John Hickenlooper’s critics — and there’s at least one more than there used to be — like to say he tries to be all things to all people.
Well, that’s over. Hickenlooper can still try to be most things to all people, but one thing is definitely out: He can’t simultaneously be both governor and mayor to anyone.
The stunningly public tiff between Gov. Hickenlooper and Mayor-For-the-Time-Being Bill Vidal has made at least that much clear. In fact, it’s as obvious as the line of dirty laundry now stretching across Civic Center, from City Hall to the Capitol.
You may remember Hickenlooper’s recent ceremonial walk along that same path, when he had officially stepped down as mayor and was soon to be sworn in as governor. That was supposed to be more than a photo-op. He was giving up one job for the other, meaning it was time to give up more than the keys to the mayor’s washroom.
But if you’ve read the new mayor’s bombshell e-mail — in which he calls the former mayor a bully who had an “inexplicable temper tantrum” when learning that Vidal wanted to stay on as mayor — you see that Hickenlooper has had some trouble letting go.
This is not altogether surprising. Hickenlooper loved being mayor. Most mayors do. You’re the boss — or, for some mayors, the Boss — and the last thing Hickenlooper expected to hear from Vidal was that you’re not the boss of me.
The job is so good that it took only about a week for Vidal to start thinking he might want to keep it. Hickenlooper may have overreacted to the news, but, in his defense, he may not have been sure how to act. Hickenlooper is only the second Denver mayor ever to have become governor. And if he wanted to ask the last guy for advice, it turns out his predecessor, John Long Routt, has been dead for more than a hundred years.
Still, Hickenlooper must have thought he had things under control. What he wanted for his interim successor was an apolitical bureaucrat who would keep the wheels turning — and the snowplows plowing — until the election. Vidal seemed the perfect choice.
Everyone agrees that Vidal, as vice-mayor, had told Hickenlooper his plans were to take the mayor’s job for six months, watch the election returns and then sail off into retirement. If Vidal had told Hickenlooper he was thinking of running for mayor, Hickenlooper would have picked someone else.
But this is politics. And when Vidal changed his mind and privately decided to run, at the urging of some of the city’s power brokers, Vidal saw this as his prerogative. Hickenlooper saw it as a betrayal.
And so it began.
What you’d expect to follow would be typical back-room dealing, with Hickenlooper, who likes to pretend he’s not a politician, leaning on the money people to shut Vidal out. But Hickenlooper, hearing that Vidal was already talking to the money people, used a radio appearance with Mike Rosen to say that Vidal had given him his “solemn word” he wouldn’t run. This was public hardball, which is not Hickenloooper’s style at all.
He completely outplayed Vidal, who was finished after that. How do you publicly fight Hickenlooper while also fending off 15 opponents in a mayor’s race?
Then came the leaked e-mail, which was your basic rookie mistake. Vidal was apparently shocked that it was leaked. I was shocked that he would send an e-mail about gubernatorial temper tantrums to 11 people and think it wouldn’t be leaked.
I’m not sure who has looked worse since the leak. Hickenlooper keeps saying he promised other candidates he wouldn’t appoint someone who would run — when, it turns out, most of the other candidates say it never came up. But the e-mail showed Vidal accusing Hickenlooper of being the kind of guy who doesn’t “think I should be looking to climb above my proper station.” That’s a completely undeserved cheap shot about the guy who made him mayor.
The hard thing to figure out is why Hickenlooper would get this involved. The word among insiders is that Hickenlooper is privately backing Chris Romer. It’s clear that some of these same insiders were looking at Vidal as an alternative to Romer. But Hickenlooper has spent his entire political career being as unpolitical as possible. He wouldn’t risk that to fight someone else’s battle.
My guess is that this is strictly about Hickenlooper and Vidal, about Hickenlooper’s city and legacy, about Vidal-as-mayor being Hickenlooper’s creation and Vidal’s backdoor candidacy bid being an act of disloyalty.
But Hickenlooper is governor now. He took that stroll from City Hall. It’s too late for him to take the long walk back.
E-mail Mike Littwin at mlittwin@denverpost.com.
