Gov. John Hickenlooper suggested in a yet-to-be-aired television interview earlier this year that he could grant full clemency to convicted killer Nathan Dunlap should the governor lose his re-election battle this November.

Hickenlooper, in an interview with CNN, made the comments in response to questions about Republican criticism of his handling of Nathan Dunlap — the ex-Chuck E. Cheese employee who killed four in a 1993 shooting rampage at the Aurora restaurant-attraction — who is on death row.

CNN asked the governor about Republican gubernatorial candidates running on a pro-death penalty platform sparked by the Dunlap case. At the time the interview was conducted in early February, the GOP’s nominee, former congressman Bob Beauprez, wasn’t yet a candidate. However, the party’s then-front-runner — firebrand Tom Tancredo — was adamant that he would execute Dunlap should he win the office.

A CNN interviewer asked Hickenlooper if, “God forbid,” a Tancredo-style candidate who continued to make an issue of the death penalty won, what actions could Hickenlooper take?

“If they did do that, and somehow they won, there are obviously remedies that the governor could do,” Hickenlooper said of his options. “I could do a full clemency between election day and the end of the year. There are a number of different opportunities to make sure that doesn’t happen. Again, human life should not be a political football.”

The recording from the CNN interview — obtained by conservative blogger Todd Shepherd of The Complete Colorado through an open records request — was first reported over the weekend by KNUS-710 on The Craig Silverman Show in Denver, a news and talk radio program.

The death penalty has become a key issue in this year’s gubernatorial election as Hickenlooper and Beauprez have traded words on the subject. The Dunlap case, in particular, has become the center of those battles.

“When I’m governor, Nathan Dunlap will be executed,” Beauprez said at a debate in May.

Hickenlooper, a Democrat, recently said he is against the death penalty, though in his first run for governor he said he supported capital punishment. In May 2013, Hickenlooper granted Dunlap a temporary reprieve from being executed that angered some families of those killed in Dunlap’s rampage.

The governor’s campaign said Hickenlooper’s comments during the CNN interview do not represent any altering in Hickenlooper’s sentiments from the reprieve.

In the interview, Hickenlooper said he didn’t want the Dunlap case to become a “political football” and that “We won’t let that happen.”

Hickenlooper told CNN it would be “unacceptable” for anyone to make the death penalty — specifically the Dunlap case — into a campaign point.

“If that becomes a political issue in that context within the campaign, obviously there is a period of time between the election and the end of the year where individuals can make decisions, such as governors can,” Hickenlooper said in the interview.

A spokesman for Hickenlooper’s campaign told The Denver Post on Monday that the governor’s position on the Dunlap case has not changed.

“The governor has no plans to revisit his (reprieve) decision in this case,” said his campaign spokesman, Eddie Stern. “He expressed his position on the clemency issue in May 2013 when he signed the executive order on this matter, and his position has not changed since then.”

Stern said the governor was responding to hypothetical questioning in the interview and that he was “discussing the legal options that are provided in the state’s constitution.”

In the governor’s reprieve order, Hickenlooper said “because the question is about the use of the death penalty itself and not (Dunlap), I have opted to grant a reprieve and not clemency in this case.”

Dunlap was 19 when he went to the Chuck E. Cheese’s where he once worked and killed three teenage employees, Ben Grant, Sylvia Crowell and Colleen O’Connor, and their 50-year-old manager, Margaret Kohlberg, who were closing the restaurant.

He also shot and seriously wounded a fifth employee, Bobby Stephens, and made off with about $1,500 in cash and game tokens.

The Beauprez campaign released Monday an Internet ad highlighting Hickenlooper’s comments and their contrast to the wishes of the victims’ families.

“It’s not a political issue if John Hickenlooper makes a decision,” said Allen Fuller, spokesman for the Beauprez campaign.

The 45-minute interview was for an episode of the cable channel’s “Death Row Series.” The last execution in Colorado happened in 1997.

Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jesseapaul

The dunlap story

In December 1993, Nathan Dunlap hid in the bathroom of a Chuck E. Cheese in Aurora and waited until after closing before emerging to shoot five people, four of them fatally. The then 19-year-old — who was a former employee of the restaurant-attraction — was sentenced to death. After failed appeals and a diagnosis of severe bipolar disorder, Gov. John Hickenlooper last year granted Dunlap a temporary reprieve from execution roughly three months before he was set to die.