"'I think I'm going to switch over to Hickenlooper,' I say out loud, as I'm reading 'John Hickenlooper, Former Colorado Governor, Declares Candidacy for President.'"

"Last December, as you may know, I suddenly said — also out loud — 'Why aren't the Democratic candidates better? I'm just going to be for Amy Klobuchar.' But I've been worried about Amy.... 'Mr. Hickenlooper, 67, a socially progressive, pro-business Democrat who has called himself an extreme moderate.' Extreme moderate — I like!... I'm for the radical moderate who wants to bring people together and to get things done. There needs to be someone for those of us who loathe 'the most passionate party activists.'... What other Democratic Party candidate has any wide-ranging business experience and has worked at multiple levels of the executive side of government? Hickenlooper was mayor of the 19th biggest city (Denver) and governor of the 21st biggest state. That's a lot of executive experience, and he seems to have handled it well. He's worked as an employee in a scientific field, and he's been a successful entrepreneur making the beloved American product, beer."

I wrote on March 4, 2019.

This morning, the news is: "John Hickenlooper ends 2020 presidential campaign, nods at potential Senate bid" (CNN).

Hickenlooper framed his candidacy around stemming the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party. The two-term Colorado governor was a moderate voice in the primary, making his opposition to democratic socialism-- including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' political philosophy -- central to his campaign. But that strategy failed to gain traction...

The process hates us moderates.

I want to make a close study of a section of the transcript of last night's debate — the part about race that ended with Kamala Harris yelling at Biden.

I could not listen to the substance last night. With TV, I'm tuned into the images and emotion. I'm not going to be distracted by the substance, and I know I'll have the transcript later. (I got mine at WaPo.)

I feel that the emotional high point came when Kamala Harris was yelling at Joe Biden. Here's how Drudge depicts it:




It was the emotional high, so that means I was at my lowest substance absorbency. I need to parse the transcript to see exactly how that rolled out and how I think about it in the dark storm of morning.

It began right after the break, with the second set of moderators, Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow. Maddow's first question, addressed to Pete Buttigieg, was very specific:

"The sheer volume of noncompetitive competitors is a distraction that Democrats can ill afford, given the enormity of the disaster at hand."

"Nothing, absolutely nothing, is more important than getting that mean-spirited, embarrassingly gauche, wishy-washy blowhard out of the White House. All of the Democratic fuming about staging a political revolution, shaking up the power structure, fighting the fossil fuel industry, taking down Wall Street, busting noses of the corporate elite, launching ground assaults on power and wealth-transforming the country — all that should be given over to building a well-planned and well-staffed presidential campaign apparatus that can support the candidate best able to do something about what’s happening now.... This is no time for Democrats to humor the ambition of newbies seeking to enter the big time or to pamper grizzled veterans out for a last hurrah... Democrats simply don’t have the luxury of engaging in months of intramural infighting that ends up trashing those most electable against Trump. The last thing they need is a battered nominee limping into the general election...."

Writes Colbert I. King in "All these wannabe Democratic nominees are wasting everybody’s time" (WaPo).

That's one very obvious position, but who's the pampered "grizzled veteran"? Isn't it Biden, and isn't he also the one who's supposed to be the closest to a sure thing that everyone else can get behind? And how can Trump-haters really believe that the blandest choice is really best?

King lists the ones he thinks are the extras who need to get out of the way: Bill de Blasio, John Delaney, Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee, Tim Ryan, Michael F. Bennet, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Hickenlooper, Eric Swalwell, Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang. Why isn't Buttigieg on that loser list? Why isn't Klobuchar? And why is Hickenlooper there? He could emerge as the serious, stable alternative to Trump that everyone could get behind.

Even if Trump opponents agree that what's crucially important is to beat Trump, plenty of them will say that a more excitingly progressive campaign is the better bet. Look at how Trump himself won (and look back to how Obama won). You have to look at what Americans have become and try to figure out what will be moving us 16 months from now. It's not easy, and it will take some magic.

