{"id":2442081,"date":"2019-03-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=302416"},"modified":"2019-03-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T06:00:00","slug":"mike-littwin-hickenloopers-most-memorable-line-in-cnn-town-hall-was-no-laughing-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/mike-littwin-hickenloopers-most-memorable-line-in-cnn-town-hall-was-no-laughing-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Littwin: Hickenlooper\u2019s most memorable line in CNN town hall was no laughing matter"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

John Hickenlooper is not a flake. He just tends to play one when he\u2019s on TV.<\/p>\n

In the first big TV shot of his presidential campaign, playing the lead role in a CNN town hall, Hickenlooper surprised no one in Colorado when he upended a perfectly decent performance with an entirely unforced error. Hick is a well-known gaffe machine, but after two terms as Denver mayor and two as Colorado governor, we\u2019re used to it. We call it quirkiness. Hickenlooper himself will admit to foot-in-mouth issues.<\/p>\n

But the rest of America? That\u2019s what this campaign is about after all. What did they think of Hickenlooper\u2019s response to a question from Dana Bash on whether he would pick a woman as his running mate?<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d he said, which would have been a reasonable place to stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll ask you another question,\u201d he then said to Bash. \u201cHow come we\u2019re not asking, more often, the women, \u2018Would you be willing to put a man on the ticket?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

The crowd was stunned. As one who has watched Hickenlooper closely for years, I thought it was just one of his lesser jokes. But it wasn\u2019t only a joke, not when the issue for the post-middle-aged white guy is gender.<\/p>\n

Hick told CNN reporter Dan Merica that he was trying to make the point that \u201ctoo often media discounts the chance of a woman winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is what I am talking about. People can take it out of context,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good point. And upon hearing it, I was pretty sure that\u2019s what he meant to say. It would have been far better, though, if that had been what he actually did say, which was pretty much the opposite of what he meant. This wasn\u2019t a matter of context so much as Hickenlooper fumbling the script. On Twitter, there have already been Hickenblooper sightings. The pundit class, which has been kind to Hickenlooper, may be less so. In other words, it wasn\u2019t the town hall Hickenlooper was hoping for.<\/p>\n

His spokesperson, Lauren Hitt, did her best to defend her boss, who has employed plenty of women in key positions during his time in politics, including his last lieutenant governor, Donna Lynne.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think most Americans understand what he meant,\u201d Hitt began in Hick\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n

When I suggested that most Americans actually didn\u2019t understand what he meant, she tried again: \u201cDo we all wish that he had gotten the line out better? Of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pointed out that Hickenlooper has said that if you\u2019re looking for the candidate who\u2019s the best talker, he might not be your best choice. I think that\u2019s a fair analysis. But she said that Hickenlooper would have many more chances to make his case, particularly to voters he meets in Iowa and New Hampshire. She says they\u2019ll see the same candidate they saw at the town hall \u2014 someone, she argues, with good ideas and a strong record. Also someone, she added, \u201cwho is quirky and might need a few lessons in elocution.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s a little late for lessons. And what people saw in the town hall was typical Hickenlooper. He struggled at times with getting his words in correct order. He had the oddly misplaced laugh. And we saw the first-ever presidential candidate asked to retell the story of the time as a college freshman he took his mom to see \u201cDeep Throat.\u201d It was actually a semi-endearing, if weird, story, but that and the vice-president quote would overwhelm everything else he said, including his stance against the death penalty.<\/p>\n

And the problem for Hickenlooper is this was not his first gaffe of the campaign. You may recall what happened when Joe Scarborough asked Hick if he thought of himself as a \u201cproud capitalist.\u201d This was not anything like a tough question \u2014 or shouldn\u2019t have been, even in the new era of Democratic neo-socialism or whatever you want to call it. This was a Hick layup. Hick made his mark as a brew pub entrepreneur who was there at the beginning of the mad success that is LoDo \u2014 the launch pad for his political career. Can you be an entrepreneur and not be a capitalist? (Hint: no.) Hick wouldn\u2019t exactly say. He would say he rejected labels.<\/p>\n

Days later, he came up with a better answer \u2014 that he\u2019s not a capitalist in the way that Donald Trump defines the word. Come on, even Elizabeth Warren says she\u2019s a proud capitalist.<\/p>\n

So, where does the town hall performance leave Hickenlooper? I\u2019m guessing just about where he was before the town hall. He didn\u2019t do anything fatal to his campaign. But he didn\u2019t help himself the way the other longshot candidate with a funny name \u2014 Pete Buttigieg \u2014 has done. This was a chance to move out of the 1 percent crowd. You only get so many chances at that. And the candidate who isn\u2019t the best talker may not be the best bet to break out in the debates.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the Michael Bennet question. Is there enough room for two Colorado Democratic moderates \u2014 who both now reject the term \u201cmoderate\u201d \u2014 in the race? Everyone expects Bennet to get in the race next month. I\u2019ve been told that Bennet is around 90 percent certain to get in, but I\u2019m thinking it\u2019s closer to 99 percent at this point. And Hick\u2019s struggle might help push him to 100 percent.<\/p>\n

Bennet already has a pre-launch viral video \u2014 of his Senate floor takedown of Ted Cruz. It apparently set CSPAN records, which must make even Beto O\u2019Rourke jealous. I doubt if Hickenlooper\u2019s stumble will make it all the way to viral \u2014 however you actually measure that. But, in a crowded and unforgiving field, I think we can measure it this way: It has to be way too close.<\/p>\n

Mike Littwin runs Sundays in the Aspen Times. A former columnist for the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post, he currently writes for ColoradoIndependent.com.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Hickenlooper is not a flake. He just tends to play one when he\u2019s on TV. In the first big TV shot of his presidential campaign, playing the lead role in a CNN town hall, Hickenlooper surprised no one in Colorado when he upended a perfectly decent performance with an entirely unforced error. Hick is […]<\/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":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2442081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 17:36:00","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":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}