May 21, 2013 08:42 AM UTC

What Happens When You Have No Candidate

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

FOX 31's Eli Stokols:

If Colorado Republicans are looking for a fresh face to take on Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper next year, one of them just appeared.

Out of nowhere.

Well, Rhode Island, really.

Steve Laffey, a former mayor and GOP Senate candidate who moved to Colorado just three years ago, has filed papers to run for governor in 2014.

Laffey’s campaign manager, Patrick Davis, began dropping hints on Facebook Monday night. Laffey is expected to officially announce his campaign Tuesday morning on the Amy Oliver Show.

We wrote yesterday about Colorado GOP chairman Ryan Call's surprisingly frank admission this weekend in the Durango Herald that the Republican bench of eligible candidates for high office has "suffered" after years of losses. Yesterday afternoon, FOX 31 put up a story with Call speculating about as many as five candidates, and a "robust primary" to include such GOP luminaries as Secretary of State Scott Gessler, Sen. Greg Brophy, and perhaps even Attorney General John Suthers–though the story notes later that Suthers has already ruled this out.

Well folks, now you know why Call was so eager to get other names out there. Back in the real world, outside observers are increasingly confused as to why nobody has formally jumped into either of the two top-ticket races in Colorado for 2014. It's incongruous, especially given presumptions about having "awakened the sleeping giant" over gun control, that nobody is serious about taking on Hickenlooper. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Brophy, the likeliest candidate so far along with the polarizing Gessler, has no appreciable chance.

Bottom line: something had better happen, and soon, because the Dan Maes clown car is en route.