Only One Thing Can Keep The Colorado Senate Seat From Flipping Blue-- Frackenlooper's Sordid History Of Taking Bribes

Polling has told us a generic Democrat would beat Colorado's doomed Republican Trump enabler, Cory Gardner. Polling also tells us that Frackenlooper would beat Gardner-- or at least that he would have before he got busted and fined for taking bribes. What about the progressive in the race, Andrew Romanoff? No one knows because Chuck Schumer has leaned on all the polling firms to leave Romanoff out of the polls-- or at least not to report their findings. That's Schumer; it's how he hopes to fill the Senate with as many Kyrsten Sinemas as he can.

Watch how Inside-the-Beltway Washington Post reporter conflates the Democratic Party with Schumer and his corrupt machine: Former governor John Hickenlooper’s ethics woes have unsettled a Colorado Senate race that Democrats consider one of their best chances of flipping a Republican-held seat, with the quirky brewery owner’s reputation taking a hit with voters within days of the state’s primary. The two-term governor and former Denver mayor is on the defensive after the Independent Ethics Commission found he violated a state gift ban in 2018 when he accepted a ride in a Maserati limousine at a conference in Turin, Italy, and traveled on a private jet owned by a home builder to Connecticut for the commissioning of the USS Colorado submarine... After his short-lived run for president last year, Hickenlooper was considered an ideal Senate recruit for the Democratic Party-- a well-- known candidate who had won statewide twice and a former small-business owner who opened the first brewpub in Colorado. In his recent ads, Hickenlooper emphasizes how as governor he took the state from 40th in job creation to first."

He's not well-liked. Well, he is well-liked in DC, but not in Denver. And the ethics scandal is just making it worse.

Facing ethics complaints, Hickenlooper, 68, refused to testify at the video conference and only appeared last week after the commission, some of whom he appointed while governor, held him in contempt of a subpoena.

His taxpayer-funded attorney, Mark Grueskin, argued in a legal filing in May that the video conferencing format denied the candidate's due process rights to consult in person with counsel and asked for a delay.

On Friday, Grueskin asked the commission to purge the contempt charge. The panel refused.

With mail ballots arriving this week, the backlash from what one commissioner termed the former governor's "disrespect for the rule of law" is causing some voters to reconsider their preferred candidate.

"I thought he was a good governor, and he did good things for the state," said Anne Holton, 72, a retired assistant attorney general and registered Democrat who planned to vote for Hickenlooper.

"But if there were more to come out from the ethics commission, and if there were something I just thought 'I can't live with that,' I would vote for Romanoff," added the former state employee. "I always drop my ballot off at the last minute."





Hickenlooper's ethics issues burst onto the national stage on June 5 when President Donald Trump tweeted about the commission holding the former governor in contempt saying he, "Got caught big time with his hand in the cookie jar. Should be the end of his Colorado Senate bid. Makes no difference, we already have a GREAT SENATOR."

Gardner's unabashed embrace of Trump's policies on immigration and the environment is widely considered a liability in a state where Democrats swept the 2018 midterms, winning the governorship and both houses of the General Assembly. Polls over the past eight months consistently showed Hickenlooper beating the 45-year-old Yuma Republican by double digits in a state Hillary Clinton carried by five percentage points in 2016.

"Republicans are going to be tied to the president whether they like it or not," said Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report, which rated the race a toss-up.

"I think Cory Gardner can run ahead of Trump, but can he run ahead of him enough to win?" she asked, saying Hickenlooper's ethics issues "have given Gardner an opening."

Another good reason to vote for Romanoff, the better candidate-- by far, in any case. "Like Sanders," wrote Oldham, "Romanoff supports Medicare-for-all and the Green New Deal, making him a favorite among Colorado's growing number of millennials. Hickenlooper favors strengthening the Affordable Care Act and supports a plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Young people are phone banking for Romanoff, calling thousands of voters each week, seeking to boost the momentum provided by the ethics controversy... Romanoff called on Hickenlooper to drop out of the race, saying that his questionable conduct endangered Democrat's chances of beating Gardner. 'He represents a threat we cannot afford,' said Romanoff, who lost two statewide races in 2010 and 2014 after he served eight years in the state House from 2000 to 2008. Even though he won the state caucuses and emerged from the state assembly with top billing on the primary ballot, Romanoff trails Hickenlooper in fundraising." You can contribute to Romanoff's campaign by clicking on the Blue America 2020 Senate thermometer on the right.

And this is not the first time Frackenlooper has been caught taking bribes. He's a total Schumer kind of candidate-- as corrupt as the day is long. Over the weekend, John Frank and Shaun Boyd reported in the Colorado Sun that "Hickenlooper accepted millions of dollars from corporations and nonprofits to fund initiatives and positions in his office-- an arrangement that came with limited oversight and public disclosure despite the potential conflicts of interest. The most significant corporate donations came from the oil and gas industry, where Anadarko Petroleum and Noble Energy gave at least $325,000 to Hickenlooper’s office in his second term alone, according to a months-long analysis of state records conducted by the Colorado Sun and CBS4 Denver. At least one donation from Anadarko came in May 2017, weeks after the deadly Firestone explosion that investigators traced back to a well owned by the company... His ties to corporate interests are facing renewed scrutiny as he seeks the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in the June 30 primary. His campaign rival, Andrew Romanoff, the former state House speaker, is highlighting Hickenlooper’s close relationship with the oil and gas industry and past campaign contributions from energy executives. Most of the entities that made the gifts, grants or donations worked on issues in front of state regulators or legislators, but the governor’s office did not have a written policy to prevent conflicts of interest. The analysis found no evidence that the donations were connected to official action taken by Hickenlooper’s administration."