Hickenlooper and the Rule of 14

Not too long ago I stumbled across an interesting bit of trivia. With only one exception - Lyndon Johnson - since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, no one has been elected president who took more than 14 years to climb from his first major elective office to election as either president or vice president.

Of course, it's silly to blame John Kerry's failed presidential bid on an obscure stat like this. But there are a couple of important takeaways.

1. Politicians either get hot and rise quickly or they stall out.

2. People get sick of politicians after about 14 years.

Now, I'm not saying that Democrat Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is ever running for president. But I am saying that popularity has a short shelf life. So if he wants to run for governor of Colorado, now might be the time to do it.

In the 2004 election cycle, I heard a number of Republicans claim Hickenlooper was own of their own. Of course, he's not. But that's beside the point. If Democrat Bill Ritter wins in 2006 and serves a couple of terms, Hickenlooper will have to wait until 2014. By that point, he will have been a major Democratic player for a dozen years. The Republicans will have plenty of ammo to build a case against him. And his shelf life will be nearing the expiration date.