{"id":798707,"date":"2019-08-20T13:00:21","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T19:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=370230"},"modified":"2019-08-20T13:00:21","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T19:00:21","slug":"opinion-mike-littwin-now-we-wait-for-hicks-next-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/opinion-mike-littwin-now-we-wait-for-hicks-next-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | Mike Littwin: Now we wait for Hick\u2019s next move"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Mike Littwin<\/strong>
The Colorado Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

This was inevitable. It\u2019s what happens when you\u2019re running out of money, when your polls range somewhere between 0 and 1%, when your staff has dumped you, when your only viral moments tend to run toward stories about you, your mom and a porn movie, when your debate performances go sideways, when you finally start saying in interviews that maybe a Senate run wouldn\u2019t be the worst thing.<\/p>\n

So now that the presidential race is over, the question is whether Hickenlooper does, in fact, run for Senate against Cory Gardner.<\/p>\n

The answer, I\u2019m thinking, has to be yes. It seems to me that if he weren\u2019t planning to run for Senate, he would have just said so. He has sufficiently roiled the field, and taking too much time to mull \u2014 one of Hickenlooper\u2019s long time tactics \u2014 would just risk increasing the anger from his potential rivals if\/when he gets in. Here\u2019s the money quote from Hick\u2019s announcement:<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to know what comes next for me. I\u2019ve heard from so many Coloradans who want me to run for the United States Senate. They remind me how much is at stake for our country. And our state. I intend to give it some serious thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll give it thought and he\u2019ll wait a decent interval, and though I doubt many of those in the race would drop out, he would then suck much of the energy from the race and much of the money, too. He may have had trouble raising money for a presidential run, but that would all change with a Senate run.<\/p>\n

You couldn\u2019t have missed the pre-game polling \u2014 Hickenlooper more than lapping the primary field if he got in, and Hickenlooper 13 points ahead of Cory Gardner in a prospective run \u2014 and what has looked for the last few days as inevitable. No one could blame you, in fact, if you wonder if the draft-Hickenlooper timing seemed strangely perfect. I know I thought from the beginning that Hick would end up in just this place.<\/p>\n

If Hickenlooper is coming home to Colorado, he\u2019ll be bringing more than a little Joe Bidenism with him from the campaign trail. According to the conventional wisdom,  which I think has it right this time, Biden\u2019s lead in the polls has everything to do with the notion that he is the Democrat most likely to beat Trump \u2014 and that beating Trump, to most Democrats, is all that matters. I\u2019m not convinced that Biden is the most electable candidate, but I am certain that Democrats are looking to take the least risk possible.<\/p>\n

And now it looks as if Hickenlooper is counting on Colorado Democrats to see him as the safe choice to unseat Cory Gardner. Someone presumably in the Democratic hierarchy made sure Hickenlooper couldn\u2019t miss a sure exit strategy, sending in the big guns \u2014 Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group \u2014 to do a poll of what the Democratic primary field would look like with Hickenlooper in it. Hickenlooper rang up 61% of those polled to Mike Johnston\u2019s 10% to Andrew Romanoff\u2019s 8%. A 51-point lead is, as the kids say, ridiculous, and must look appealing when you\u2019ve spent months looking up at 1%.<\/p>\n

The Senate primary field was already big and varied, and Johnston and Romanoff have both played \u2014 if lost \u2014 in high-stakes statewide primaries. If Hickenlooper does get in, he will definitely be accused of big-footing his way in after insisting he was not interested. It\u2019s pretty certain that Hickenlooper wouldn\u2019t clear the field, but it can hardly be coincidence that Secretary of State Jena Griswold just announced she wouldn\u2019t run.<\/p>\n

As soon as the Colorado Dem poll landed, 314 Action Fund \u2014 which may be the country\u2019s only pro-science \u201cPAC\u201d \u2014 launched its draft-Hick campaign and then came out with a poll from Dem-friendly, but respected, Public Policy Polling, showing Hickenlooper with a 51-38 lead against Gardner. We didn\u2019t see how Romanoff, Johnston or any of the others in the field would have fared against Gardner. My guess is that any decently positioned Democrat would be favored. In the latest state-by-state polling I saw, Trump is 18 points underwater \u2014 58 to 40 \u2014 in Colorado.<\/p>\n

According to a Pew Research Center analysis, 69 of 73 Senate races since 2013 have been won by the party which won the last presidential race in the state. That would be the Democrats in Colorado, and few people believe Trump has much chance here in 2020. But it should be noted that one of the four senators who did buck that trend was Gardner in 2014, following Obama\u2019s 2012 win. Of course, 2014 was also a red-wave year, and Trump, whom Gardner has already endorsed, wasn\u2019t on the ballot.<\/p>\n

For Hickenlooper, it would be a second chance after his disastrous presidential run. It\u2019s not that Hick hasn\u2019t tried. If you watch cable TV news \u2014 not that I advise it  \u2014 Hickenlooper is everywhere. There\u2019s no brew-pub in Iowa he hasn\u2019t visited. There\u2019s no talk show he hasn\u2019t talked on. He has repeatedly made his pitch that as governor he was a doer who has already done most of the things that the tied-to-their-desks theorists (in other words, senators) only dream of.<\/p>\n

Now, you could argue that Hick has slightly embellished the record, particularly on the issue of guns. But that isn\u2019t the point.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper was never going to be the Democratic presidential nominee. He\u2019s a lousy debater. He\u2019s not particularly popular with any of the activist players on the left. He doesn\u2019t have any strong ties to African-American voters. I thought he could effectively raise money, but he hasn\u2019t been able to do that either. It didn\u2019t help that his campaign got off to a terrible start when he claimed, to much ridicule, that he could successfully make nice with Mitch McConnell.<\/p>\n

Haven\u2019t we seen this move coming? You\u2019ll remember when many of his senior campaign staffers walked out on him after his poorly received second debate. They said he should run for Senate instead. He ignored their advice then. A lot of people would be surprised if he ignored it again.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike LittwinThe Colorado Independent This was inevitable. It\u2019s what happens when you\u2019re running out of money, when your polls range somewhere between 0 and 1%, when your staff has dumped you, when your only viral moments tend to run toward stories about you, your mom and a porn movie, when your debate performances go sideways, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-798707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 08:53:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}