February 11, 2010 10:41 PM UTC

Hickenlooper Rips McInnis Lobbying, Tom DeLay Days

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Grand Junction Sentinel reports:

Addressing the 112th National Western Mining Conference one day after the leading GOP gubernatorial challenger did, Hickenlooper told the 200 miners that he, and not Scott McInnis, has the right experience to lead the state.

The Democratic mayor said his experience as a geologist who was laid off in the 1980s during a bad recession, and building a profitable business afterwards, taught him the lessons any governor should know.

“What really drove me nuts was when government wasted tax money to create needless red tape that really hobbled private businesses,” Hickenlooper said from Washington, D.C., where he has been snowed in for two days.

“Congressman McInnis spent a number of years … in Congress, and since then he’s been a lobbyist for large companies trying to get things from Congress,” he added. “I’m not sure that’s the right experience if you’re really trying to figure out how to make government more efficient and reduce the red tape.”

In McInnis’ address to the conference, he attacked Hickenlooper and other Democrats, saying they were responsible for hurting the oil and gas industry with new regulations…

After which there was some banter about climate change and the Copenhagen climate change conference Hickenlooper attended. Which led to this gem from McInnis spokesman Sean Duffy:

“(McInnis) would be one of the skeptics that the mayor needs to sit down with and convert,” Duffy said. “He, like a lot of Coloradans, have a lot of questions and doesn’t accept what the mayor and a lot of others say about it … particularly when the mayor couldn’t be here because of a 4-foot snowstorm.”

Seriously? The cold day “global warming must be a myth” thing again? Who wants to go first?