{"id":801009,"date":"2019-11-04T14:40:48","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T21:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=374005"},"modified":"2019-11-04T14:40:48","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T21:40:48","slug":"opinion-morgan-liddick-this-is-no-time-for-john-hickenlooper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/opinion-morgan-liddick-this-is-no-time-for-john-hickenlooper\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | Morgan Liddick: This is no time for John Hickenlooper"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

To paraphrase
\nShakespeare\u2019s Marc Anthony, I come to bury Gov. John Hickenlooper, not to
\npraise him. That said \u2026<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper is a rare bird these days: a Democrat who is not a doctrinaire Progressive. In the July 19 Democratic debate, candidates were asked to raise their hands if they thought \u201cillegal border crossing should only be a misdemeanor.\u201d The only persons who did not do so were Hickenlooper and Sen. Michael Bennett. Both dropped out shortly thereafter, after persistently polling 1% or less<\/a>. But an important point had been made: Not all Democrats are witless.<\/p>\n

As we know, Hickenlooper
\nwas the mayor of Denver, then a two-term governor. Before any of that, he was a
\ngeologist and a craft brewer. Both trades stuck with him and served the state
\nof Colorado well during his governorship. He noted in his 2017 State of the
\nState message that Colorado had become \u201cone
\nof the best states in the country for natural gas production<\/a>, as indeed it
\nwas before Gov. Jared \u201cNIMBY\u201d Polis took over. Similarly, his background as a
\nbusinessman gave him an ability to see multiple solutions to challenges, along
\nwith willingness to address problems practically with due consideration to all
\nparties. Unfortunately, neither practicality nor win-win solutions cut much ice
\nin today\u2019s Democratic Party. Last June at the California party convention, Hickenlooper
\nwas booed
\nfor his speech rejecting socialism as a cure for the nation\u2019s minor economic
\nwoes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Democrats\u2019
\nspurning of a successful governor from a purple state is something they may
\nwell rue. Hickenlooper\u2019s accomplishments included longstanding desiderata they
\nwould not have achieved in Colorado without him: establishing a national model
\nfor regulating recreational marijuana, despite thinking legalization was a
\nmistake, and successfully pushing for the expansion of Medicaid were two.<\/p>\n

He also
\naddressed more conservative concerns. Wanting to ensure Colorado taxpayers were
\ngetting their money\u2019s worth, Hickenlooper created an online dashboard of goals
\nand metrics to measure how efficient state government was. He inherited a state
\ngovernment $75 million in debt, but after eight years of careful management left
\nit well in the black<\/a>.<\/sup><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t all
\njoy. The governor signed a bill to establish civil unions prior to the U.S. Supreme
\nCourt decision legalizing same-sex marriage and approved gun-control
\nlegislation to establish universal background checks and limit magazines to 15
\nrounds. These two measures were done on a partisan basis, and they still rankle.
\nThe former was apparently taken as a green light for the LGBT community\u2019s
\nefforts to suppress the rights of religious Coloradans. Magazine limits drove
\nat least one company from the state. At least the governor was more circumspect
\nthan Robert Francis O\u2019Rourke, who publicly stated he just wants to snatch
\neveryone\u2019s guns all up. As a Texas boy, he should know better.<\/p>\n

I had issues
\nwith many of Hickenlooper\u2019s decisions in his two terms. That said, he was miles
\nbetter than any of the others in the Democrats\u2019 torch-and-pitchfork
\npresidential candidate mob, howling for socialism and President Donald Trump\u2019s
\nblood. That none in that contest sees the why of this is more a comment on the
\ncurrent state of the party than on the character and qualities of Hickenlooper.
\nHe is a fair-minded man who adhered to the radical center of political life,
\nand his departure from the presidential race is the Democrats\u2019 great loss. <\/p>\n

That said,
\nnow that he is running for U.S. Senate, should Colorado elect him? No. Hickenlooper
\nhas the great bad fortune to be running for Senate in an election that will
\nprobably be decided on national, not state, issues \u2014 in particular, control of
\nthe Senate for the upcoming farce of a presidential impeachment by a lynch mob
\nof House Democrats seething with rage and single-mindedly intent on reversing
\nthe election of 2016 by any means necessary. Colorado\u2019s replacement of Cory
\nGardner\u2019s \u201cR\u201d with Hickenlooper\u2019s \u201cD\u201d would be problematic under these
\ncircumstances. A shame, since both are good men with Colorado\u2019s interests
\nchiefly at heart, but absolutely necessary by the rules of the game Democrats
\nthemselves have established, rules that have at their core the Stalinist
\ndirective of \u201cnot one inch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always
\nsaid Washington was a lousy place for a guy like me who wants to get things
\ndone \u2014 but this is no time to walk away from the table,\u201d Hickenlooper has said.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s right: This is no time to walk away. And unfortunately, no time for Hickenlooper.<\/p>\n

Morgan Liddick\u2019s column \u201cOn Your Right\u201d publishes Tuesdays in the Summit Daily News. Liddick spent 27 years working for the U.S. Foreign Service, primarily living abroad. He also spent 12 years teaching U.S. history and Western civilization at community colleges in Colorado and Texas. He lived in Summit County as recently as 2015. Contact him at <\/em>mcliddick@hotmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

To paraphrase Shakespeare\u2019s Marc Anthony, I come to bury Gov. John Hickenlooper, not to praise him. That said \u2026 Hickenlooper is a rare bird these days: a Democrat who is not a doctrinaire Progressive. In the July 19 Democratic debate, candidates were asked to raise their hands if they thought \u201cillegal border crossing should only […]<\/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-801009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 23:47:22","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\/801009","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=801009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}