I'm using the word "magic" to evoke President Trump, who recently asked about Biden, "Where's the magic?"

Hickenlooper's pitch: Be careful, or you'll get more Trump.

The quote is: "You know, if we’re not careful, we’re going to end up reelecting the worst president in American history" (WaPo). That was his comeback, when the crowd booed him for saying, "If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer."

In other words: Socialism doesn't work toward the goal of getting our party elected.

So... vote for him because he'll refrain from saying that word that bothers some of those people out there. But the people in his audience aren't inspired, and really, why should they believe that people will vote for a person whose pitch is that he'll try not to bother those other people?

The WaPo writer supplements Hickenlooper's weak pitch with material from a Wall Street Journal op-ed that ran under his name last month: He's "running to save" the "only economic system that can support a strong middle class." And Hickenlooper responded to a phone call and conceded that he'd spoken "inartfully" (with the problem seeming to be that he was picking on Bernie Sanders, the out-and-proud socialist in the race).

But in that phone interview, he repeated the pitch that got booed: "If we’re not willing to draw a bright line and say we’re not socialists, we could quite possibly reelect this president."

Years ago, I knew a man who had the verbal tic of saying "quite possibly." I think I may have cured him of it by repeating "quite possibly" back to him when he said it. Oh, it was all in good fun. It was funny. And he really did need to be cured of that.

Does Hickenlooper have that tic? He says things like, "These are certainly big ideas. But they’re also quite possibly very bad ideas," and "It’s not that they wouldn’t get a pathway to citizenship, but what I said was if you put it aside and didn’t make that a part of the immediate solution, quite possibly you’d get to a pathway to citizenship faster..."

You see how the "quite possibly" weaseling works. (Check your weasel for tics.)

But maybe it's a fantastic way to exhibit carefulness and thereby beat Trump. In fact, I propose it as a slogan:

  John Hickenlooper — quite possibly!

"The reaction would have been absurdly sexist..."

I ran @HillaryClinton’s Instagram account for the 2016 campaign & you never saw posts like these from us because:

1) The reaction would have been absurdly sexist

2) There *aren’t* photos like this of HRC b/c she knew there are different rules for men & women running for office pic.twitter.com/bs4EbvIrep

— John Buysse (@JohnBuysse) March 19, 2019

I found that at a WaPo article, "John Hickenlooper asks why female candidates aren’t pressed about naming a male running mate." Excerpt:

John Hickenlooper, the former governor of Colorado, was asked what is becoming a stock question for men seeking the Democratic nomination: whether they would choose a female running mate if they thwarted plans for a female standard-bearer.

“Of course.... Well, I’ll ask you another question.... But how come we’re not asking, more often, the women, ‘Would you be willing to put a man on the ticket?’”

The remark elicited what sounded like a shout of disapproval from the audience....

"If even a successful businessman and entrepreneur like Governor Hickenlooper can't openly support capitalism in the Democratic primary, it's clear this is Senator Sanders' party now."

Said Howard Schultz (the Starbucks founder who may run for President as an independent), which was quoted on "Face the Nation" this morning, in a question to John Hickenlooper, whose answer was so dispiriting that I turned off the TV in the middle. Transcript:

GOV. HICKENLOOPER: I've been-- the point I was making is that we defined people by these labels that- that often have all kinds of associations and baggage with them in that sense. Do I believe in small business? Of course I believe in small business. I started probably more than 20 different small businesses.

That's where I turned it off, judging Hickenlooper to be hopelessly mealymouthed (and he was my first-pick among the current Democratic candidates, but I'd never listened to him speak before). He continues:

"Do we want a livid warrior or a happy one? Someone eager to name and shame enemies, the way Donald Trump does, or someone with a less Manichaean outlook?"

