Meet Greg Brophy, a fourth-generation Coloradan, candidate for governor, veteran state senator, hunter, cyclist, melon farmer, Prius driver, and not Tom Tancredo.

“We now have a gun-control governor,” Brophy said of laws that limit ammunition magazines to 15 rounds and require universal background checks on all gun sales and transfers. “They passed the most extreme gun-control measures ever seen in the Rocky Mountain West.”

At one point in his remarks, Brophy, who has represented his sprawling eastern Colorado district in both the state House and Senate, brandished a large-capacity magazine he legally obtained from the manufacturer Magpul, which plans to leave the state with the passage of the new laws.

“Instead of limiting the capacity of ammunition magazines, we will work to increase the capacity of our highways,” Brophy said. “We will increase the number of charter schools and magnet schools.”

Sunday’s campaign kickoff was the first event on a four-day swing across Colorado where Brophy will meet with voters.

As mentioned, Brophy is not the Tom Tancredo who left the GOP to run as a Constitution-party candidate for governor in 2010, who garnered 36 percent in a three-way race against John Hickenlooper, the current incumbent Democrat, who finished with 51 percent. Tancredo has reregistered as a Republican and announced a gubernatorial bid in June.

With an image like this one on his campaign website, do you think Brophy thinks the gun issue is going to be big in Colorado next year?

If you thought you would never see the National Republican Congressional Committee speaking well of Democrats like California governor Jerry Brown, Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, departing Chicago mayor Richard Daley, and New York governor Andrew Cuomo . . . well, here’s their latest web ad:

Of course, the point is to draw a contrast between Democrats in state capitals and major cities, who have to balance budgets and who are embracing at least some spending cuts, and Washington Democrats, who have yet to find any serious non-defense cuts that they’re willing to embrace.

Third-party candidate and former Republican Tom Tancredo is within three in Colorado’s governor’s race.

Hickenlooper’s the most popular candidate for governor, with a 51/41 approval rating. But his support has been stuck in the 47-48% range since before the primary. When Tancredo and Maes were splitting the vote relatively evenly it looked like that would be enough but as Maes’ support continues to dwindle to closer to zero Hickenlooper all the sudden [sic] looks extremely vulnerable. Voters in the state have warmed up to Tancredo on a personal level as the campaign has progressed. In early August his favorability was an extremely negative 27/50 spread, but he’s now on slightly positive ground at 45/44.

Darn it, Hickenlooper, you’re going to cost me a Ruth’s Chris steak.

By the way, call me crazy, but I have a hard time believing that an electorate angry enough to put Tancredo close to the governor’s mansion is going to keep incumbent Democratic senator Michael Bennet.

Daddy duties interfered with the usual late-night primary-results blogging, but you guys had Battle 10 on the case.

You think you’re having a rough morning? Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff sold his house in Denver in order to finance a late round of ads in his Senate primary . . . only to finish with 46 percent. He’s single, so there’s no awkward breakfast conversation with a Mrs. Romanoff this morning.

Appointed incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet wins, so he can continue to run against Washington. He will take on Ken Buck, who won a hard-fought race against Jane Norton. I expect the Bennet campaign will do everything it can to make this race about one issue: high heels. Fairly or not, Buck off-the-cuff seemed to insinuate that “I don’t wear high heels” was a reason to vote for him, and the Democrats will make sure that comment gets before every woman in Colorado. (One other complication from that remark? Men tend to like women who wear high heels!) Having said that, Bennet enters the general election with a job-approval rating in the sterling mid-30s.

Scott McInnis and Dan Maes battled relentlessly in an exceptionally hard-fought contest to not be the GOP gubernatorial nominee, but in the end, Maes’s suggestion that a Denver bike program represented a United Nations plot — and willingness to go on MSNBC to discuss the idea before an incredulous anchor! — just wasn’t enough when matched up against McInnis’s admission that he used part of a judge’s work for a series of essays on water rights that the gubernatorial candidate published without crediting it, a mistake he called unacceptable and inexcusable, but also unintentional. (Initially blaming the staff was a nice touch.) As you probably guessed, Maes will be an underdog against the Democratic nominee, Denver mayor Hickenlooper.