It is difficult to find a more entertaining race than the current gubernatorial contest.
John Hickenlooper’s supporters point out that one of his opponents, Dan Maes, has no political experience. Of course, before he ran for mayor of Denver, Hick wore his lack of political experience as a badge of integrity.
The zaniest candidate is the proud scion of Italian immigrants who keeps bashing immigrants. Tom Tancredo wants to build a wall around Colorado to keep ’em out, but can’t figure out how to do it without the Latino laborers who do the hard manual labor in this state only to be called lazy and criminal.
Maes, the least known of the candidates, is campaigning as a successful businessman. Yet his own business failed.
To find a zanier gubernatorial race, you have to go back to 1904. The Republican incumbent, James H. Peabody, had used the state militia to crush striking mine and smelter workers protesting Colorado’s failure to enforce its own eight- hour, $3-a-day work law. After the voting, the Colorado Supreme Court held that the Democrats had cheated (they had, but so had Republicans) and reversed Democratic control of the state Senate. The newly created Republican majority promptly declared Democratic candidate Alva Adams’ victory void because of voting irregularities and re-installed Peabody. In a face-saving gesture forced by moderate Republicans, Peabody resigned the next day, passing the office to his lieutenant governor, Jesse F. McDonald. In less than 24 hours spanning March 16 and 17, 1905, Colorado had three governors.
Despite many gubernatorial misdeeds, only one — Clarence F. Morley, a former Denver judge — actually served time. As the Ku Klux Klan-endorsed governor in 1924, Morley bashed “un-American” Coloradans, a major subgroup of which he identified as “eye-talians” and “cat-licks” and “mackerel snappers” whose primary allegiance was to a foreign Pope.
Morley was convicted of mail fraud and sentenced to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan.
Dan Maes is hardly the first political novice to run for governor of Colorado. Among those elected on their first run for office were Frederick W. Pitkin (1879-83) and James B. Grant (1883-55). University of Denver chancellor and former Trinity Methodist Church pastor Henry A. Buchtel made his first and only political run in 1907 and was elected governor in 1907 during one of the most corrupt, unholy eras in the state’s history. Oliver H. Shoup (a Colorado Springs oilman and rancher), William E. Sweet (a successful Denver investment banker), and John Love (a Colorado Springs lawyer) all won the governorship on their first-ever political campaigns.
Davis H. Waite provided the most entertaining administration. A former teacher and Aspen newspaper editor, Waite became our only Populist Party governor in 1892. He pursued such radical reform as women’s suffrage and regulating banks. To boost the depressed silver mining industry, Waite proposed that Colorado mint its own silver dollars. Why hasn’t Gov. Bill Ritter thought of that? Every once in awhile even the craziest candidates come up with bright ideas.
Tom Noel () teaches history at the University of Colorado Denver.
