May 15, 2013 01:55 PM UTC

Tancredo, Foster--Anybody But Brophy?

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• by: Colorado Pols

Kurtis Lee of the Denver Post reports today that former Congressman and 2010 third-party gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo is considering a rematch run for Governor against incumbent Democrat John Hickenlooper:

Contacted Wednesday by The Denver Post, Tancredo said he has not made a final decision on whether to run.

In 2010, Tancredo ran in a tumultuous gubernatorial contest as a third-party candidate, netting more than 35 percent of the vote in a lopsided Democratic victory by then Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. Republican candidate Dan Maes received 11 percent of the vote.

Tancredo has since switched his party affiliation back to Republican.

A more interesting prospective GOP candidate for 2014 that we've been hearing about in the last few days is Tim Foster, who currently serves as the President of Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction. Foster was Colorado House Majority Leader in the 1990s, and was appointed to CMU under former GOP Gov. Bill Owens in 2004. As we've reported in this space previously, Foster has at least to some extent operated CMU as a rotating employment service for Republican operatives and their families.

Bottom line: we don't think Tancredo has a shred of viability for a run in 2014. Foster would certainly do better than Tancredo, but a run against the popular Gov. John Hickenlooper–for an undeluded politician, that is–would be more about raising one's name ID for another run for office down the road than actually hoping to win in 2014. And we could see that as a legitimate long-term incentive for Foster to run.

Above all, the uptick in rumors about Republican gubernatorial candidates not named Sen. Greg Brophy, widely reported to be considering a run for Governor, is bad for Brophy. We consider the prospect of a Brophy run for Governor to mostly be wonderful news for  Hickenlooper–and for the sake of downticket 2014 races, perhaps Republicans realize that a different candidate from the gaffe-prone and immoderate Brophy is needed.