What About John Hickenlooper?

What does Rutt Bridges’ announcement for governor mean for Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper? Here’s the scoop…

We’ve heard from several sources that Hickenlooper has told Bridges that he will step aside – for now – and wait to see how his campaign progresses. He did not, however, rule out running for governor himself if Bridges’ campaign (which got off to an auspicious start) looks like it is treading water.

Hickenlooper’s view is that of the three top Democrats – Bridges, Bill Ritter, and Joan Fitz-Gerald – Bridges is the only candidate who has the ability to grow and improve as a candidate. But if Bridges doesn’t progress as a candidate, then Hickenlooper may very well step in and run himself. Hick is being strongly encouraged by a number of Democrats to run for governor, and this is apparently where he stands right now.

If Bridges’ first day as a candidate is any indication of his future, we may see Hickenlooper sooner rather than later.

Comments

[inside city hell]

*This post has been removed by Colorado Pols. There was nothing wrong with the post itself, but Colorado Pols does not permit comments that attempt to misrepresent the commenter (see e-mail address of this commenter). If you don't want to leave your name, just make up a pseudonym. But you cannot pretend to represent a politician or an office if you do not represent them.

[George]

You used the word "auspicious" to describe the Bridges's campaign. Were you being sarcastic with the word "auspicious," or don't you understand the word? Your earlier posts only cast criticism on the campaign.

[Hick Fan]

Tacky, guys, really tacky. All the post did was rip on your favorite guy, so you just HAD to take it down. Can't stand anyone questioning the GREAT HICK, can you? Man, I mean, I like the guy, but I don't manipulate the media for him. What ever happened to this being an open forum? Now I get it - Coloradopols is actually a stand-in website for Ed Perlmutter and John Hickenlooper, not for the free exchange of ideas.

You could have just changed the person's email address, you didn't have to pull the post. But I guess you made your statement about email addresses - no, wait, you didn't actually, you just made your statement about censorship and how much you worship Hickenlooper.

Tacky, guys, really tacky.

[1st amendment]

Removing a post based on the presumption that the email was phoney is poor judgement. And how did you determine that the post was not from someone inside the Mayor's office? Is it too hard for you to believe that an insider could be participating in this forum? Considering the amount of phoney email addresses allowed to be used by other posters, eliminating the content seems like Hickenlooper protection police tactics to me.

[Alva Adams]

Two important points here:

1. We didn't do anything we haven't always done. This topic came up months ago, and we have always said that we do not permit a) personal name-calling attacks, and b) posting under an e-mail address that you do not represent. We have removed posts because they misrepresented someone a dozen times before, and it's been both Republicans and Democrats doing it. You can post under pseudonyms here and criticize whatever you want, but there's no reason you need to use an e-mail address that might indicate you are representing someone else.

2. Read what we wrote: "There was nothing wrong with the post itself, but Colorado Pols does not permit comments that attempt to misrepresent the commenter." You could have reposted the exact same comment, but with a different e-mail address, and we wouldn't have touched it.

How do we know [email protected] was being misrepresented as a poster from the Mayor's office? Because the generic Mayor's office email address is [email protected]

As for the comment "You could have changed the e-mail address," we absolutely would not have done that. Under no circumstances would we alter the content of a comment. If it is inappropriate, we will remove it altogether, but we're not about to get into the business of altering other people's comments.

These are the same rules that are applied to everyone across the board. You could have easily just reposted the comment with a different e-mail address. Nobody is asking you to use your real name or e-mail address, but you can't use someone else's name or e-mail address (unless they are a dead governor, of course).

If we allow people to come on here and pretend to be a representative of an elected official or an elected official themselves, then the credibility of the discussion is compromised. Call it a conspiracy theory. Call it whatever you want. But these are pretty reasonable and necessary rules in our opinion.

[vladimir]

Go to
www.bridgesforcolorado.com
That site reeks of loser -- they guy is a millionaire and the site is terrible
I wonder how much a pal of one of his campaign staff charged him for that piece of garbage --
Hey keep this up Rutt and you will be just like Beth McCann -- crying her eyes out while her campaign team skipped out early --
Rutt you are being pimped and being made to look like a buffoon and a fool -- have your staff bring back the camera that was cute and really made you look particularly stupid -- Rutt meet Rollie

[give me a break dead govs]

So the dead govs figure the best move is to remove the unoffensive post and leave the allegedly bogus email address?

Come on boys and girls, that backwards logic doesn't make sense.

[Alva Adams]

Otherwise, you would have assumed that we just removed the post because we didn't like what it said, and that wasn't the point.