In a wide-ranging 20-minute interview with Colorado Politics Friday afternoon, Attorney General Cynthia Coffman said her transportation plans aren’t quite formed yet, though she recognized it as a critical issue she’ll face as governor.

We’ll be bringing our readers more of that interview in the next few days, examining her campaign timing, fundraising and where her supporters will come from. It’s worth coming back for.

The legislature is deadlocked on funding transportation to unclog highways, expand transit and generally keep ut with growth. Republicans don’t want to raise taxes and would prefer to take money from the existing state budget. Democrats don’t want to slash social programs in the budget to pay for roads and bridges. Coffman seems to be in the middle.

The current governor, Democrat John Hickenlooper, being wishy washy isn’t helping, said the newest of nine candidates in the governor’s race. Coffman announced on Wednesday.

She noted that El Paso and Douglas counties are looking at raising money locally to speed up the widening of Interstate 25 between Monument and Castle Rock.

“That’s a really important partnership to be able to do that,” Coffman said. “We will have to look at whether we’re targeting our transportation dollars where the most people will be impacted positively.

“And I just don’t know the answer to that yet. That’s part of what I have to dig into is to see as we’ve tried to focus on public transportation and moving people in the urban corridor have we taken our eyes off of just basic things like adding a lane to I-25.”

She’s open to bonding and toll lanes before asking voters for a tax increase.

“There are things we can do short of increasing our taxes in order to pay for transportation,” Coffman said. “I think people are ready for that. I think we saw that in Colorado Springs Tuesday night, that people understand they’re going to have to invest in order to get things done.”

But are we going to create a state of haves and have-nots by a local focus, as Democrats allege, pointing to poorer communities that can’t raise enough taxes ?

Coffman said as she traveled the state as attorney general encountered rural people who say, “Wait a minute, all the financial resources are going to the Front Range to handle all these newcomers, and here we are, and we’ve never recovered from the recession adequately.”

She contends, “We have to pay attention to the entire state, and it’s a unique challenge we have. I think we can do it as a state, but it’s a challenge.”

Then she turned on Hickenlooper.

“I think part of what you’re seeing is a reflection of the fact the governor and the legislature have not been in sync on transportation funding and seem to be having solo conversations, monologues rather than dialogues about transportation,” she said. Wait for it. “Until we get a governor who works a little bit better with the legislature in partnership on these things, I think we’re going to continue to see that disconnect.”

She recalled when she worked for Bill Owens, the last Republican governor, he would bring people into his office and sit them down at his long conference table and say, “We’re not leaving here until we iron this out.”

“It works if the governor has the power and has the will and is not just focused on being popular but is focused on being a problem solver you can get things done,” Coffman said.

She continued, “You have to be tough, you have to have a backbone in the job of governor in order to forge compromises. And that’s what I bring to this. I think I can do it without burning bridges, without destroying relationships that I have – and I have them with the Democrats as well as the Republicans.

But money from the state budget?

“I think it’s feasible to find more money in the state budget for transportation, but it’s not going to be easy with the Department of Corrections, the Medicaid budget and the education requirements that we have in Colorado. There’s a small sliver of the pie that’s left to be divided up. This is not an easy one, but if everyone is focused on it, and it’s where I think the people want us to be focused, yes, I think we can do it.”