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This might be a lucky year for Dave Chandler. The former Green Party activist and 2006 Congressional candidate is making a run for Arvada’s Mayor. Normally, we wouldn’t give any political aspirant with ties to a third party a good shot at any office; they simply don’t have the fundraising and volunteer network to be able to compete even with those who have subtle connections to the major parties. That said, in an election year without much excitement and without an incumbent candidate, Chandler has a better shot at the Mayor’s office than he’s ever had in any race before. Chandler’s been involved in Arvada politics longer, even, than he’s been a voice of the Green Party in Jeffco. We’ll be profiling Chandler soon, but in the mean time, you can catch up with him for yourself over coffee if you’re into that kind of thing.

From the Chandler for Arvada Mayor campaign:

Dave Chandler, Arvada Mayoral Candidate is hosting Saturday morning coffee meetings at Two Rivers Coffee, 7745 Wadsworth Blvd. in Arvada. (77th Drive and Wadsworth next to Vitamin Cottage), 10 -11 am. The meetings will be every Saturday through October.

Political observers itching for a municipal-level fight following the fanfare surrounding Denver’s recent Mayoral election should turn away from Jeffco this cycle.

We wish we could say that the 2011 municipal elections in all of Jefferson County’s cities would be the stuff of excitement and intrigue. We wish we could say that there would be an old-fashioned political brawl for Mayor in places like Golden, Lakewood, Arvada and Wheat Ridge. We wish we could say that.

Unfortunately, though, while recall elections in Wisconsin may attract millions of dollars in out-of-state attention and flames of hostility are fueled by congressional gridlock, Jeffco politics this cycle are a far cry from Tea Party tensions in Washington and around the country. We’d be lucky if any of Jeffco’s cities garnered 1/10th of the excitement of Denver’s otherwise milquetoast 2011 municipal race. Unfortunately, we don’t think even that will happen.

Perhaps that’s a good thing. While municipal elections are too often characterized by angry uprisings from groups of citizens enraged over stop lights and zoning laws, in Jefferson County, at least, they’re also markedly non-partisan. Sure, both progressive and libertarian concepts are often fleshed out at the local level, but because Mayors and City Councilors run without a party identifier attached to their name, political tensions from Washington and the state legislature rarely spill-over into city issues.

It’s because of this nonpartisan nature that, while they may have a fundamental distrust of government as a whole, voters in places like Lakewood and Arvada are still reasonably satisfied with their city government. This satisfaction means that those associated with the status quo in all of Jeffco’s cities are far more likely to sail to re-election. Voters simply do not pay attention to city government unless things are going horribly wrong. While Jefferson County has been hit by economic hardship as badly as any county of its size and makeup, voters have no reason to direct their displeasure at local government this cycle.

It is for this reason that few of the Mayor’s races in any of Jeffco’s cities are seriously challenged in their re-election efforts.