A Swedish engineering firm sponsored a survey that showed strong support for government subsidies for renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives:
As Politico'sReid Epsteinreports, popular Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado sees his own hurdles to a run for President in 2016--and frankly, we see them too:
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who founded a brewpub and was twice elected Denver's mayor, cruised to victory in 2010 in a three-way race against a fractured state Republican Party. He registered a 54 percent approval rating in a Public Policy Polling survey earlier this month, a whopping 30 percentage points higher than his 24 percent disapproval...
"You never say never, but it's hard to imagine," Hickenlooper told POLITICO in an interview in his state Capitol office here. "What we're trying to do here necessarily, I think, is going to irritate and I think in some ways divide some of the strongest constituencies that are going to be making those decisions."
Hickenlooper's best path to national office in 2016 would come in a Democratic Party looking for a centrist leader in the mold of President Bill Clinton, said University of Wisconsin political science professor Charles Franklin.
"Under many circumstances, Hickenlooper would represent a Democrat with crossover appeal who can win in swing states," Franklin said.
There's no question that Gov. Hickenlooper's broad popularity and moderate appeal place him on a hypothetical--very hypothetical over five years out--short list of viable Democratic candidates for President in the 2016 elections. But Hickenlooper makes perfectly clear in this interview that positions he holds on hot-button issues like "fracking" in oil and gas production could spell real trouble for himself in a Democratic primary. Hickenlooper talks about Colorado as a "model" in education, health care, and transportation; but most would agree that this is expressing, to put it charitably, an aspirational goal less than a year into his term.
Bottom line: Hickenlooper has the potential to be a great candidate for President, and his centrist liabilities in a Democratic primary could easily become powerful general election assets. It's true that the recent trend towards more strident ideology on both sides of the aisle represents a challenge for moderates like Hickenlooper. But we're inclined to accept the argument that, as of now, Democratic primary candidates are subject to less rigid ideological litmus tests in general than Republican candidates.
Perhaps the bigger obstacle to a Hickenlooper candidacy is that another well-known Coloradan is likely to at least kick the tires on a Presidential run in 2016 -- and they can't both become serious candidates. It's a quiet, but open secret that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar wants a shot at the Presidency himself in 2016, and he and Hickenlooper -- who are friends, by most accounts -- would probably have to decide quietly which one of them will take the stage and which one will stay behind. If Hispanic voting trends continue to rise, Salazar may have the better argument by then.
A lot can change in the next 4-5 years. Let's revisit this in 2015 -- by then it will either be a serious discussion, or not.
Wal-Mart, like all big business, is an equal-opportunity corruptor.
Blanche Lincoln is helping the Walton (Wal-Mart) family by adding language to the Senate's financial-overhaul legislation. The language protects a bank controlled by the Walton family, one of the richest in the U.S.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, one of the chief architects of the financial-regulation overhaul nearing completion in Congress, is pushing for a change that would benefit a bank in her home state of Arkansas.
The bank, Arvest Bank Group Inc., of Bentonville, Ark., is predominantly owned by the Walton family, of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fame, perhaps the most influential family in the state and one of the richest in the U.S.
Wal-Mart is Blanche Lincoln's #1 contributor, excluding law firms, at $52,750 since 2005. The left and the right are always happy to enact special rules for big business in exchange for campaign dollars.
UPDATE: You can read our Top 5 after the jump. Tomorrow -- the "sleeper" picks.
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The NFL Draft kicks off tonight, with the first round being held in prime time for the first time in history. That got us thinking about how a political draft might play out in Colorado.
Which Colorado politician, active or retired, would you select #1 overall if your goal was to win a statewide election in 2010? Here's the scenario:
Suppose Colorado was awarded a third U.S. Senate seat, so there is no incumbent and no history of incumbency.
You are choosing the best politician to win that seat in 2010.
