Politics & Prose

Ex-Denver Mayor Webb Endorses Richardson, Obama, AND Clinton

By Jenny Shank, 4-11-07

About eight people waited at the Boulder Book Store Tuesday night for former Denver mayor Wellington Webb to arrive and discuss his recently-released autobiography, Wellington Webb: The Man, The Mayor & The Making of Modern Denver.  I’ve met people in Boulder who actually boast of never venturing into Denver, and the sparseness of the crowd for one of the most influential living figures in Denver history reinforced the impression that most Boulderites wouldn’t notice if a huge crevasse opened under that city to the southeast.  A bookstore employee announced that Webb was running late, and one woman thought a different author was to appear.  “It’s not Tim Hillman speaking?” she asked, holding up a paperback.  “No, it’s the mayor tonight,” the bookstore employee explained.  “I wonder where we’re supposed to be,” the woman pondered.

I ran into Webb twice during his twelve-year tenure as mayor, once when he and his security detail swept into the Capitol Hill King Soopers in a black Lincoln Town Car on a quick grocery mission, the other time when he was eating at the Cherokee Restaurant downtown, a big, hale man at a busy table, the city swirling around him as he took his working lunch.  When Webb arrived a few minutes late to his speaking engagement at the Boulder Book Store, he conveyed a considerably different impression.  He was gracious and began speaking even though the crowd had by then dwindled to four, but Webb managed to draw in a handful more as he talked.  He had a grandfatherly air as he spoke about how he decided to write his autobiography to preserve some memories for his grandchildren.

Webb spoke proudly of his achievements in office.  In the book, he writes, “We didn’t leave much to be done,” and on Tuesday night he said, “We built just about everything in Denver, including Mile High Stadium—I still don’t use the other name.” He reflected briefly on his tenure as mayor, saying that “probably the greatest adventure was running for mayor in the first place.” He recounted how in the initial polling for his first run at mayor, he had only 7 percent support compared to Norm Early’s 67%. 

He won Denver over by walking the city, “not going home, spending 42 days on the streets of Denver, each night in a different person’s home.” Some of his overnight lodgings, he said, were arranged “only three hours before I arrived.” At the end of this, he won the election, lost 35 pounds, developed severe blisters on his feet that had to be lanced and fluid in his knees that had to be drained.  “Denver elects what the electorate sees as smart, but maverick type people to be mayor, especially the last three,” he said.

Retirement hasn’t dulled Webb’s political skills--when I asked him who he supported in the 2008 Presidential election, he said “Richardson, Clinton, and Obama.” He smiled.  “Is that vague enough for you?” He added, “I’m also not convinced that John Edwards may not win.  If Clinton and Obama slug it out, we may have a repeat of what happened in Iowa last time,” when the front-runners, Howard Dean and Dick Gebhardt, faltered and John Kerry emerged. 

One woman wasn’t satisfied with his answer.  “Which campaign would you work for?” she asked.  “I don’t have the energy to work on any of them,” Webb said, noting that in the past he’d worked on the Jimmy Carter, Gary Hart, and Bill Clinton campaigns.  A man asked what Webb thought of Bill Richardson’s chances.  “I think he’s taking his best shot in the hopes that if it doesn’t work out, the Vice Presidency, the Secretary of State, or the head of the U.N. might be in the cards.  He’s term limited and he loves foreign affairs--he has a passion for it and he’s good at it.”

One man asked if he’d consider running for mayor of Denver again, and Webb said he wouldn’t.  “Hickenlooper is a good friend, and he supported me in 1995.” By way of explaining why he’d never venture into mayoral politics again, he went on to comment that he’d “never had a great relationship with the newspapers.  Many of the young writers tend to editorialize, instead of straight reporting.” He listed two wounds the press had inflicted.  On the night when Hickenlooper was elected, Webb and his wife Wilma went up on stage to congratulate Hickenlooper and his wife, but in the paper the next day, Wilma was cut out of the photo.  Webb said that four people who’d worked for him went on to work for Hickenlooper, and the newspaper dubbed them the new mayor’s “brain trust.” “When they worked for me,” Webb said, “they were cronies.  But for him they’re a brain trust.”

In conclusion, Webb said that one of the comments that readers of his book have had for him was that, “they recognize a lot of names of people that they know in the book.  There’s a lot of Denver history in it.” And then the handful of Boulder residents interested in Denver’s history went up to the former mayor and had their books signed.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.