"Someone poised to reciprocate Trump’s nastiness or someone incapable of it? I’m not entirely sure which type is more likely to defeat him. But I know which gives us a better chance at healing America — if that’s even possible — and moving us past a juncture of crippling animosity. It’s the type that Hickenlooper represents and maybe even exemplifies.... Optimism, warmth and joy matter. They propelled Ronald Reagan to the presidency. I think they’re even a small part of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez phenomenon — the part that leavens the stridency and purity tests. She has a wide, dazzling smile. In a video that went viral, she dances. Some of the Democrats who are pursuing or seriously considering presidential bids are better at dancing, metaphorically speaking, than others. It doesn’t come easily to Bernie Sanders, which is why he added all that poignant family history to his big speech on Saturday, or to Elizabeth Warren, which is why she sipped a beer in an Instagram video that was part of her rollout. It’s effortless for Beto O’Rourke. It’s present in Cory Booker. It comes and goes with Kamala Harris, who’s still calibrating her temperature.... Hickenlooper sees a sunny approach — one that emphasizes aspirations over grievances — as the necessary balm for a grossly divided country and the most potent antidote to Trump...."

From "Does John Hickenlooper Have a Secret Weapon? Maybe nice guys finish Trump" by Frank Bruni (NYT).

The second-most-up-voted comment is from someone with the insight to adopt the screen name "Me":

Just no.

I’m done with “happy”, “consensus-building” Democrats. I’m still young, and I want to see transformational change in this country before I’m dead— enough with the baby steps.

Time to bring the fire.

Bruni uses but doesn't delve into the phrase "happy warrior." To me, it means Hubert Humphrey:

Humphrey's consistently cheerful and upbeat demeanor, and his forceful advocacy of liberal causes, led him to be nicknamed "The Happy Warrior" by many of his Senate colleagues and political journalists.... As Vice President, Humphrey was criticized for his complete and vocal loyalty to Johnson and the policies of the Johnson Administration, even as many of his liberal admirers opposed the president's policies with increasing fervor regarding the Vietnam War.... [H]is nickname, "the Happy Warrior", was used against him.... 

And I see that William Safire wrote one of his "On Language" (NYT) columns about the phrase. This was back in 2004, when John Kerry was running for President. A WaPo columnist had just written that Kerry was "dour" and no one would call him "the happy warrior," and a Democratic Senator had just insulted President George W. Bush as "the happy warrior" who "strutted" about his military adventures.

Safire informs us that the phrase originated in a William Wordsworth poem, "Character of the Happy Warrior" (1807)(''Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he/That every man in arms should wish to be?.... Whose high endeavors are an inward light/That makes the path before him always bright:/ . . . But who, if he be called upon to face/Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined/Great issues, good or bad for human kind,/Is happy as a Lover'').

Safire tells the story of how the phrase got from the Wordsworth poem into American political discourse. In 1924, Franklin Roosevelt had the task of putting the name Al Smith up for nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Smith campaign manager Joseph Proskauer had written a speech using the phrase, and FDR rejected it — saying "You can't give poetry to a political convention." So FDR drafted his own speech, but it was worse, and he ended up giving in.  Insisting that it would be "a flop," he gave Proskauer's "Happy Warrior speech." But it went well, so he claimed he'd given his own speech with that one bit from Proskauer ''stuck in.'' Proskauer sulked.

So much for happiness.

"I think I'm going to switch over to Hickenlooper."

I say out loud, as I'm reading "John Hickenlooper, Former Colorado Governor, Declares Candidacy for President" (NYT). Last December, as you may know, I suddenly said — also out loud — "Why aren't the Democratic candidates better? I'm just going to be for Amy Klobuchar."

But I've been worried about Amy. There was that comb-as-a-fork business, and just yesterday I was thinking there are too many Senators in the race, and I think we need a governor. There's Jay Inslee, but I'm thinking he's all about the Green New Deal. So I welcome Hickenlooper:

John Hickenlooper, the two-time Colorado governor and former brewpub owner who has overseen Colorado’s remarkable economic expansion, declared his candidacy for president on Monday.

Mr. Hickenlooper, 67, a socially progressive, pro-business Democrat who has called himself an “extreme moderate”...

