Hick Stays In Cowtown

Normally, that'd be a pretty obvious title.

Especially in reference to this.

I am extremely glad that Hickenlooper decided to stay in the Mayor's seat for this one. Sure, the common thinking around Democratic circles was that Hick could waltz in, sweep Ritter under the rug with one of his patented campaign stunts, and go stomp the terra while wearing Beauprez-skin boots on November 7th.

Which to me was a theory so full of crap, it might as well been used as the repository for all the bovine wastes from the National Western Stock Show.

Hickenlooper has good instincts. Hickenlooper has some strange, but intensively goofy, charisma. Hickenlooper has a set of near-unique, outside-the-box-type campaign people who will go to the mat for him all day and all night, regardless of what else he asks of them.

But Hick is still gaining skills, and the middle of an actively competitive gubernatorial race, both in the primary and general, is not the best time to be holding a training session. And Hick is still gaining that most valuable commodity of them all: name recognition. He got a major boost to the name-rec rating last fall with that one very long step he took out of an airplane, but a bit part does not a prominent politician make. (Note: Cindy Sheehan could take notes on that point.)

And judging by the (admittedly by mostly Republicans, or so it seems) comments over at Colorado Pols... Actually, I have no idea what they are trying to say. Been reading it for the last hour or so, over and over, but can't make heads nor tails of it.

And don't worry, folks. Unless there's a serious meltdown in the City and County Building in the next few years, we'll be seeing John Hickenlooper For Governor signs all over the place in 2010. I say that mostly because Beauprez will be the one stomping the terra while wearing Ritter-skin boots. (Odds of that going the other way around? Quite frankly, I put Ritter at 7-1 against to win the day on November 7th, regardless of what happens in the primaries.)