CO-Gov: Salazar Won’t Run, Will Back Hickenlooper

If you can bear to look at Chris Cillizza‘s Twitter background wallpaper, he has a rather important message up:

Ken Salazar will not run for gov of Colorado…will back Denver Mayor Hickenlooper…

We’ll update as more information becomes available. (UPDATE: Here’s Salazar‘s statement regarding Hickenlooper:)

“Colorado needs a strong, experienced leader with optimism and new ideas for carrying our state forward. That is why I am endorsing John Hickenlooper for governor of Colorado,” Salazar said in a statement. “John Hickenlooper is a uniter. He transcends political and geographic divides to bring people together to develop solutions. If he decides to run, he will make an excellent governor for the state of Colorado.”

RaceTracker: CO-Gov

30 thoughts on “CO-Gov: Salazar Won’t Run, Will Back Hickenlooper”

  1. Hickenlooper is the type of candidate we need to win this one. Usually when running for governor, especially this year, I think it is better to avoid candidates with DC ties.

  2. That’s unfortunate, I really like Salazar.

    Hickenlooper is very liberal, isn’t he? For some reason I keep thinking he is. Is there another big city (or recently former) mayor with a somewhat similar name?

    According to this article he seems like he’s more of the DLC type: http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm

    I see he’s part of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition.

    It might play well in the big city, but how will that play in Colorado as a whole?  

  3. Does no one else notice that Ken Salazar has explicitly endorsed the candidacy of a man who has not declared any candidacy?

    All Hickenlooper publicly has said is that he would give Ken Salazar the right of first refusal.

    Yeah, I know, this probably just signals that Hickenlooper is in, and that he’s told Ken that explicitly.

    But it’s still contrary to protocol, I’ve never seen anything like this before.

  4. Hickenlooper said he’d defer to Salazar yesterday.

    Salazar doesn’t choose to run and endoreses a Hickenlooper candidacy.

    All done within 48 hours.

    Maybe Democrats can learn to move faster than molasses.

    Except for Dorgan, this has been an awesome week.  Just to be a broken record about it, Democratic chances in 2010 are not good with bad candidates and are great with good candidates.

    Even the Colorado senate race now looks better, with two candidates set to prove themselves to the voters, with a strong candidate in the Gov race to partner with.  I’d rather hace Hick in the Senate race, but this will do.

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