Never in 30 years of voting in Denver have I been undecided this close to Election Day.
Never have I been so tempted to wash my hands of the affair and leave the ballot boxes blank.
I voted for Chris Romer in the first round, confident he was one of the two best candidates — an opinion that still holds. But since then he’s done a good imitation of an unanchored opportunist in an attempt to regain momentum and outflank Michael Hancock on the left.
Goodbye, colorful maverick. Hello, Michael Moore.
To be sure, Romer had every right to highlight Hancock’s turn-of-the-century — that would be an earlier century — views on evolution. Hancock may believe in evolution as much as he now insists, but he twice suggested otherwise when asked a straightforward question during the campaign.
Most of the rest of Romer’s attacks, however, say more about him than his target. His bludgeoning of Hancock for checking “Pro-Family Planning” rather than “Pro-Choice” on a Planned Parenthood questionnaire, despite Hancock’s 100 percent rating from the pro-abortion outfit, was the first sign that the former state senator was prepared to aim low.
Romer claimed Hancock’s answer amounted to waffling. In fact, all it revealed was that Hancock might not be a raging enthusiast for abortion. Such scandal! In Romer’s world, apparently, any hint of nuanced thinking on abortion is first-degree heresy that must be stamped out.
But at least this instance of demagoguery reflected what might be a slight difference in attitude between the candidates. Romer’s attempt to link Hancock to Tom Tancredo, on the other hand, was a fabrication, compounded by his claim that Denver could opt out of the federally mandated Secure Communities program that matches fingerprints of jail inmates against a database maintained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Hancock says his administration would follow the law.
Nor did efforts to portray Hancock as a stealth iconoclast end there. The next episode started when Hancock was asked whether he supported education vouchers. “Not yet,” he replied.
You can imagine where Hancock was coming from if you recall his hands-on support for school reform in northeast Denver and the campaign ad in which he laments that too many Denver schools “are failing” while insisting that “high quality schools should never be a luxury.” Hancock seemed to imply that if all else failed to boost student achievement, he’d be open to a voucher discussion.
Once again, Romer the heretic hunter stepped forward to express his outrage. And once again, Hancock retreated to the herd, rejecting vouchers outright the next time he was asked. But wait: Had the grand inquisitor himself once toyed with unorthodox views? Perhaps so. A former colleague of Romer’s in the state Senate, Peter Groff, revealed to Fox 31 news this week that he and Romer once discussed possible voucher legislation.
“I was surprised when I saw Chris hammer Michael on the issue because Chris and I talked about it when we served in the legislature together, and even kicked around the idea of putting something forward on vouchers,” Groff said. “He was open to the concept, I was open to the concept. We just never closed the loop on it.”
Groff supports Hancock, but his story will have the ring of truth to those familiar with Romer’s legislative career, with its habitual forays into surprising initiatives.
Romer remains the more creative, fearless, forceful candidate with a greater understanding of finance at a time when Denver’s budget is bleeding. By contrast, Hancock spent eight years on the City Council with hardly a memorable proposal — let alone a bold plan for budget or revenue reform — to show for it. But he’s steady, measured, and a genuinely nice guy with a storybook biography.
Ten days left to make up our minds.
Or to punt.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com. Read his blog at .
