Mayor goes all-out for election

Denver voters should prepare for publicity blitz

Daniel J. Chacon, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, October 12, 2007

Denver's 16th Street Mall looked more like a set on Sesame Street Thursday than a shopping and entertainment corridor.

During the lunch hour, Mayor John Hickenlooper, an allosaurus named Mr. Bones and the letters A through I hit the mall to campaign for the mayor's mill levy request and bond package.

Ballots in the all-mail Nov. 6 election will start to go out today.

If you missed Thursday's publicity stunt, there's a good chance the campaign will show up on your TV, telephone, computer, mailbox or even at your door.

"It's an entire communications plan," said David Kenney, one of several political consultants working on the mayor's "Better Denver" campaign.

"TV is often the most visible part of it, but in this multimedia age, you need to communicate with people in very many different ways," Kenney said.

The campaign has raised just over $1 million, according to the latest finance report. Of the nearly $758,000 spent so far, more than $517,000 has been for TV and cable advertising.

Voters will consider nine ballot questions - a 2.5 mill levy increase and $550 million in bond projects - that will appear as Issues A through I on the ballot.

If all nine questions are approved, the owner of a home valued at $255,000 would pay $63.27 more in property taxes annually.

Hickenlooper had promised to campaign aggressively.

At the mall, he led a pack of about 200 supporters who chanted and waved signs from Cleveland Place to Arapahoe Street.

Near California Street, he was asked to slow down because the people dressed as letters were having a hard time keeping up.

"I was E for a while and that" didn't go over too well, said 5-foot-3 Julia Gough, who was dressed as the letter I. "I'm too little."

The campaigning reached at least one undecided voter.

Dan Lunde, eating a bratwurst at Skyline Park, said he was unaware of the issues but would decide how to vote by reading a campaign flier he received.

Lunde said he might vote for the ballot issues despite the property tax increase that would mean. "I don't own any property, so sure," he said.

Inactive voters

• 160,203 voters are listed as inactive in Denver. They have until 7 p.m. Nov. 6 to reactivate.

• The number includes people who didn't vote in the 2004 and 2006 general elections or had a mailing returned as undeliverable.

chacond@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5099