And the winner is … Bob Beauprez.
Supporters congratulated Democratic candidate for governor Bill Ritter at his headquarters Monday afternoon, two hours after Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper decided not to enter the race.
Even if another big-name Dem challenges him, it will be much easier for Ritter to make it to the general election in November. Still, the guy who really should be smiling is would-be Republican candidate Beauprez.
Hickenlooper said he was shown polls that had him beating other candidates by as many as 25 percentage points.
Even the mayor didn’t believe the number. But everybody in the know knew Hickenlooper was the strongest of all candidates for governor, declared and undeclared. “There was,” explained political analyst Eric Sondermann, “a star power that attached to Hickenlooper.”
This celebrity, which clings to no one else, was born of a nonpartisan reputation as a successful private businessman who in public office has cultivated an image as a fiscally moderate, independent politician, said analyst Floyd Ciruli.
In a state with more registered Republicans than Democrats and more unaffiliated voters than Democrats, Hickenlooper would have drawn more moderate Republican and independent votes than any other Democratic candidate.
While Ritter, an ex-Denver district attorney, “is stronger than the typical liberal Democrat,” Ciruli said, “he does not have (Hickenlooper’s) crossover strength among Republicans or independents.”
Hickenlooper almost surely would have crushed GOP hopeful Marc Holtzman, who has positioned himself with his party’s extreme right wing. But Holtzman’s attack ads last year against Referendums C and D ticked off many powerful Republicans who supported those budget fixes. Holtzman is a long shot to be the Republican candidate.
That leaves the more cautious but still conservative Beauprez, who opposed C and D but didn’t liken Republicans who supported the measures to pigs.
“I got an awful lot of calls from people who were thinking about supporting Bob Beauprez,” Hickenlooper said as he announced he would not run. “And they held off and held off and held off and held off (until Hickenlooper decided).”
The mayor refused to name names at the news conference, but later conceded that the names of his would-be Republican supporters would be familiar.
“I didn’t sense a groundswell of Republican support (for Hickenlooper),” Beauprez countered. “I can’t give you a single name we were waiting for.”
Be that as it may. Beauprez is conservative enough to be more acceptable to the Republican base than Ritter, who opposes abortion rights, will be to the Democrats’ base, Ciruli predicted.
Add the fact that Republicans pushing Hickenlooper now play for Team Beauprez, not Team Ritter, and Beauprez has reason for revelry.
One mid-January poll had Hickenlooper beating Beauprez by five points and Holtzman by 10 points in the governor’s race. The same poll had Beauprez beating Ritter by one point, and Holtzman beating Ritter by four points.
Ritter, meanwhile, claimed Monday to have seen a poll that had him beating Beauprez by 10 points. Could be the one that had Hickenlooper winning by 25.
Say what you want about damned lies and statistics, I can find no one who saw a poll where Ritter drew better in the general election than Hickenlooper.
If that’s true, then Bob Beauprez now passes with flying colors what he calls “The Mirror Test” of potential candidates for governor. “Each morning,” the congressman said, “I look at myself in the mirror and ask, ‘Would I rather be me or somebody else?”‘
Tuesday, he looked a whole lot better than the morning before.
Harking back to last Friday’s column, props to Nuggets’ announcers Scott Hastings and Chris Marlowe for working to pronounce Eduardo Najera’s name right. They’re now trying as hard in the broadcasts as Najera tries on the court.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
