January 09, 2011 08:25 PM UTC

Spokesman explains Hick's "drill-the-living-daylights" quote

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• by: Jason Salzman

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Today’s New York Times magazine features a profile of Governor-elect John Hickenlooper, concluding that, if Hick does “well” and is re-elected in 2014, then “it’s not hard to believe” that there will be “murmurs” about a Hick presidential run in 2016.

That’s a convoluted way to say the murmurers have already started murmuring.

But there was more in the article to murmur about, especially if you’re a murmuring environmentalist or a murmuring person of any kind, for that matter. (Sorry, I like typing “murmur.”).

NYT Reporter Frank Bruni quotes Hickenlooper as saying “we should drill the living daylights out of natural gas and cut regulation.” Bruni adds that the Gov-To-Be also considers himself an “environmentalist.”

It’s a 13-word quote in a loooong article, and Hick has said similar things before. But, still, he’s getting close to “drill, baby drill’ here.

So I emailed Bruni to find out if Hickenlooper might have added a couple dozen other words in their conversation that put the “living daylights” quote in more context. Unfortunatley, I did not get a response.

So I asked Alan Salazar, who will be Hick’s chief policy and political director, what Hick meant. Was there context that was left out?

He emailed me:

“Context was lost in what John would acknowledge was a clumsy reiteration of what he consistently said on the campaign trail, namely that we ought to push natural gas enthusiastically and adjust regulations that aren’t proven to be efficient or effective. But regulations that are necessary for protecting public health and the environment have to be upheld. It’s always a matter of balance and keeping an open mind to what works. John recalls making this latter point (as he did whenever the topic came up on the campaign trail) to Mr. Bruni, but it didn’t make the story.”