Something strange is afoot in the Centennial State and it has to do with Governor Hickenlooper. After signing on to a gun control bill which had plenty of people upset – to the point where some of his own law enforcement folks were suing him – he has suddenly apologized.

Governor John Hickenlooper is offering an apology to some of his fiercest rivals on the issue of gun control: Colorado’s sheriffs.

The governor’s mea culpa came Friday when he spoke before an assembled group of sheriffs from around Colorado.

A Hickenlooper spokesman confirms that the Governor apologized to the sheriffs for not meeting with them prior to the passage of gun control bills they opposed. Hickenlooper also said his administration didn’t do a good job anticipating pushback on gun control. According to his spokesman, Hickenlooper pledged better communication in the future.

This is curious. The GOP – with Tom Tancredo as their candidate – has been hot on the Democrat Governor’s heels for a while now, particularly since the signing of the gun control law. But as recently as last month, the conventional wisdom was that the crisis was past, Hickenlooper was out of the woods, and was sitting on a somewhat slim but still manageable seven point lead in the polls. He’s been faced with a number of other decisions which have drawn some of the attention away and mended a few fences, including some controversial drilling legislation and his veto of a water management bill which environmentalists had been pushing for.

But if things were looking cozy enough to save his seat at the Governor’s mansion, why offer an olive branch to the Sheriffs now? Moe Lane at Redstate (where I first saw the story) asks what may be the pertinent question.

I wonder what John Hickenlooper’s internal polling is telling him?

Good question. We haven’t been hearing as much chatter from the RGA about Colorado for a little while, but now I’m wondering if this seat is back in play?