Actually I think the Holly Williams appointment is rather egregious. Let me take you "Inside Politics".
It is unfortunately rather common to have the unqualified or incompetent appointed to be "Executive Directors" of State departments. No foul here; governors of both parties do it. Department Executive Directors don't have to be qualified in any way to be appointed to the position, as far as I can tell. It's a patronage position. Sometimes Executive Directors do have the background to do the job well; sometimes they don't. I've worked under goods ones and lousy ones. Some of the better ones understand the nature of their job and let the "professionals" (regular state employees) handle the actual details of running the department. Some believe they are all knowing grandees and royally mess things up. Some are quite good at doing the real work of the department. I believe this system leads to a lot of waste, but it is what it is.
However, the Public Trustee is NOT a patronage position. It's not a position that can be left to the amateurs. It has qualifications that Holly Williams clearly did not and does not meet. Holly Williams may be a nice person, but her job, by State Statute, requires ten years experience or a college degree plus five years experience. As far as I can tell, she has no experience at all. Bill Owens had every right to appoint a political ally to that job. But he had no right to put an unqualified political ally into the position. It's hard for me to believe in the rather small world of Colorado politics that Bill Owens did not know Holly Williams did not meet the legal qualifications to do this job.
It's not in the "public domain", but I can assure you this is NOT the only instance of this kind of stuff going on in the Owens Administration. I no longer work for the State, so I don't care other than as a citizen. Putting the legal aspect aide, it's just poor judgement to put unqualified people into "real" jobs. The kicker is that Gov. Owens is pushing hard to have the personnel system changed so that another layer of patronage jobs is added just under the Executive Director. In my view, one per department is plenty.
The original question I tried to anwser was if Owens was a very good governor (good enough for a presidential run). I was thrilled when Owens was elected, but I now know enough to give me pause, and I seriously wonder what else is out there. My point is that Owens has a downside and that caution should be used until he has been vetted on a national level.
Did Romer lose?
He won in he sense that he kept the episode out of the media, like he did with a lot of his little escapades.