Extreme moderate — I like!

Here's his video:



Best line: "As a skinny kid with Coke-bottle glasses and a funny last name, I’ve stood up to my fair share of bullies."

Hickenlooper was term-limited out of his governorship, but he seems to have been a very successful governor with what the NYT calls "a careful, consensus-building approach that won him praise from both sides of the aisle and helped him guide Colorado out of a recession and through a series of floods, wildfires and mass shootings...."

Gary Hart, the former Colorado senator and Democratic presidential candidate, predicted that Mr. Hickenlooper would appeal to primary voters because “he does not have a lot of pretensions.” But Mr. Hart noted that the candidate would have to harden his stances fast, in order to attract the most passionate party activists in the run-up to the primaries.

Eh. Too many Democratic candidates have hardened up stances. I'm for the radical moderate who wants to bring people together and to get things done. There needs to be someone for those of us who loathe "the most passionate party activists."

Mr. Hickenlooper moved to Colorado in 1981 to work as a geologist in the oil industry. After a layoff, he opened a downtown Denver brewpub, eventually expanding to 15 pubs and restaurants, mostly in the Midwest. Soon, he was helping to reshape Denver’s dilapidated core. By 2003 he was mayor; in 2007 he won re-election with 87 percent of the vote...

By 2011, he was governor. In that position, Mr. Hickenlooper pushed through Medicaid expansion under a divided legislature, and signed the gun control package, a major shift for the state. Colorado also gained national attention when Mr. Hickenlooper helped the state establish a national model for recreational marijuana regulation, despite his personal opposition to legalization....

But progressives in the state reserve much of their criticism for his environmental legacy, arguing that he has not gone far enough in regulating the state’s powerful oil and gas industry. In recent years, some residents have faulted him for failing to push well projects out of their neighborhoods. (Mr. Hickenlooper has been so eager to promote the industry that he once drank fracking fluid.)

I guess there's something disgusting about every candidate. Amy Klobuchar ate salad with a comb, and John Hickenlooper drank fracking fluid. I like his brand of disgusting. It's pro-business. And he's a geologist who worked in the oil industry. He must know something. What other Democratic Party candidate has any wide-ranging business experience and has worked at multiple levels of the executive side of government? Hickenlooper was mayor of the 19th biggest city (Denver) and governor of the 21st biggest state. That's a lot of executive experience, and he seems to have handled it well. He's worked as an employee in a scientific field, and he's been a successful entrepreneur making the beloved American product, beer.

The governor, a lanky, guitar-playing, twice-married father of a teenage boy, has long been considered the state’s geek in chief, often running gimmicky advertisements in which he makes himself the butt of a joke. As governor he showered in a business suit for a political ad in which he swore off dirty politics.

Geek in chief. That's what I want.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Hickenlooper, Lauren Hitt, said that the governor learned long ago how to make bullies feel uncertain, and she compared a potential Hickenlooper-Trump election to “a 'Revenge of the Nerds’-type situation.”

Excellent positioning!

Trump is trying to figure out who's going to run against him in 2020.

It's really hard to figure out.*

Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, asked consultants to scour the backgrounds of four outspoken Democrats — Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, two sources close to the administration said....

The White House believes both Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren are “too old” to mount a serious campaign three years from now, sources said....

“Elizabeth Warren is 100 years old....” the second source said....

She's 67.

Trump’s political team is also counting out [NY Governor Andrew] Cuomo and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, because they’ve been tainted by corruption probes....

[Kirsten] Gillibrand, 50, has been raising her profile thanks to a series of “no” votes on Trump’s Cabinet picks, but White House officials view her as “too young” and believe she lacks the network in the party to run a nationwide campaign, the sources said.

So 67 is too old and 50 is too young. Noted.
______________________

* I'm steeling myself for all the born-lame jokes about how hard it is to see in 2020. The headline at the link is "Trump’s White House eyes potential foes in 2020 election." Did they write "eyes" because it will be 2020? No 20/20 jokes. I'm pre-banning them. It's bad enough to have to plunge back into another campaign season.

