May 08, 2009 07:22 PM UTC

Ritter's Leadership Perception Problem

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• by: Colorado Pols

A story in today’s Denver Post tells you everything you need to know about why Gov. Bill Ritter is in trouble heading into his bid for re-election in 2010:

Gov. Bill Ritter said Thursday that he has an opinion on the death penalty but won’t say what it is. Ritter spoke about the death penalty at a news conference to discuss the 2009 legislative session, which ended Wednesday.

House Bill 1274, which ultimately failed, would have eliminated the death penalty in Colorado and used expected savings to pay for the investigation of unsolved homicides.

Supporters argued that by repealing the death penalty, the state could save $1.5 million a year in legal costs, creating funding for eight state investigators to reopen more than 1,400 cold-case homicides.

The House had already narrowly approved the bill, but it failed in the Senate on a 17-18 vote Wednesday, the last day of the session. With two Democratic vacancies in the Senate – and a potential third – the vote count could change if the issue returns next year.

This session marked the closest the Democratic-controlled legislature had ever come to repealing the death penalty.

Still, Ritter has never said whether he would have signed or vetoed the bill, saying only that he would listen to the arguments on both sides.

Asked Thursday if that meant he didn’t have an opinion on the death penalty, the former prosecutor did not clarify his stance.

“Yes, I have an opinion, but I’m not going to share that with you,” Ritter said, “because then people feel like the argument (they make) is meaningless. [Pols emphasis]

“And the fact of the matter is on a host of issues, arguments are not meaningless. It’s important for a person in my position to hear their arguments and make decisions based on their arguments.”

There’s no two ways about it: This is flat-out embarrassing. The GOVERNOR of a state shouldn’t be candidly refusing to take a position on an important issue. Everybody dances around issues, but rarely do politicians flat-out admit that they are dancing.

By all accounts Ritter is not polling well, and his various policy positions (whatever they are) don’t have anything to do with it. Ritter is weak and getting weaker because he’s not perceived to be a leader. Refusing to take a position doesn’t make you look like a moderate–it makes you look weak and indecisive.

Voters elect people to lead them–not to placate them. For most of his first term, Ritter has been so worried about not angering certain constituencies that he’s actually done the exact opposite–he’s pissed off everybody. He doesn’t want to make one group angry, but he doesn’t do enough to make that first group happy, so he ends up just riling up the whole hornet’s nest. To use a football analogy for the former high school player, Ritter’s strategy is always the same: Punt.

As Post columnist Mike Littwin noted last month during the Pinnacol/Budget discussions:

Republicans grumble because, when you’re completely out of power, what else is there to do? But Democrats are grumbling, too. Here’s a conversation I recently had with a Democratic insider:

Me: What do you think of Ritter’s leadership style?

Democratic insider: What leadership?…

…And the governor? Did I mention the governor? Umm, no.

The governor has not yet commented on this idea. As I understand it, his people are negotiating with Pinnacol, trying to find an alternative solution, one in which Pinnacol comes to the rescue without being, well, forced to come to the rescue.

There could be another reason why he hasn’t commented, which is that he can’t figure out how to explain this to his pals in the business community.

The knock on Ritter is that he’s not willing to claim ownership on tough issues. His predecessor, Bill Owens, was a micromanager who enjoyed knocking heads with legislative leaders, which may have been why so many were so glad to see him go.

Democrats in the legislature were rightly upset at Ritter for not publicly (or even privately, say some) leading the way on the Pinnacol discussions, and they are equally upset over the death penalty discussions. Democratic legislators are forced to go out on a limb and make a vote on controversial issues, without knowing where their own governor stands on the issue.

This was the same scenario that played out in the first month of Ritter’s term when he vetoed the “Labor Peace Act” despite every Democrat in the legislature voting for it. Yet Ritter still hasn’t learned his lesson.

Machiavelli famously wrote that it is better to be feared than loved. But nobody fears Ritter, and nobody loves him, either. Nobody knows where Ritter is on anything, other than alternative energy, and everybody is in favor of alternative energy. Ritter has opened the door for 2010 opponents to use the old “do-nothing politician” campaign.

Ritter has just one more legislative session to try to pick up enough friends – and dissuade disaffected voters – to help him win re-election in 2010. He has one more session to make himself into the leader that voters wanted in 2006. If he doesn’t reinvent himself, Ritter will have one more legislative session…period.