August 14, 2005 08:00 AM UTC

Governor's Race Scuttlebutt

• 11 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

The media was busy this weekend opining on the next steps in the governor’s race now that Democrat Rutt Bridges has withdrawn from the race, and the buzz we’re hearing was enough to make some changes to the Governor Line.

Click below for the full scoop…

The Rocky Mountain News says that Senate President Joan-Fitzgerald plans to wait until November to make her decision, which she has repeated publicly on many occasions. Fitz-Gerald also said that Bridges’ announcement doesn’t change her thinking, and if you believe that we know a guy trying to get some gold out of Nigeria you should talk to.

Bridges’ announcement Thursday that he was quitting the race, leaving former Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter as the only Democrat currently in the running, “doesn’t change anything for me,” said Fitz-Gerald, a Golden Democrat.

“It was never an issue of certain people being in or not,” she said in a phone interview. “I don’t feel compelled to do anything right now.”

Well, whatever. But Bridges’ exit from the race does make the field look different to Fitz-Gerald, and she’s just giving the same standard line that every politician always gives. “This race is about me and my strengths, not about who else is running, blah, blah, blah…” More important is Fitz-Gerald’s claim that she will wait until November to decide, because if another strong Democrat decides to get into the race before then, November will be much too late for Joan. Either Fitz-Gerald knows something about who else is considering this race (or who isn’t) or she wants to see if Referenda C&D pass before she makes a decision. Make no mistake: the job of governor is a lot less appealing if C&D fail, and that might be part of the thought process.

As for Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff…

…Romanoff, a Denver Democrat, said he is similarly focused “on the campaign for C and D,” but he, too, isn’t ruling out a run for governor.

“I’m not just looking for one job for myself, but for thousands of jobs for Coloradans,” said Romanoff, a major architect of this fall’s ballot measures. “We’re 120,000 jobs short of full employment.”

Romanoff certainly had the best line of the two, and while he isn’t ruling out a run a potential candidacy for him probably depends a great deal on the outcome of C&D. He, perhaps more than any other politician, has tied his political fortunes to C&D, and if they go down in flames, his options for statewide office get shorter.

Diane Carman of the Denver Post, meanwhile, echoes our sentiments from last Thursday that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is going to get a lot of calls from Democrats urging him to run.

The range of his support in the region is breathtaking. Polls have shown his approval rating in Denver as high as 92 percent and his statewide name recognition higher than Republican candidate for governor U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez.

Or, in the case of the Republican candidates, a word that rhymes with Hick, or hit, or quit.

Hickenlooper would unquestionably be the Democrats’ strongest candidate for governor, and the Republicans know that, too. If he runs, he’s the favorite to win. But will he run? You get a mixed bag of answers depending on who you ask, ranging from claims that Hick has “definitely ruled it out” to a recent rumor that Mrs. Hick was actually encouraging him to run. The only thing we know for sure is that strong recruitment efforts will be undergone in attempts to pull him in, and some of the bigger Democratic names, such as Jared Polis, have publicly spoke of their hope that he will run.

Speaking of Polis, Peter Blake of the Rocky Mountain News strangely mentioned him as a potential candidate (Blake also took a veiled shot at Colorado Pols in his column, which we sincerely hope makes him feel much better). While Blake mentioned that Polis says he has no interest, we’ll say it too: Polis was never a candidate for governor. This is not his race.

Blake rightly points out that Ben “Nighthorse” Campbell is not likely to run for governor (if we bothered listing him, he’d be at 100-1 odds), and he also delves into the non-candidacy of former Congressman Scott McInnis, who we have said for months is not going to run unless something catastrophic happens to the candidacies of Marc Holtzman and Bob Beauprez — and even then he probably wouldn’t run.

The only one Blake may have missed is Senator Ken Salazar. Here’s what Blake had to say:

Moving on to Sen. Ken Salazar: Press secretary Cody Wertz was quoted as saying Salazar wouldn’t rule out a run for governor next year.

He’s not going to go back to the people next year and say, “I made a mistake running for the Senate; elect me governor instead.”

That’s one logical analysis, but the word we’ve heard over the weekend from a good source is that not only has Salazar not ruled out a run for governor, he’s seriously considering it. We’ll believe it when we see it, but the talk we’ve heard lately is a lot different than what was said back in March when Salazar first said that he “wouldn’t rule out” a run for governor. This time it’s different; just how much different remains to be seen.

So with that, we’ve put Ken Salazar on the line for the first time. We also removed Ed Perlmutter from his brief stay on the Governor Line; the initial rumors that he might be considering the governor’s race were well-placed and reliable, but his campaign has since been adamant that he has no interest in switching races, and that conclusion probably makes sense.

So, are we here until November, as Joan Fitz-Gerald continues to indicate? We don’t think so. Look for movement much sooner than that.