We all know the playbook now, Governor John Hickenlooper will whip out his beer and small business credentials and swear that he is not a professional politician— “I DIDN’T EVEN START UNTIL I WAS 50!” Odd, you seemed to have grown quite fond of it since then, otherwise, why keep running?
Wethinks the Governor doth protest too much.
Vincent Carroll over at The Denver Post does us the favor of spelling out Hickenlooper’s election year stategy:
“But voters don’t really need to remember that Hickenlooper ran as a small businessman since he’ll remind them of it often enough before November’s election. He’s in his full moderate mode again.”
Carroll thinks this is a problem for Republicans that Hickenlooper is nigh invincible when he puts on his I-swear-I’m-a-moderate cloak. But PeakNation™, do we really believe that the voters of Colorado are more akin to a light switch that can be flicked on and off as Hickenlooper desires? Or, do they still carry that western wariness of the slick-selling businessman who promises one thing but delivers another?
As Carroll points out later in his column, this isn’t a brewpub owner who just wants to sit down and have a beer with you anymore, this is a man who became governor and presided over the most liberal agenda in Colorado state history:
“Conventional wisdom says Hickenlooper is vulnerable, that he failed to restrain an activist Democratic legislature in 2013 and that voters are weary of his split-the-baby political shtick.
…Hickenlooper had a down year in 2013. He couldn’t find any legislation to veto, not even when it empowered trial lawyers or burdened rural energy users. He supported a big tax hike that voters crushed. He stumbled around the death penalty with an explanation that no one on either side took to heart. The state’s parole system was exposed as a shambles.” [the Peak emphasis]
Sheesh, with friends like these….
So, as Hickenlooper travels around the state and stands on the back of his medicinal wagon promising each tincture of concoction he holds up will cure all that ails Colorado, he’ll soon find out how Coloradans truly feel about hucksters.
Don’t worry Hickenlooper, you aren’t getting fatter; it’s just a little harder to slip into that moderate suit after the last year you spent fattening up on a liberal agenda.
Mule kicks me once it is his fault. Kicks me twice it's my fault. Ain't happening again!