Gossip surrounding whether or not Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper will be seeking a higher officer in 2016 is still abuzz, despite the governor's claims to the contrary.
A Politico story Thursday morning titled "Democratic Hopefuls See Political Gain in Gun Fight" was the source of the most recent buzz.
Hickenlooper has previously made it onto The Washington Post's "10 Most Popular Governors" list and was named the country's third most popular sitting governor in the country in 2011 by Public Policy Polling.
Speaking before the City Club of Denver last year however, Hickenlooper tried to dispel those notions:
A) I wouldn’t be good; B) I couldn’t possibly win; C) I love what I’m doing. So, president, vice president, senator – as long as the community is willing to re-elect me, I’ll be here as governor as long as you’ll have me.
This is not to say that the governor has been without his missteps, but it remains to be seen whether they will be remembered as stumbles or forgiven as the endearing qualities of a brewer-turned-governor. During Hickenlooper's State of the State speech this year, he garbled the last part of his speech and muttered "Oh Jesus" into the mircrophone.
More seriously, he has also taken heat from environmentalists over hydraulic fracturing.
In February of last year, Hickenlooper stirred up some controversy after recording an ad for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association in which he said, "we have not had one instance of groundwater contamination associated with drilling and hydraulic fracturing, and we plan to keep it that way." After the city of Longmont enacted a fracking ban, Hickenlooper's office told The Denver Post that they had decided "the state will not sue Longmont over the fracking ban."
Yet as KDVR's Eli Stokols pointed out, the governor's Chief Strategy Officer Alan Salazar, refueled speculations in an interview with 5280 Magazine this month.
In response to the question, "Will we ever see a President Hickenlooper?" Salazar gave a straightforward, "I hope so."