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Big win for jail plan a victory for mayor, too

Lou Kilzer, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 4, 2005 at midnight

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Perhaps the biggest winner in Tuesday's election wasn't even on the ballot:

Mayor John Hickenlooper.

The first-term mayor prevailed where his veteran predecessor had failed - he persuaded tax-conscious voters to put money into a jail.

That's not an easy sell anywhere, said political consultant Floyd Ciruli, who watched this election from the sidelines.

Moreover, the ballot measure was not just a Band-Aid for problems in the city's jails. Voters instead approved a major measure that will cost $600 million in principal and interest and increase yearly operating costs by another $6 million.

"Even if it was close, it would go down as a win for the mayor," Ciruli said. "He still has the magic touch."

The mayor also championed a metrowide sales tax last year for FasTracks and a Denver Public Schools bond measure in 2003, both of which won at the polls.

"Everybody keeps talking about a honeymoon for the mayor," said another political consultant, Eric Sondermann. "But at some time it's not just a good honeymoon. It's a good marriage."

Hickenlooper had invested heavily in the vote. He was the featured attraction in a quarter-million-dollar TV ad campaign and in direct mailings.

If the justice center had failed, it could have raised questions on how deep the mayor's admittedly broad popularity runs.

Instead, the vote tops off a trifecta for the mayor this year. A poll in recent months pegged his popularity at higher than 90 percent, Time magazine recently named him one of the nation's top mayors, and now he has won an election on an often-unpopular topic.

"The winning streak is intact," Sondermann said.

To be sure, Hickenlooper may have faced much smaller odds than did former Mayor Wellington Webb when his idea for a new jail went down to a close defeat in 2001.

This time, the City Council was unanimously behind the plan, little neighborhood opposition developed and campaign donations flooded in.

But, still, it wasn't a cakewalk.

An underfunded opposition - which gathered less than $2,000 cash war chest - put up a spirited fight.

But in the end, the mayor's popularity proved too much.

"The big issue became the mayor," said justice center opponent Bill Vandenberg. "They had to attach the question to the mayor's popularity.

"That was smart."