DAY TWENTY-FIVE - JOHN HICKENLOOPER

Sep 23

Day Twenty-five | John Hickenlooper | Colorado Senate
632 Sawbuck Patriots | $6705 pledged today | $192,056 donated overall

Team:

THE SITUATION: Since 2010, traditionally independent-minded Colorado is a leaning-D-a-bit-harder-each-year state. Joe Biden will win here. (He better. Yikes.) And the intense anger expressed by many at Trump in this independent-minded state should drive more Ds than usual to the polls, where they are perhaps more likely to vote a straight-D ticket than in years past. Recently, they went Obama Obama Clinton, but before that, they were Dole Bush Bush.

The mysterious, smoke-filled-room handicappers back east have this race variously rated as a Lean, Tilt, Likely, or Safe Democratic seat. (There’s one DC handicapper that calls this a toss-up, but word is that s/he might have gotten into the brandy a bit early that day.) The polls have our D candidate leading the R incumbent, not by much, but pretty consistently. And if we’re going to take back the Senate, which is looking more and more each day like an existential imperative, Colorado’s one place where we MUST pick off an R. (In case you’re about to correct me, please know that it’s “an R” rather than “a R” because when you say “R” it sounds like “arrrrr”, which starts with a vowel, so it is introduced with “an” instead of “a.” Thanks, long-ago-forgotten English Teacher who drilled THAT one into my head. And also, ARRRRR is important because Talk Like A Pirate Day was on this past Saturday, but I removed my pirate joke because RBG had died, and we were all in the brandy ourselves, or contemplating same.)

But I digress.

THE OPPOSITION: Senator Cory Gardner barely beat his D opponent in 2014, but you know what they still call you when you BARELY win your senate race? Senator! He’s got a cute smile, and he’s occasionally been known to do bipartisan things. HOWEVER.

He voted against a bill requiring medical professionals to advise sexual assault survivors about emergency contraception, he endorsed Trump in 2016 (and again this year, naturally), he has voted with Trump 89% of the time, he opposes gun control, he would like to repeal Obamacare (yes, during a pandemic), he voted for some Dumb Wall Funding, he opposes net neutrality, and he opposes universal marriage. And on Monday, Gardner came out with a statement about the Supreme Court: "I will vote to confirm." We don't know the identity of the nominee, but WHOMSOEVER President Tantrum picks is ALREADY just fine with Gardner. (All kidding aside, this is yet another grotesque abandonment of Constitutional obligations by someone who has turned over his car keys, wallet and soul to Cult 45. Senators owe the American people their most thoughtful consideration of the qualifications and suitability of someone suggested to sit in this most important, lifetime seat. Yet another moment of disgraceful behavior.)

(Narrator voice: “But you did say he had a cute smile.”)

OUR CANDIDATE: John Hickenlooper started his career as a geologist, because science. Then he crowdfunded and co-founded a Denver brewing company and brewpub - one of the first brewpubs in the nation. That brewpub became SO FREAKING POPULAR that a) brewpubs started opening all oveer the country, b) Denver now has more brewpubs per capita than anywhere else in the nation, and c) Hickenlooper got elected mayor of Denver substantially because of the respect he engendered by creating jobs in so doing. He served two terms (and got re-elected with 89% of the vote, which means he’s either super-popular or possibly Kim Jung Un.) After mayoring for eight years, he ran for Colorado governor and won, serving two more terms. A proven electoral commodity, that Hickenlooper fellow is.

He’s supported universal background checks, expanded Colorado’s participation in Medicaid, cutting in half the number of uninsured Coloradans. He's pro-choice, and has been endorsed by a long list of organizations that support solid D values. Here's something interesting: he’s got face blindness. It’s technically called prosopagnosia, which is a word neither you nor I will remember in three minutes, but we’ll both concede that you’ve got to be an AMAZING politician to have a really hard time recognizing faces and STILL be electorally successful. He’s pretty cool; Kurt Vonnegut was a friend of his, he's a nationally ranked squash player, and when the time is right, he has been known to deftly crank out a tune on a guitar or a banjo.

And yes, my many snooty coastal elite friends, I am indeed strongly asking you to send ten or more dollars to support a guy named HICKENLOOPER who started a BREWPUB and plays a BANJO. I get it, but stop with the jokes that, in your head, you can see Jimmy Kimmel making. Hickenlooper is a grand old American name, beer and banjos are grand old American traditions, and this guy has a Masters in geology. He's been elected by the independent, sophisticated voters of the great state of Colorado to lead them twice more than you have. And most importantly, it’s a campaign where our nation's fragile democracy hangs in the balance, so enough already.

(OK. Hickenlooper has got to be the most fun name to say in politics today. I'll give you that.)

John Wright Hickenlooper, Jr. didn't turn out to be the Presidential candidate the Ds wanted, but what about the Colorado math? THE COLORADO MATH SAYS HE CAN WIN.

Sawbuck Patriots, it’s go time: click HERE and send $10 (or more) to John Wright Hickenlooper, Jr.'s campaign. Our collective effort will invest $6705 today.

Thanks, gang. See you tomorrow.

- Alex

Alex Clemens

DAY TWENTY-FIVE - JOHN HICKENLOOPER

Sawbuck Patriots, it’s go time: click HERE and send $10 (or more) to John Wright Hickenlooper, Jr.'s campaign. Our collective effort will invest $6705 today.

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