December 02, 2008 09:39 PM UTC

Hickenlooper In the Cabinet Mix?

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• by: redstateblues

(Lame duck promoting at its best – promoted by Haners)

Cara DeGette over at the Colorado Independent brings up a really good point:

Where’s the Colorado beef? The Centennial State delivered victory to Barack Obama, and for weeks tongues have been a-wagging over cabinet appointments. It’s Bill Ritter this, Ken Salazar that, Federico Peña – well, duh. (And pssst… Bernie Buescher has made it clear he’s up for just about anything.) But so far for Colorado, nada. But wait! Can it be … John Hickenlooper for Transportation? Or maybe Housing?

Rumors are flying:

Word in some circles is that the mayor of Denver, a year into his second term, is on Obama’s short list for an appointment. Not a huge surprise, given the Denver mayor pulled off what will be remembered by almost everyone but peace activists and free speech advocates as a wildly successful Democratic National Convention, capped by Obama’s historic nomination acceptance speech before a crowd of 80,000.

John Hickenlooper is quite possibly the most popular politician in the state of Colorado, and undoubtedly the most popular pol in Denver (honorable mention to Andrew Romanoff.) He has the ability to run a large city, so it would make sense that he could run a department of the Federal government.

The question, is whether Mayor Hickenlooper even has any interest in leaving an office that he has performed so well in. Either way, all of the pols mentioned by DeGette have virtually no limit on their upward mobility.