Credit: Cartoon Movement

It may be a bit too early to start saying that staffers are bailing in droves from the scandal-plagued Hickenlooper administration, but with a recent slew of high profile departures it seems that some of Hick’s most trusted advisers aren’t counting on a re-elect and are leaving for greener, and safer, pastures.

It started with Hick’s longtime lobbyist and personal friend RD Sewald leaving for a private lobbying job. Some speculated at the time that he simply had a falling out with his boss, former legislator and Hick’s top lobbyist, Christine Scanlan. But with the recent announcement by Scanlan that she’s leaving to head a liberal think-tank in Aspen, it was probably less of a falling out and more of RD figuring he’d get while the getting was good.

The problems for Hick have started to mount. Some self-inflicted, others due to his lack of management and leadership.

This is partially due to Hick signing off on a legislative agenda that the Durango Herald‘s Joe Hanel called the “most liberal ever.”

But that’s not the whole story.

The head of Hick’s Health Department, Chris Urbina, abruptly resigned under fire due to a scandal involving his lab techs falsifying evidence.

The lab testing scandal came on the heels of two months of bad news for Hickenlooper including public safety scandals at the Department of Corrections, the Parole Board letting violent criminals loose and unsupervised on our streets, and Hick’s cowardly decision to indefinitely postpone the execution of a mass murderer.

Then last week, in a Friday news dump, the head of Hickenlooper’s Division of Insurance, Jim Riesberg, announced he’s packing his bags and hitting the road before having to deal with Obamacare implementation. Even the liberal Denver Post wrote that the timing of Riesberg’s decision comes at an “awkward time” for the agency.

We here at the Peak doubt whether Riesberg’s decision to leave had anything to do with Hick’s abysmal numbers in the April PPP poll or the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, but we’re sure that as the scandals and Hick’s hedges (most recently on the Democrats’ $1B tax increase) mount, more high profile defections will come as Hick’s top aides look to cash in on what little time and political capital he has left.