OUR VIEW: Governor Hickenlooper has lost his base and his moderate trump card. Who will stand with Hickenlooper? At this point, that is as hard to figure out as where Hickenlooper himself stands with every issue in the headlines.

Something interesting is happening at the top levels of the Colorado political hierarchy. For the first time ever, Governor John Hickenlooper is in hot water.

For two years, Hickenlooper seemed like a moderate. We say seemed because he was actually only allowed to fake moderation, since all the really bad liberal bills died in the Republican House.

But now Hickenlooper seems like a governor without a home. 

Even though Hick just sold his soul to Mike Bloomberg and Barack Obama on gun control, that bought him exactly nothing from the nut-jobs on the left.

From the left-wing Colorado Pols:

For all of his political success, it must be noted that Hickenlooper has never really had to deal with any intense, sustained public opposition since he was first elected Mayor of Denver. There have been spats, sure, but nothing that Hick couldn’t easily sidestep before things got sticky…until now. 

…In today’s fracking “debate” at the University of Denver, Hickenlooper tried several times to duck tough questions with his folksy brewer dance, but instead of getting him out of a jam, it just made him look, well, stupid. It wasn’t charming. It wasn’t cute. But he kept pushing it, all the way up until the end of the debate, when he went one step too far in a poor attempt at a joke that ended up sounding more like an insult.

How stupid was Hickenlooper’s move on guns? He destroyed himself with Republicans and gun-loving moderates, and got no credit and nothing in return from his wacked out base.

Whomever is running the Governor’s political shop should be fired.

Pols takedown of the Guv caused Hickenloopers’s political adviser, Alan Salazar, to dismiss the post on Twitter as “mostly an ad hominem snark attacking the Guv. Thin on actual policy.”

Pols raving lefty commenters, on the other hand, took the post as an opportunity to call on Hickenlooper to “pull a Ritter” and not run for a second term. Instead, the Polsters seemed inclined to get behind Morgan Carroll or even Ken Salazar.

Ouch.

It’s not only anonymous liberal commenters going after Hick, but left wing wackos in the flesh. At the fracking debate in Denver yesterday, no less than three people were escorted out for verbally attacking the governor, including one particularly memorable protester who jammed on his harmonica as he was led out by security.

It looks like all the flack coming his way is getting to him. His weird outburst where he threatened a 9news reporter for asking tough questions, mostly glossed over by media who would crucify a Republican for daring to say the same, was still a sign that the pressure cooker of being chief executive is getting to the thin skinned Guv.

Hickenlooper seems to have quashed the death penalty repeal, but you’d never know. Instead of saying he was opposed to it, he said he didn’t know what his position was, and mostly looked like an ambivalent schmuck. 

Who older than 16 years of age doesn’t know their personal view on the death penalty? Does this guy stand for anything? 

Hickenlooper has lost his base and his moderate trump card. Who will stand with Hickenlooper? At this point, that is as hard to figure out as where Hickenlooper himself stands with every issue in the headlines.