Where all the governors stand on resettling Syrian refugees in their state.

AP has an extensive run down. I'll focus on some governors that I would expect to be relatively supportive of the President's agenda. The number in parentheses is the number of refugees who have already arrived in the state. Boldface is mine:

CALIFORNIA (218): Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown says he'll work closely with President Barack Obama to ensure any Syrian refugees coming to California are "fully vetted in a sophisticated and utterly reliable way." He says the state can help uphold America's traditional role as a place of asylum while also protecting California residents.

COLORADO (5): Colorado's governor isn't ruling out Syrian refugees. But Gov. John Hickenlooper says the federal government needs to make sure the verification process for refugees is "as stringent as possible."

"In case you missed it, there's some news out of Colorado that's better than hot pancakes and syrup. (If that's even possible.)"

Email, received just now, from Donna Brazile, the longtime Democratic Party character, identified in the email as Vice-Chair for Voter Registration and Participation/Democratic National Committee.

What subdivision of the supposedly sophisticated Democratic Party database am I in that my email address got selected for this especially folksy presentation of the news? Does the Democratic Party think I look fat? Does it see me as self-indulgent and pleasure-seeking? Does it assume I'm the kind of person who won't find it offputting to use Donna Brazile as the African American woman coming at me with a plateful of comfort food? And why pancakes? If I were cooking up this propaganda, using Brazile as the email signatory, the last comfort food I would choose is pancakes! And syrup... Like that's going to stir up sweet, mystic childhood memories without causing me to think that's racial and wrong.

(Cue the usual: If a Republican had done it....)

ADDED: Full text of the email:

Ann --

In case you missed it, there's some news out of Colorado that's better than hot pancakes and syrup. (If that's even possible.)

Governor John Hickenlooper signed a new elections bill into law that will make it easier for Coloradans to vote -- and takes some of the most proactive steps to do it that we've ever seen.

Under the new law, every registered voter in the state will be mailed a ballot, while keeping the option to vote in person. They're creating convenience centers for in-person early voting, and making it easier for people to register to vote.

Colorado is modernizing their voting process to make it consistent with how we are living our lives these days -- something that every state should be trying to do.

Agree? If you do, join me in thanking Gov. Hickenlooper for taking such an important step to improve the voting process in his state -- and for creating a model for other states to follow.

Republicans across the country have carried out an assault on voting rights over the past several years -- and we've been fighting them at every turn. But this new law in Colorado reminds us that it isn't enough just to fight efforts to restrict voting rights -- we have to find innovative ways of making it easier for Americans to participate in our democracy.

This past November, thousands of Americans stood in line for hours and hours to cast a ballot. That's not right -- and we should be taking every step we can to make the voting process easier for people to participate in.

Colorado just took a great big step in that direction. Join me and thank Gov. Hickenlooper -- let's make sure that Colorado isn't the last state to pass a law like this:

http://my.democrats.org/Colorado-Voting

Thanks,

Donna

Donna Brazile
Vice-Chair for Voter Registration and Participation
Democratic National Committee

I see that when I click on those links, the URL opens up with some elaborate code (which I'm assuming gives them information about what prompts me to click). 

Have a ritualistic sip of fracking fluid with Governor Hickenlooper.

"You can drink it. We did drink it around the table, almost rituallike, in a funny way. It was a demonstration.... they’ve invested millions of dollars in what is a benign fluid in every sense."

(Maybe it will help if you ever get the Hickenloop-ups.)

Does Gov. Hickenlooper to refer to Obama's "pregnancy"?

Listen closely. I know Democrats are always thinking about pregnancy, but this is hilarious:



The Colorado governor obviously intended to refer to the "first few month's of [Obama's] presidency," but it sure sounds as though he says "the first few month's of his pregnancy."

I recorded (very roughly) from today's gripping episode of "Meet the Press."