January 21, 2010 03:29 AM UTC

Ignore The Treasurer's Race At Your Peril

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• by: Colorado Pols

With GOP secretary of state candidate Scott Gessler rapidly dwindling as a serious threat to incumbent Bernie Buescher, and Democrats hoping at this point for whatever placeholder in the attorney general’s race manages to emerge, it’s looking increasingly like the biggest battle this year statewide (other than the marquee U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races, of course) could be fought over the state treasurer’s office.

On paper, this doesn’t look like a very hard call: incumbent Cary Kennedy has proven adept in her first term, with no major politically negative incidents–it usually takes something pretty big to oust someone from this office before term limits do. Kennedy has been doing pretty well with fundraising also, besting both Republican challengers who had filed before the end of last year.

Despite this we do see some potential trouble for Kennedy on the horizon, principally in the form of the better of the first two Republican candidates for her office, Walker Stapleton. Although Kennedy did raise more money than Stapleton in Q4, Stapleton demonstrated arguably the biggest fundraising network of any statewide candidate, raising donations from a total of 46 states–virtually unheard of in a race on this level, but reflective of Stapleton’s Bush family connections. The Denver Post briefly noted as much on Monday:

In the state treasurer’s race, incumbent Cary Kennedy raised $70,814 compared with Republican challenger Walker Stapleton’s $65,603, much of his contributions coming from out of state.

“I have established a national network of friends and business acquaintances who have contributed,” Stapleton said. “Business is not done regionally just in the state of Colorado.”

Kennedy’s campaign spokesman Tyler Chafee said her more local contributions show that “people are responding in her leadership and experience. . . . She is building a very broad grassroots donor base.”

While it’s true that raising the majority of one’s contributions out of state could work against a candidate, the other way of looking at this is he raised this money without maxing out local Republican donors–donors who will certainly pony up if he wins the GOP primary. That, combined with the connections to raise disproportionate amounts of money around the country for this state race, and we think Democratic strategists ought to be making doubly sure Kennedy is reinforced, both in donations and independent messaging–and that’s before we start talking about her newest GOP opponent, Vail playboy Ali Hasan, and his truly bottomless pockets.

Bottom line: as solid as Kennedy seems today, maybe the least controversial statewide officeholder seeking re-election and widely respected, the challenge she faces is not to be taken lightly.