This is not about who would be the best Senator or do the best job in office. This is pure politics -- who is most likely to get elected AND who helps you down the ticket? Ideally you want your top pick to be helpful for the rest of your political "team." You could make your #1 pick an "Independent" candidate, but that wouldn't help anyone else down-ticket.
Ignore current partisan labels. You could choose Gov. Bill Ritter and run him as a Republican if you wanted.
Pay no attention to whether or not someone would be putting another seat in danger if they ran for something else (for example, Rep. John Salazar. Pick as though you want the single best chance to win this one race.
So, how would you fill out your wish list? Who would you choose #1? Who would make up your Top Ten, in order? Make your picks below, and read about our Top Five after the jump.
Sorry to our Western Slope pals, but we had to comment on this bit of nonsense from something called The Snowmass Sun, titled "Can Hick Win the Western Slope?"
When Colorado Democratic Party Chairwoman Pat Waak came to Glenwood Springs last week, she came bearing a message from John Hickenlooper: "Tell everyone in Glenwood Springs hi and sorry I can't be there."
That's nice, but it's not enough. If Hickenlooper is going to win Colorado, he has to win places like this, and that means he's going to have to show up.
Waak knows that. Hickenlooper does, too. He may be wildly popular in Denver, and pretty darn popular outside of Denver, too, but to win as governor of Colorado he has to win the whole state, and that means winning the Western Slope.
His likely Republican foe, Scott McInnis, is an old hat on the Western Slope, and he mastered the art of winning it. As a congressman, he was an unbeatable force. Democrats rarely pitted anyone against him, and when they did, they lost.
McInnis has often argued that winning any state election comes down to winning the Western Slope, and there's some logic to that. Figure liberal Boulder and conservative Denver counter each other out. The conservative 'burbs counter liberal Denver. That mostly leaves the Western Slope to battle it out for the winner.
That's why this part of the state has become a big battleground, especially in recent elections. [Pols emphasis]
The Western Slope is a "big battleground?"
Um, yeah.
We've said it again and again here on Colorado Pols: Population shifts over the last 10 years have completely changed the electorate in Colorado. When Colorado had fewer residents, the electorate was more spread out across the state. But today, well more than 80% of Colorado voters live along the Front Range between Ft. Collins and Pueblo. We have no doubt that both John HickenlooperandScott McInnis know this, even if the Snowmass whatever does not.
Both candidates will come to the Western Slope and will campaign there, but the numbers just don't lie. The first major example of the population shift in Colorado and its effect on elections came in the 2004 Senate race, when Democrat Ken Salazar beat Republican Pete Coorsbecause of Denver voters. In Denver alone, Salazar outpolled Coors by more than 100,000 votes (169,580 to 60,387). That same year, a total of 62,341 people cast a ballot in all of Mesa County, which includes Grand Junction, the largest city on the Western Slope. In other words, Salazar got more than twice as many votes in Denver as there are voters in all of Mesa County, the most populous county on the Western Slope.
Those numbers have only increased in the years since. In 2008, Barack Obama beat John McCain in Denver by a 204,882 to 62,567 margin (a difference of 142,315 votes). In Mesa County, Obama lost to McCain 44,578 to 24,008 (a 20,570 vote margin). McCain would have needed to win Mesa County six more times just to erase the advantage Obama gained in Denver alone.
So will Hickenlooper or McInnis win the Western Slope? It doesn't matter, because if they don't win along the Front Range, and in the Denver Metro area specifically, then what they do on the Western Slope is irrelevant.
UPDATE #5:No confirmation yet that Hickenlooper is going to run, but last night sources said that the Mayor really wanted to do it but was waiting for Salazar's decision. Given the fact that Salazar publicly endorsed Hick if he runs, it's not a stretch to assume that he did so with knowledge of what the answer would be.
