Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper on Monday confirmed that he is interested in Colorado’s looming U.S. Senate vacancy.
In a brief interview, Hickenlooper touted his experience as a business owner and his time as mayor as pluses for Gov. Bill Ritter to consider when weighing whom he should appoint to replace Sen. Ken Salazar, who has been nominated for secretary of the Interior Department.
Ritter will appoint the person to serve out the remainder of Salazar’s term. An election would be held in 2010.
“I love my job,” Hickenlooper said. “I’m in that unique position in that I’ve got one of the best jobs that a person like me can have. But if you take someone like me who has spent most of his life in business and then at some point decides to give 10 to 15 years to public service, and you want to be useful, then you want to get the maximum benefit out of that public service.”
The mayor said he had one “formal discussion” with Ritter about the Senate appointment but declined to go into details.
This is a move I could get behind. Not only does the early polling look favorable for Hickenlooper, he got his start in the business world by opening a brew pub. Now there’s a guy I’d like to have a beer with!
The consensus seems to have been that it was his if he wanted it. That was a big if, until now.
Mr. Hickenlooper, Mr. Hickenlooper, aye. Sounds great to me.
But where is he on the issues?
Considering that the IL Senate seat was nearly sold to the highest bidder & shades of nepotism have clouded the race to fill the NY Senate seat, it would be nice for the CO Senate seat to be filled by the best person for the job. Period. And while I’m not diametrically opposed to John Salazar, I’m glad the Salazar last name is NOT being used as some precondition for this seat.
Hickenlooper’s been a good Mayor of Denver. He’ll be a good Senator if appointed. And yes, I have few doubts of his ability to win election in 2010. Senator John Hickenlooper sounds good to me, and if Gov. Ritter thinks that’s what’s best for Colorado, then it’s all good. 🙂
My only concern with Hick was that he didn’t want it. Now that that is out of the way, this is an absolute no-brainer. The guy is well-liked in the state, has a great base, is respected by many Republicans, and perhaps most of all, unlike Members of Congress, he has no legislative record to be attacked on.
I hope Ritter makes the right call and taps Hick. After all, Hick likely would have beaten Ritter had he decided to run for governor in 2006, but he opted to stay mayor.
I’m a big fan of the Salazar appointment. It’ll give us a more progressive Senator in Hickenlooper and Salazar seems to be good enough on all the issues that pertain to the Department of Interrior.
I’m not totally sure of his position on EFCA. But if he’s in favor then I’m all for him.
I believe Hickenlooper would be the first US Senator to call Wesleyan University his alma mater since Norris Cotton (R-NH) was defeated in 1975.
Perlmutter would appear to be the most progressive, but we’d risk a House seat. Romanoff appears more progressive than Hickenlooper also. Pena too. But at least he’s better than the Salazars.