February 04, 2010 09:49 PM UTC

Hickenlooper in the AM760 Progressive Dojo

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• by: davidsirota

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Denver mayor/Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper spent about a half hour in studio in the AM760 progressive dojo this morning. You can listen to the interview here – it starts about half way through the podcast clip.

We covered a lot of ground – taxes, business influence on government, drug policy reform, job development, and his views on unionization in light of news that Colorado’s union rate declined this year. I thought he gave some solid answers, though I think he needs to get his economic message down a bit more – as the Denver Post notes, at one point in the interview he said “a recession like this is really driven by people’s mental state.” As I said in the interview, that kind of rhetoric reminded me of Phil Gramm’s famous gaffe during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Despite my disagreements with him on some of his political philosophies, I can’t deny that he’s an affable guy and might just make a pretty decent statewide candidate. He’s going to need a lot of pushing on some issues (and, as he admits in the interview, he’s going to need to get fully up to speed on the state issues that will confront him as governor), but he’s definitely a pretty good listener (make sure to listen to his quick response – and staff work – about an outsourcing question from a listener).

Tune in regularly – we’ve been covering a lot of issues relevant to the gubernatorial and senate races, as well as bills in the legislature. The show airs weekdays from 7am-10am on AM760 on your radio dial, or at www.am760.net (you can podcast the show there too).