If Hickenlooper does not run, the next name to watch is Rep. Ed Perlmutter. We wrote earlier that is was highly unlikely that Salazar, Hickenlooper and Perlmutter all pass on running for Governor, but if that does happen for some reason, the next names on the list are Treasurer Cary Kennedy (the only potential candidate who could actually transfer some of her current warchest to a race for Governor), Andrew Romanoff and Rep. Betsy Markey.
UPDATE #4:Denver Postreports Salazar will endorse John Hickenlooper for Governor.
"I know John and Helen will seriously consider this historic opportunity that will define the future of State of Colorado and her people. This is a personal decision they must make and I will fully respect that decision," Salazar said.
"As for me, I have a job to do as Secretary of the Interior to implement President Obama's vision for a clean energy economy and to better protect America's great outdoors."
UPDATE #3: Multiple sources now confirming, Ken Salazar will NOT run. In that case, we'd put the odds that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper will run at 95%. Developing.
UPDATE #2:Ken Salazar out? Just relaying this from The Atlantic'sMarc Ambinder until we get additional word, which we are seeking now:
This just in.... Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has decided NOT to run for governor in Colorado. Incumbent Democrat Bill Ritter is retiring. The likely candidate for the Dems, then, is Denver mayor John Hickenlooper.
UPDATE #1:: It seems that The Denver Post isn't buying the Republican spin that Ritter is retiring because he didn't think he could win:
...we don't believe that Ritter dropped out of the race because he was down in recent polls and feared losing the gubernatorial election to Republican Scott McInnis. [Pols emphasis] The margin was only single digits, and voters haven't unseated an incumbent governor since 1962...
...It may not have been noticeable to Coloradans, but this job has worn on the governor. We couldn't help but notice the lightness in Ritter's demeanor at his press conference, joking at times with journalists. It seemed as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.
He had the appearance of a man who was very comfortable with his very difficult decision, and we're happy for him. The moment he finished his speech in the Capitol foyer, he turned and hugged his teenage son. Sometimes stepping away from a job to spend time with one's family means just that.
Colorado Pols also broke a record yesterday with our highest number of Page Views in one day, with 60,629 (but not a record for Unique Visitors in one day, curiously enough).
So we thought you might want another open thread on the topic.
(Bumped into Thursday for self-evident reasons - promoted by Colorado Pols)
After a wild 24 hours that saw more than 500 comments from Polsters in two separate posts, its time to take a look at the questions and answers from one of the more surprising political announcements in recent Colorado history.
Here's what we know, what we've heard, and all of the questions both answered and unanswered surrounding Gov. Bill Ritter's announcement today that he will not run for re-election in 2010.
Now that 2010 is here (and most of you are back to work after the holidays), it's time to take our look back on the decade that was.
We asked your opinions on what the Oughts Brought, and now it's time to start revealing the winners. We'll be here with this all week, folks, so check back for more categories every day.
Best/Worst Politician and Best/Worst Campaign awards after the jump.
Will Shafroth, who lost last year's three-way Democratic primary in CD-2 to Jared Polis, has picked up a new job. As The Colorado Independent reports:
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Tuesday afternoon that fourth-generation Colorado resident Will Shafroth, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last summer, will be the department's deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. A few weeks ago Salazar nominated another Colorado politician as Shafroth's boss, naming former Senate candidate and one-time U.S. Attorney Tom Strickland as his assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks.
It looks like the new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle will be making a stop in Denver at the Donald Seawell Grand Ballroom.
"In a release, Salazar praised Daschle as one of the country's leading voices on health care reform. "Senator Daschle would be an excellent choice for HHS Secretary," Salazar said. "I look forward to working with him and President-elect Obama to fix our broken health care system.""
More of the original article if you are interested.
This only makes sense as Colorado has long been known for its hot springs with mystical healing powers. What is interesting is Senator Salazar going out on a limb, as this by far his most quixotic journey yet as he searches for a cure to our nations ailing health care system. God speed.
Here is were you can go to confirm your seat at the table with Salazar and Daschle.
