What the Hell?!?by: Colorado PolsFri Jan 02, 2009 at 10:58:56 AM MST |
| By now we've all heard the news that Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet will be named Colorado's next U.S. Senator tomorrow. Our reaction?
What the hell? Governor Bill Ritter surely (hopefully) has a good reason for choosing Bennet to replace Ken Salazar, but from where we're sitting it's damn near impossible to see what that reason might be. By all accounts Bennet is brilliant guy who also happens to be fabulously wealthy from his days working with super-rich dude Phil Anschutz, but being smart and rich doesn't make this a wise choice. |
| Ritter needed to select someone who would have a great chance of winning re-election in 2010, and that's where Bennet makes absolutely no sense. It would have been hard for Ritter to choose someone who was less well-known around the state, which means that Republicans will have a great chance of running someone in 2010 who has far better name ID than the incumbent Senator.
It's no secret that Bennet has always had his eye on the U.S. Senate, and he probably would have been a strong candidate in an open election. But appointing him to the job makes little sense because of the other options available. In other words, Bennet is a good choice if all things are equal...but they're not. It's not that Bennet is a bad choice because of who he is - Bennet is a bad choice because there were so many better options. Ritter could have gone with a popular Mayor who enjoys tremendous name ID throughout the Front Range (Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper). He could have chosen an incumbent congressman with a big warchest who could seamlessly move into the office (Rep. Ed Perlmutter). He could have chosen a popular former Speaker of the House whose selection wouldn't have caused a domino effect of jockeying to fill his seat (Andrew Romanoff). Ritter could have chosen a lot of people who had strong name ID and weren't just known as "Denver people," but he didn't. He chose Michael Bennet. The obvious question is "why?" And there is no obvious answer. Bennet is well-liked in the business community, and Ritter has an almost pathological fear of angering the business community, so this may have played a role. Or perhaps Ritter wanted someone on the ticket in 2010 who wouldn't overshadow him in his own re-election bid. We could speculate for days on why Ritter chose Bennet, but unless there is some polling data that shows Bennet to be wildly popular around the state, this will go down as another uninspired and baffling move by Ritter. |