Democrat candidate John Hickenlooper is so afraid to debate U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner he’s even turned down a debate invitation from the leftist folks at CNN — a network that openly favors Democrats and is outright hostile to Republicans.
As Ernest Luning from Colorado Politics noted, the decision to decline the CNN debate is a huge shift in strategy for Hickenlooper who used to beg to get on the CNN debate stage when he was running for President:
Last summer when he was running for president, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper was trying as hard as he could to get onto the debate stage.
Fast-forward a little over a year, however, and the Democrat is taking a different approach.
Gardner has not turned down any debates, while Hickenlooper has declined six debates so far, including CNN, Club20, the Rural Issues Debate, KOAA, CBS4, and KDVR.
For anyone who has ever watched Hickenlooper debate, it’s not all that surprising that his campaign team is doing everything in their power to keep him off the stage with Gardner. As Luning reported, the former governor earned the nickname “Hickenblooper” for a reason.
…the former two-term governor, who’s earned a reputation over the decades for uttering malapropisms dubbed “Hickenbloopers,” is trying to limit podium time with Gardner, a notoriously aggressive debater — or at the very least, avoid meeting his opponent for televised debates until Coloradans have their ballots in hand.
Ouch.
And even Hickenlooper himself has admitted he is not always the perfect spokesman for his own ideas.
😂😂😂 Hickenlooper ‘I’m Not Always The Perfect Spokesperson For My Own Ideas’ pic.twitter.com/SaKIksTNB5
— Francis Brennan (@FrancisBrennan) July 2, 2019
We could go on and on about how bad of a debater Hickenlooper is, but his decision to skip out on CNN may just come down to the simple fact that Hickenlooper is still embarrassed from the last time he showed up to a CNN debate and the security guard didn’t even know who he was.
Security person outside debate site just now : “are you here to pick up press credentials?”
John Hickenlooper: “…I’m a candidate”— Scott Detrow (@scottdetrow) June 26, 2019
But if Hickenlooper sticks to his current stance and refuses to debate on the Democrat-friendly network, maybe it just proves what we have been saying all along: Hickenlooper is an awful candidate who knows Gardner is just one moment away from landing a knock out punch.