For voters, the election to choose Denver’s next mayor still seems off on the horizon. For would-be candidates and their operatives, the time to figure it out and saddle up is much closer.

Given approval of the recent ballot issue, that election has been moved up a month. Mark your calendars for Tuesday, April 4, 2023, with mail-in voting starting weeks before.

Even with a big political year between now and then, it is not too soon to begin to assess the lay of the land and the potential field.

Most elections are shaped by what has come before, and the 2023 mayoral contest is sure to follow suit. After ten-and-a-half years of Michael Hancock (nearly 12 come the election), candidates will be measured as much in juxtaposition to him as to each other.

With that in mind, the market demand is likely to be on freshness, optimism and straight-talk. Candidates with demonstrated problem-solving ability may move to the head of the line.

Denver being Denver, a baseline level of progressive talk will be required. But that, by itself, is unlikely to get the job done. This time out, no candidate of real ambition will cite Portland or Seattle as aspirational examples.

Candor and clarity will be rewarded. Were I still in the business of crafting political slogans, I might well recommend the line of “It’s not okay” to some candidate willing to talk hard truths about the mess of DIA, omnipresent homeless encampments, escalating crime, downtown hollowed out, and an endless monotony of cookie-cutter apartment buildings.

As this campaign nears, Denver is a tired place – tired of restricted pandemic living, for sure, but also tired of a long list of problems seemingly without progress or improvement. Whether it is cause or effect or just happenstance convergence, Hancock seems a tired mayor with any inspiration long since spent. His third term will go down as a conclusive argument against third terms.

Accordingly, energy and hope will be paramount in selecting his successor. Over four decades of mayoral elections, Denver has a distinct pattern of replacing an insider ( William H. McNichols Jr.) with an outsider (Federico Peña) with an insider ( Wellington Webb) with an outsider (John Hickenlooper) with an insider (Hancock).

It will be no surprise if that alternating regimen repeats, which would not be good news to some of those presumed to be at the front of the prospective pack.

But before getting to that list, this mayoral campaign will come with a new variable and complication. Prodded by all of the usual suspects who think further and further limits on campaign contributions are the answer to what ails our system, ever-pliant Denver voters a few years back adopted stringent new campaign finance rules along with some public funding.

Where the previous limit for a contribution to a mayoral campaign had been $3,000, it is now $1,000. The limit is a fractional $500 if the candidate opts into the public matching funds.

Of course, the predictable effect of this will be to force candidates to spend ever-more time raising money, to dictate shoestring operations with later starts, and, most problematically, to further empower those dubious independent expenditure committees with far less transparency and accountability.

Three names sit atop nearly all informed lists of likely candidates. They are former Hickenlooper chief of staff and Chamber President Kelly Brough, House Speaker Alec Garnett and state legislator Leslie Herod.

Questions abound about each. For Brough, is a city where growth and congestion have been dominant issues ready to turn the keys over to the Chamber of Commerce? For Garnett, can a white male still get elected in this woke moment? For Herod, how far do self-regard and self-promotion go when not one, but two legislative colleagues used the same word in describing her as a possible mayor? That word: “Disaster.”

In many cases, one cannot help but think that the attraction of the job has less to do with a passion for Denver or a deep interest in municipal issues than with the logjam in Democratic ranks and the lack of other paths to upward political mobility. Were there an available Congressional seat, does anyone really believe that Herod, Garnett and others would not be looking there first?

As to other prospective candidates, term-limited Councilwoman Robin Kniech, never in doubt as to the smartest person in the room, seems likely to enter the fray. Rumors swirl that colleagues Chris Herndon, Debbie Ortega, Jolon Clark and Kevin Flynn may be looking at the prize, though odds are that few, if any, will get to the starting gate.

Former candidates Jamie Giellis, Lisa Calderon and Penfield Tate are weighing their options. For Tate, there are multiple considerations. He just led the trouncing of the Hancock administration over the Park Hill golf course. But he has also run, and lost, twice previously.

State Senator Chris Hansen is another frequently heard name. He is someone of talent with no evident political place to go. Does Safety Manager Murphy Robinson take a shot and is there any appetite for a Hancock insider? The names of former Downtown Partnership head Tami Door and Denver Center for the Performing Arts CEO Janice Sinden are bandied about. To the extent that business leaders are trying to recruit one or both, what does that say about Brough?

It is hard to envision a field without a serious Latino contender. But if both Calderon and Ortega pass, who else is there? There is no groundswell for City Clerk Paul Lopez. Legislators Julie Gonzales and Alex Valdez both seem better suited to other offices. Police Chief Paul Pazen’s name has been mentioned, but that seems quite a stretch.

Sixteen months before his first election, few would have come up with John Hickenlooper’s name. Do not underestimate the opportunity for someone far outside the known pack to still surface and do quite well. Here is a potential wildcard to ponder: national vote-at-home advocate and high-profile political independent Amber McReynolds.

And one more opening observation: Mayoral elections operate by a different set of rules. When there is no incumbent seeking reelection, the perceived front-runner is in a highly vulnerable position. Don’t believe me? Just ask presumed mayors Norm Early, Ari Zavaras and Chris Romer. Will Kelly Brough make that a quartet?