Posted on 01/26/2006 2:17:42 PM PST by PikesPeakGOP
January 26, 2006--As candidates for the open governor's seat in Colorado jockey for position, Democratic Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper leads in prospective match-ups against the Republicans most prominently vying for the GOP nomination (see crosstabs). The heavily courted mayor has yet to declare his candidacy.
Matched against Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez, Hickenlooper leads 43% to 38% in our survey of 500 likely voters. Matched against University of Denver President Marc Holtzman, Hickenlooper leads more comfortably, 46% to 36%.
No other Democrat pursuing the nomination currently does as well. Former Denver district attorney Bill Ritter is neck and neck with Beauprez. Ritter narrowly trails Holtzman, 39% to 35%.
Democratic State Representative Gary Lindstrom has the most ground to cover. He trails Beauprez 43% to 32% and trails Holtzman 39% to 31%.
When either is matched against Beauprez, Hickenlooper and Ritter both gain 71% support from fellow Democrats. Lesser-known Lindstrom earns only 59% from likely Democratic voters when matched against Beauprez.
It's interesting that Beauprez is stronger against Hickenlooper (38% R to 43% D) than Holtzman is against Hickenlooper (36% R to 46% D), but then Holtzman is stronger against Ritter (39% R to 36% D) than Beauprez is against Ritter (39% R to 38% D). Isn't that a bit odd?
What office is the popular liberal activist Dottie Lamm seeking this year? If she keeps running long enough, she bound to win sooner, rather than later.
What will Governor Owens do after he leaves office? Did you see that Ken Salazar called Justice Thomas "an abomination" this week?
Mayor of Denver = $136,920($102,690)
Governor of Colorado = $90,000
That's interesting, as Bill Ritter is one of the more reasonable Democrats in Colorado.
I hope he disappears. The CO GOP has been decimated on his watch -- needlessly.
Of course, wasn't Salazar considered "somewhat reasonable" when he was State AG ?
I know that George Will was promoting Owens for president some years back and then there was the marital strife that became public. A lot of people may not know that Owens is a TX native who once worked for the popular Democrat James Wright, but that was when he was very young.
Do you think Owens played a role in Salazar's election? Or was Coors just a poor candidate? Remember, the environmentalists, strong there, wanted Salazar.
Coors was a horrible candidate. We had an incredible bench of elected Republicans for the seat and we went with a guy who sounded like he'd flunked the first grade twice. I had high hopes for Owens, too, but I started getting bad feelings after what he did to Joe Rogers, his first-term Lieutenant-Governor. All the bad business that has followed just compounds those initial feelings. I'm just glad it all came out BEFORE his potential recruitment to run for President.
Hard to think of many who have squandered as much political capital.
If Beauprez isn't going to be our gubernatorial nominee, I hope he changes his mind and runs for reelection, since his district could go either way in an open-seat situation (President Bush got 49% in 2000 and 48% in 2004 and Beauprez won by like 100 votes in 2002).
Why isn't Beauprez doing better? He's a solid conservative with good name ID and proven ability of winning votes from independents.
True, but that was hype. Bill Ritter is openly pro-life, and hasn't backed down from that stance in spite of pressure to do so by liberal interest groups. And as Denver County District Attorney, it's not as if he represented a conservative constituancy.
I'm not endorsing his candidacy, but better him than a more liberal Democrat.
The question is, just how "Conservative" is Ritter on everything else ? It seems like the Democrats are very tepid about his candidacy because of his pro-life stance and would prefer Hickenlooper.
I haven't been following the CO Gov's race too closely, so I don't know what the deal is between Beauprez and Holtzman. Beauprez, as far as I know, is very much in this race to the finish. I have worries we will lose this race solely because of the disastrous situation with Owens. If we lose Beauprez's House seat, we'll also hold only a minority (!) of the House seats in CO, 4 'Rats to 3 GOP. That will be the first time we held fewer seats since 1975-1983.
"If we lose Beauprez's House seat, we'll also hold only a minority (!) of the House seats in CO, 4 'Rats to 3 GOP. That will be the first time we held fewer seats since 1975-1983."
Well, when Beauprez was state GOP Chairman we lost control of the State Senate for the first time in four decades.
I'm going to root for whoever wins the nomination, but I'll admit that I'm pretty unhappy with Beauprez putting his own ambition before the good of the party. Though I'm a lot more unhappy with Bill Owens for backstabbing everyone.
I don't know how much of that was Beauprez's fault. I'll tell you what turned out to be the biggest disaster for the legislative GOP in Colorado -- term limits. As soon as they kicked in, we lost tons of members, and it clearly benefitted the Democrats (in stark contrast to a lot of other states that implemented it -- except maybe California, where it hasn't helped the GOP at all, except immediately after it was in place, from about 1995-97), whereas before the Democrats weren't particularly competitive except in disastrous national years for the GOP (such as 1974).
Term limits did play a part, but you also cite a good point. The CO legislature once used to have an excellent GOP farm team for Congress, now it's just a mess. You ever heard of Sen. Ed Jones of Colorado Springs ?
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