JIMMY MALONE WEPT:

Clear the air on Romanoff deal: Coloradans deserve to know the details about any job offer made to the Senate candidate in exchange for not running. (The Denver Post, 6/02/10)

The Denver Post last September quoted unnamed sources that said Obama's deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina, contacted former state House Speaker Romanoff, who hadn't yet announced his candidacy, with specific suggestions for Washington jobs in exchange for his staying out of the race against appointed Sen. Michael Bennet.

The White House denied any such offer, but sources told The Post's Michael Riley: "Romanoff turned down the overture, which included mention of a job at USAID, the foreign aid agency."

Obama endorsed Bennet the day after Romanoff formally announced he was in the race.

We read Riley's story with particular interest. Only days before it ran, after hearing whispers of a Romanoff job offer, we asked the former House speaker directly whether he had been offered a job by the White House to drop out of the race.

He told us unequivocally that he had not been offered a position.

The matter dropped off the political radar until Sestak admitted on the campaign trail that he was offered some sort of job.

Romanoff now refuses to answer questions about whether he was, in fact, offered a job. In fact, Romanoff refuses even to offer an explanation for why he won't answer the question. And yet, like Obama, Romanoff's campaign theme has been to run against the Washington way of doing things.

We don't know what to make of all the secrecy. Without an explanation, voters are left to wonder who to believe. And if Obama doesn't mind the position in which that places Romanoff, he ought to care about where it places him.

The Chicago Way isn't supposed to be ineptly.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 2, 2010 8:06 PM