Betsy Markey looks like she will be at the top of the list for potential Republican pick-ups in the 2010 elections. This means that the largely rural district will be getting an abnormal amound of attention from the national press and Washington D.C.-based Roll Call is already covering the Republican primary. A recent article reports that Rep. Cory Gardner is already consolidating support at the national level, a move that could potentially give him an insurmountable fundraising advantage:

Among the politicians that have been mentioned by party strategists in Colorado and Washington, D.C., the man who seems to be generating the most talk is state Rep. Cory Gardner (R).

Gardner has served in the GOP leadership in Colorado’s General Assembly and his state legislative district includes a large number of the 4th Congressional district’s eastern counties. In an interview, he was quick to bring up his rural roots while insinuating that Markey’s support stems mostly from Fort Collins and Larimer County, which was the only county in the district that Obama won last year.

Gardner said Monday that his candidacy, should he decide to run, would have “a district-wide appeal.”

“He’s not only a credible legislator but has been a model for Republicans,” Floyd Ciruli, an independent pollster based in Denver, said of Gardner. The state legislator is “someone from the Eastern part of the district but yet able to do well and not completely die in Larimer, which is what happened to [Musgrave]. ... I don’t think he has much of an identity [in Fort Collins], on the other hand I don’t think he necessarily is going to raise the hackles that” Musgrave did in that part of the district.

A National Republican Congressional Committee spokeswoman called Gardner “a rising star among a deep bench of strong Republican talent in Colorado.”

Perhaps the most perplexing report to emerge from this article is the fact that the only announced candidate for CD-4, Tom Lucero, has not met with the NRCC while the two unannounced candidates, Cory Gardner and Diggs Brown, have met with the national organization:

There’s been some talk among Republicans about drafting Fort Collins City Council member Diggs Brown into the race. Brown, a major in the National Guard, is currently serving overseas in Africa but at this point in the cycle he’s the only other potential candidate besides Gardner to have met with the NRCC.