Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s pledged neutrality in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination could cost him a chance to become one of the state’s superdelegates, as backers for Sen. Barack Obama try to lock in one of their own.
Obama’s Colorado organization is backing former Denver Mayor Federico Peña, who has been working since September as a national co-chair for the Obama campaign. And no disrespect to the mayor, they say, but this is politics.
Hickenlooper “absolutely deserves to be” at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, said J.W. Postal, a Colorado superdelegate who supports Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“And he absolutely deserves to be at the head of the table. But this thing could come down to every single vote, and we need to make sure we get every single vote we can for our candidate.”
Postal, along with two other state superdelegates for the Illinois senator, nominated Peña for the state’s sole open superdelegate slot last month.
Next week at Colorado’s state Democratic convention in Colorado Springs, the state’s 5,000 pledged delegates are to vote on whether Peña or the mayor wins the slot. Colorado will send 70 delegates to the national convention, 15 of whom are superdelegates.
Peña, a former Clinton Cabinet member, is a strong choice, his backers say, because he is a high-profile Latino, and Latinos are a bloc of voters Obama has struggled to win over. Peña also is solidly for Obama in a state that voted solidly for the Illinois senator. Almost 67 percent of Coloradans at Democratic caucuses in February picked Obama.
That 67 percent translates to more than 3,300 pledged state convention delegates for Obama, and all of them recently were sent an e-mail from the Obama campaign reminding them that Peña was on the ballot.
Meanwhile, Hickenlooper has worked for more than a year trying to raise the $55 million in private donations that Denver’s host committee must provide to the Democratic National Convention Committee.
While doing so, he has pledged to remain neutral.
Hickenlooper said Thursday that he understood the Obama supporters’ position.
“They’re doing what they do,” the mayor said. “They’re running a campaign.”
Postal, likewise, understands the mayor’s stance.
“He has to be in a delicate spot.”
Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien also were nominated for the open slot but withdrew their names from the ballot.
In all, three of Colorado’s superdelegates who support Obama nominated Peña: Postal, Debbie Marquez and Dan Slater.
“I’ve worked with Peña for several months on the Obama campaign, and I would have a hard time not voting for him,” Marquez said. “I think that’s true of any of us who nominated him.”
Chuck Plunkett: 303-954-1333 or cplunkett@denverpost.com
