KOPP COULD MAKE BID FOR RNCWe hear that former Senate Minority Leader Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, is set to announce that he’ll be running for Colorado’s Republican National Committeeman post, which is up for election at the GOP state assembly next month. If our sources are correct, Kopp will be the overwhelming favorite to take over the seat from former State Treasurer Mark Hillman, and join National Committeewoman Lilly Nuñez, who plans to seek another term.

Kopp stepped down from his legislative seat last fall in order to devote more time to his young family following the passing of his wife, Kimberly, after a battle with cancer. (Littleton Republican Tim Neville won appointment to Kopp’s old seat, though because of the way the new Senate maps were drawn, he has found himself in the district of Sen. Jeanne Nicholson, D-Black Hawk, whose term isn’t up until 2014. In the immortal words of The Denver Post’s Tim Hoover, Neville found himself “airbrushed” out of the chamber.) Our sources tell us that Kopp plans to announce his bid for the seat at the Jefferson County GOP assembly. And while there has been chatter among party faithful that a Tea Party or similarly feisty Republican should make a bid for one of the RNC seats, we also hear that Kopp’s intentions should clear the field.

Why the buzz this year? For starters, the National Committeeman position is one of only three superdelegate slots from Colorado – the other two are the National Committeewoman and the state GOP chair, Ryan Call – granting an automatic ticket to the Republican National Convention in Tampa at the end of August, potentially one of the hottest seats in the country, in more ways than one. (We heard from a Republican weighing a bid for RNC delegate this week who stated it thus: “The words ‘Tampa’ and ‘August’ should never be spoken in the same sentence,” and we agree.)

Kopp, Nuñez and Call could potentially hold some important cards if, as presidential candidate Newt Gingrich predicted Tuesday night, the GOP nomination is headed toward an open, or brokered, convention.

BROPHY CONSIDERING RUN AGAINST HICK?

What do John Andrews, Rollie Heath and Greg Brophy have in common?

Check back a little over two years from now, and the answer could be that they’re all state senators who challenged immensely popular governors.

Our sources tell us that Brophy, the wiry (but oh so fit) Republican from Wray, is quietly putting together a campaign to take on Gov. John Hickenlooper, the Denver Democrat who cruised to election against divided opposition two years ago, in the 2014 election.

The avid cyclist’s reputation is mostly sterling even among Democrats – we can’t tell you how many donkeys have started a conversation with the phrase, “I don’t agree about much with Greg Brophy, but I’ve got to respect the guy…” – and there aren’t many Republicans who would stand in his way, should he deign to offer himself up as the state’s traditional sacrificial challenger to a governor seeking reelection. (We can’t remember the last time an elected governor was defeated at the polls in Colorado, though fill-in former Lite Guv John Vanderhoof did lose to Democratic challenger Dick Lamm during the Watergate landslide of 1974. Other than that, incumbent governors simply don’t lose reelection bids in the state.)

Still, Brophy might relish the run against a looming national figure, as Hicknlooper’s name is one of only a handful regularly dropped when Democrats try to look beyond the Obama Years, and Republicans are lining up to run statewide in 2014, which could repeat the usual off-year election victories for the party that lost the presidency the last time around. Complicating matters: Should freshman sensation U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner make a bid for incumbent Dem Mark Udall’s Senate seat (for the same reason that off-year elections tend to favor the party in waiting), Brophy would be a natural heir for the 4th CD.

Complicating matters further: Did prodigious tweeter Brophy go a tweet too far last week when he piled on against Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke with a reference to the birth control controversy that’s peeling advertisers by the dozen from right-wing talker Rush Limbaugh?

BENNET MOVES SENATE DIGS TO CAP HILL

The days when a constituent could ride a kayak to see the senator are gone.

Colorado’s junior senator, Democrat Michael Bennet, no longer looks out on lovely Confluence Park from his senatorial window. His main state headquarters moved last week from the offices he inherited from his predecessor, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, to spiffy new quarters at 11th and Sherman, just south of the State Capitol.

Bennet’s staff – which operates a total of seven offices across the state – traded in the old location next to the flagship REI store and some of Denver’s hippest dining establishments for quarters in the Colorado State Land Board building, where we hear the roofs don’t leak, and there’s plenty of free parking for constituents. (The leaking ceilings in the old location were more than a nuisance, having destroyed outright a few senatorial computers over the years.)

Bonus: the new offices are LEED-certified at the Silver level, which means they’re pretty darn energy efficient, and staffers are situated in an open-office environment without the restrictions of walls and hierarchies, which, we hear, could lead to more collaborative approaches to lunch orders and other business.Stay tuned for an open house at the new location, likely within the next couple weeks.