Bill Ritter has announced the Secretary of State finalists. They are Ken Gordon, Andrew Romanoff, and Bernie Buescher.

As I wrote several weeks ago, Ritter had a real opportunity here to appoint someone with real experience who would put the job before politics. By opening up the process to applicants, he offered a little hope that he was actually looking for someone based on qualifications and not cronyism. Several excellent (and yes, Democratic) candidates applied including Denver County Clerk Rosemary Rodriguez and former Denver County Clerk Sherry Jackson.

Instead, Gov. Ritter has opted to use the position to reward his political allies and has given us a list of candidates who are only going to use the office to advance their own careers.

This all begs the question: if Ritter was just going to give the appointment to one of his allies and ignore the qualified candidates, then why did he put on the charade of taking applications in the first place?