As Mike Bird conducted his early campaigning around Colorado during 1993, two additional candidates for the Republican nomination for governor appeared. Similar to Bird, both Dick Sargent and Phil Klingsmith did not formally "announce" their candidacies but simply let it be known they were running. By the fall of 1993, Sargent and Klingsmith were being invited to all the same candidate forums and candidate debates that Bird was being invited to.

DICK SARGENT FOR GOVERNOR

Dick Sargent twice ran as the Republican nominee for treasurer of Colorado - and lost both times. He worked at turning those negatives into positives, however, arguing that his two losing efforts in statewide races had "prepared" him for winning the governorship. Sargent also cited his extensive military experience as training him for "executive leadership."

Sargent was born in China, the son of Presbyterian missionaries there. In May of 1941 he, his mother, and his younger brother caught the last boat out of China, thereby escaping possible internment by the invading Japanese at the start of World War Two. Back in the United States, Sargent attended a private boarding high school, the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, graduating in 1952.

After briefly attending Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, Sargent entered the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Graduating in 1957, he joined the Marine Corps and served as a "single engine-single seat" jet fighter pilot. He also flew fighter-bombers. After five years of active duty, Sargent went into the Marine Reserves, where he eventually rose to the rank of full Colonel. Sargent was available to fly combat missions in the Vietnam War, but he was not called to duty in Vietnam.

Following his five years of active duty in the Marines, Sargent became a stock broker and investment adviser. In 1975 he and his wife, Kathy, and their two daughters settled in Golden, Colorado, a western suburb of Denver. Sargent quickly embarked upon a career in local politics, sitting on the city Planning Commission in Golden from 1979 to 1981. He then moved up to the City Council in Golden, serving from 1981 to 1985.

Sargent's family credentials were particularly strong. He and wife Kathy had been married 35 years. Their two grown daughters had married and there were three grandchildren. Sargent liked to spend his spare time gardening and was a beekeeper with 10 working hives in his backyard.

Sargent said he decided as early as November of 1985 that he would run for governor of Colorado in 1994. His campaign strategy was based mainly on the idea that attending a large number of campaign events around the state would build him a substantial reservoir of support in the more rural areas of Colorado. He noted that he was "out of the house" four nights a week for nine years giving talks and going to meetings in his effort to attain the Governor's Mansion in 1994.

The Sargent campaign organization consisted primarily of Dick Sargent himself. At various times during the campaign he had one paid assistant. All the rest of the workers in his campaign organization were volunteers.

Sargent targeted a variety of voting groups in Colorado which he felt could be persuaded to vote for him. He believed the state's 400,000 military veterans would support his candidacy because of his military experience. He also said he had spent

PHIL KLINGSMITH FOR GOVERNOR

The third Republican running for governor in the fall of 1993 was Phil Klingsmith, a lawyer from the small western Colorado city of Gunnison. He was also an educator, serving as chairman of the business and accounting department at Western State College in Gunnison.

Similar to Sargent, Klingsmith was distinguished by previous electoral defeat rather than victory. In 1984 he ran for the Republican nomination to the U.S. House of Representatives from western Colorado and was defeated in the primary.

RUMORED CANDIDACIES

Throughout the summer and fall of 1993, the Mike Bird for Governor campaign was disturbed by periodic rumors that this or that well-known Republican was going to run for governor. A number of these rumors involved potential candidates who would have made formidable opponents for Bird. Some of the best days for the Bird campaign staff were when these rumored candidates "announced" they would not be running for governor after all.

One of the rumored candidates was Colorado state Senator Tom Norton, a Republican from Greeley who was serving his first term as president of the state Senate. Norton possessed legislative credentials almost as impressive as Mike Bird's. Norton's campaign never got out of the talking stage, however, and he eventually told news reporters that the heavy press of business in the state legislature would keep him out of the governor's race.

Schuck was a two-pronged threat to Mike Bird. The first prong was that, as a successful businessman, he would have plenty of money with which to finance his own campaign. The second prong was that he was from Colorado Springs, the same city Bird was from, and thus would steal votes from Bird in his "home base."

The rumors of a Schuck candidacy were substantial. Schuck talked to large numbers of politically important people in the Republican Party in Colorado about the possibility of his running for governor. He even held a number of social gatherings at which his potential gubernatorial candidacy was the main topic of conversation. For a short period of time, a number of people in the Bird for Governor organization believed that Schuck was definitely going to run - and greatly reduce Bird's chances of winning the Republican nomination.

In the late fall of 1993 Steve Schuck sent a letter to key Republicans throughout the state. He said the economic downturn in Colorado in the late 1980s had greatly weakened his real estate business. He had not been able to rebuild his business, he said, to the point where he could comfortably take the time needed to mount a serious campaign. Steve Schuck, who apparently had really wanted to run for governor a second time, quit the race and "put it in writing."

When word reached the Mike Bird for Governor campaign that Steve Schuck had withdrawn, a key Bird advisor, greatly relieved by the news, said: "I'm so happy I'm doing handsprings around the office."

Whenever the Colorado press corps would write about potential Republican candidates for governor, the name of Colorado attorney general Gale Norton would always come up. Many of the Republican cognoscenti saw her as the strongest candidate the GOP could put in the field against an entrenched Democratic incumbent such as Roy Romer. Gale Norton was relatively young, a good campaigner, and as a woman candidate could potentially draw a higher percentage of the women's vote against a male opponent.

In the late fall of 1993 Paul Tauer, the mayor of Aurora, Colorado, said he was seriously considering running for governor and would make the race if he could build enough support and raise enough money. Tauer was a somewhat credible candidate for the 1994 Republican nomination. The city of Aurora is a large and fast growing suburb of Denver. It sprawls out from the eastern boundary of Denver, occupying large amounts of territory in both Arapahoe and Adams counties. After Denver and Colorado Springs, Aurora is the third largest city in Colorado. Only its close proximity to Denver keeps it from being more widely known throughout the United States.

There were some financial incentives that may have convinced Paul Tauer to stay on as mayor of Aurora rather than run for governor of Colorado. In the fall of 1993 Aurora voters had approved raising the mayor's salary from $12,000 a year to $40,000, effective in 1995.

In the fall of 1993 the rumored candidate for the Republican nomination for governor who most worried the Mike Bird for Governor team was Jim Nicholson, at that time the Republican national committeeman from Colorado. Nicholson was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a Vietnam veteran. Trained as a lawyer, he had gone into real estate development and was the president of Renaissance Homes, a major builder of upscale residential housing in the Denver metropolitan area.

But like so many others who heard the siren song of a possible gubernatorial candidacy, Jim Nicholson decided not to get into the contest. He had received the approval of his wife, Suzanne, but he finally concluded that he could not give up the time from his housing development business.

Thus it was that many credible, and in some cases formidable, Republicans considered running for the Colorado governorship in 1994 but, in the end, did not formally enter the race. The Bird for Governor campaign did everything in its power to help them decide not to come in. In every speech he gave throughout the summer and fall of 1993, Mike Bird made it very clear he was in the race to stay. A statement similar to the following was included in Bird's remarks at every appearance he made: "I will leave no hand unshaken, no county fair unattended, no speech ungiven, no baby unkissed - in short, I will leave no stone unturned in my quest to be elected governor of Colorado."