A stunning thing happened to me the other day. Someone asked if I could explain why no one seemed to care about the Denver mayoral race.
The stunning thing wasn’t the question itself, of course, but this: No one had ever asked me anything about the Denver mayoral race.
I am not alone in this. We are seeing a race that time — and also Carol Boigon — forgot. It’s a buzz-free race in which no unexpected issues have emerged, where the stakes seem slight, where the campaign ads are not funny, where you’ve got a guy running on the UFOs-are-real ticket (and even that barely gets a laugh) and where the candidates debate seemingly every day, sometimes three times a day, and still no one seems to notice because, well, the last debate I went to, one of the big issues was composting. Seriously.
To date, this race has has made about as much impact on the city’s consciousness as the Denver Nuggets have made on the NBA playoffs.
The issues are jobs (about which the mayor has little impact); the budget deficit gap (current Mayor Bill Vidal says he’ll have a budget ready before he leaves office); schools (over which the mayor has little control); and government moving at the speed of business (all I can say is, look at what happened to Domino’s).
The lack of interest is more than just anecdotal. At last count, 21,499 ballots have been returned, which is 7.42 percent of the total sent out. To put that in perspective — actually, it’s a pretty perspective-free statistic, but still — 16,892 ballots have been returned as undeliverable.
That’s right. Apparently, people are moving just so they won’t have to be faced with a mayoral ballot.
This is not surprising. We’re in the first round, after all. There will almost certainly be a run-off, meaning there’s plenty of time to get ready.
According to a Denver Post/9News poll, the race has three candidates in a virtual tie for the lead. And if you’re thinking of mailing in your ballot — come on, it’s only 61 cents — here are some of the themes from the leaders.
Chris Romer, the big-box candidate, wants a Wal-Mart on every corner. Or a Costco. He’s not picking sides, although he is pretty steamed about Denver losing Ikea, something that never happened when his dad was governor.
Michael Hancock is promoting a Denver aerotropolis, which is the new hot thing in city planning, in which your airport qualifies you as a major 21st century city. Hancock wants to build great things around the airport, which makes sense if you can actually afford to get there. I’m still paying off the credit card charge for my last taxi ride.
James Mejia thinks we can still think big, so long as we don’t spend any money doing it. He wants to turn the South Platte into a destination spot, maybe like the San Antonio Riverwalk. Let’s just hope the walk goes south, because north would lead directly to the sewage treatment plant.
Meanwhile, Doug Linkhart is the liberal, Theresa Spahn was a judge, and there are others in the race, but you’re going to have to see them in person if you really want to appreciate them.
If you’re not overwhelmed by the field, don’t blame the field. For a period covering nearly 20 years, we had two mayors who both seemed bigger than life, or, to put it another way, big-city-mayor size. John Hickenlooper and Wellington Webb are still the guys you expect to hear welcoming you at DIA. It will take awhile for anyone else to get there.
Let’s be honest. Hickenlooper would be governor and mayor both if someone would let him. I’m just hoping it doesn’t go to a vote.
But if I had to guess the real reason that it’s so hard to get excited about this race, it’s not the field and it’s not the issues. It’s voter fatigue.
In the new media era, there is no let-up between campaigns anymore. It seems like only last year (oh — it was only last year) that we had the crazed 2010 whiplash election cycle.
In Colorado, it was much weirder than that. No local race could compete with the Scott McInnis, Dan Maes, Tom Tancredo follies — an act nearly impossible to follow, or at least that’s the way to root.
On the Democratic side, the wounds from the Bennet-Romanoff primary snipe-off are still fresh, and old (former?) friends are still not so friendly.
The last thing anyone needed was an unplanned mayoral race. What I mean is, it’s a good thing this is a ballot-by-postal-carrier election, because so far, the whole city is mailing it in.
E-mail Mike Littwin at mlittwin@denverpost.com.
