his hat into the CD-6 race. Sources tell us some of the “big names” encouraging Romanoff to get in would really like to see him declare before the new map is finalized–among other things, it would be a demonstration of commitment to refute charges of opportunism.

The fact remains that Romanoff is broadly considered to be the best candidate available, and the decision to get in this race is his to make: for the time being. If the timetable hypothesized by the Statesman above proves accurate, he’s probably in time to own the nomination. As we said before, though, Romanoff’s time to decide is not unlimited, and his long record of overcautiousness works against him. If he is not sending strong signals very soon, certainly no later than the immediate aftermath of a finalized map, there’s a major risk of him missing the window to effectively compete–just like he did against Sen. Michael Bennet.

And we’ll say this: it’s very difficult to envision a better opportunity to resurrect Romanoff’s stymied political career than to take on the newly-vulnerable Coffman. If he passes it by, or squanders his momentum with too much contemplation, we wonder when, or if…