“I know exactly however one feels.”

A staffer for Gov. John Hickenlooper once described watching every public appearance or interview by Hick like watching a baby cross a highway.  Now, with Hick never having to worry about being elected again (right???), we imagine whatever sort of leash his staff tried to keep him on before is now completely gone.  Hick’s most recent foray into baby Frogger?  When he told The Wall Street Journal that Latinos don’t really care that much about becoming citizens.  As KDVR’s Eli Stokols reports:

As the nation’s Hispanic community Friday celebrated President Obama’s executive order sparing 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, Colorado Latinos expressed their frustration with another politician — the state’s Democratic governor.

…“What’s amazing to me is, a lot of young Latinos, the vast majority don’t care about a pathway to citizenship,” Hickenlooper told the Journal. [the Peak‘s emphasis]

Like Eli points out later in the article, minorities love it when the rich, old, white guy tries to explain to them just how exactly they really feel about their situation (Young Latino: “Don’t hold back Hick, tell us how we really feel about immigration”).  Needless to say, the Latino community was none too impressed with Hick’s discernment of their feelings:

Latino community, which, after not receiving a satisfactory retraction over the 48 hours since the story appeared, responded Friday by issuing a blistering statement.

“The Colorado Latino Forum is extremely disappointed in Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper’s recent statement regarding Latinos and citizenship,” the statement began.

“We are disappointed that immediately following his narrow re-election in which our community voted overwhelmingly for Governor Hickenlooper, his first comments regarding Latino issues demonstrate that he is out of touch with our community’s priorities and values.” [the Peak’s emphasis]

Policy-wise (and, for the sake of Colorado), we still believe former Rep. Bob Beauprez would have been a better choice this past election.  But, that deep, dark part of our hearts, that part that secretly loves to slow down to look at car crashes, that part of us is thinking “everybody get comfortable and pass the popcorn, this is going to be a fun four years.”

(Thank God we have a Republican state Senate to limit the damage to Colorado by this man who knows everything about everything.)