2 reflections on Denver’s mayor run-off
June 8, 2011
Michalel Hancock won the June 7 runoff to become Denver’s new mayor. He garnered 58% of the mail in ballots, to 41% for Chris Romer.
There are many stories, observations and opinions that can be made. The beauty of blogs is that I can have mine, and publish them. All by myself. (all those letters to the editor, be damned! even if i only wrote 4)
Here is what I notice:
First, Democrats in Colorado can win on a largely positive message. Hancock is the 2nd executive in the last 8 months (Gov. Hick being the first in the Fall 2010 election cycle) to run a campaign largely on a positive tip. We are eight years into the Global War on Terror (or whatever the Obama Administration is calling it), and endless time horizons in Iraq and Afghanistan. Coupled with the economic malaise that has drowned the shrinking middle class, mortgages and state coffers since the capital markets, I wonder if the electorate — in my homestate, at least — is fatigued from the mudslinging politics of the previous four decades.
I could also argue that Hickenlooper was helped by having an incompetent GOP challenger, and a rabid third-party as his competition. And yes, Chris Romer stumbled in a variety of ways. Yet, they won with hopeful campaigns. That is a welcome ground shift from the decades on the shores of the politics of fear.
The second noticing is what I saw in looking at the City’s unofficial pdf map of voting returns (timed at 11:30 local time on election night). After the first round of on May 3, the daily paper described 6th Avenue as teh dividing line: North Denver for Hancock, South Denver for Romer.
Well, the unofficial map shows it clearly — the southeast went heavily for Denver. Turns out that the Romer campaign’s far eastern flank (if there ever was one) collapsed over the last month. But, it wasn’t just that but a slew of snipy, nasty quotes that nixed his campaign in the four weeks from the general election to the run off.
As a Colorado resident registered in a rural Colorado county, I am much relieved that our next mayor will is built upon the hopey and changey stuff of the victor, rather than the ugly politics of the defeated.
Lastly, for the sake of democracy, I am quite relieved that Denver didn’t catapult another legacy politician into office. Between the Clintons, Bushes, Kennedys and dozens of others at the municipal and state levels, we have more than enough children of politicians who are voted into office.
