August 29, 2019 03:25 PM UTC

When DC Comes Calling: How Quickly They Forget

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the intraparty tempest following the entry into the Democratic U.S. Senate primary of former Gov. John Hickenlooper continues apace today, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s (DSCC) choice to endorse Hickenlooper from the outset in the race over a slate of lesser-known candidates continues to provoke debate, former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff is controversially slamming both Hickenlooper and Washington Democrats as morally equivalent to the Republican incumbent all sides say is the real target:

Two news stories broke today. One shows some of the nation’s most powerful corporate interests are bankrolling not only Cory Gardner’s campaign but also the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The second story shows the DSCC has spent the past six months blackballing our campaign—threatening to punish any firm that does business with us.

Why? Because I’m fighting for a Green New Deal and Medicare for All—priorities that don’t sit well with the party bosses and powerbrokers in DC…

The issue of whether national party strategists should endorse primary candidates based on their estimation of general election viability is of course perennially fraught in both parties. We’ll let readers reckon that moral question for themselves–we prefer to go case-by-case. But aside from the scorched-earth language Romanoff in particular continues to use, likening Hickenlooper and national Democrats he would presumably need as the nominee to the Republican in the race, there’s something important missing from this latest round of indignation.

Back in 2014, as the Denver Post’s Allison Sherry reported almost two years before that election in January of 2013, Romanoff was himself chosen by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to end the CD-6 Democratic primary for a seat critical to national strategy that year:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wasn’t shy Tuesday in talking about how much they want a Romanoff-Coffman 2014 ticket.

“Mike Coffman’s Tea Party approach puts him out of step with voters in the district, and a candidate like Andrew Romanoff would present voters with a real opportunity to elect a leader whose values match theirs and who will protect the middle class,” said DCCC spokeswoman Emily Bittner.

By the end of the following month, February of 2013, all of the potential primary challengers to Romanoff in his ill-fated run for CD-6 in 2014 were unceremoniously out of the race. Romanoff ran unopposed for the CD-6 nomination, and went on to lose to Republican Rep. Mike Coffman by 9 points. It may be true that in both 2010 and now ahead of 2020, Romanoff was passed over for support by Washington, D.C. Democrats for another candidate–but in between those two events, in 2014, Romanoff benefited from exactly the same “favoritism” he’s mad about today.

We can’t be the only ones who remember this. Call it another past-due reality check.