DNC HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON — In today’s Denver Post, in the Perspective section, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says that Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper should be reelected, while State Sen. Greg Brophy (R.-Wray) takes a contrary view.
A solitary reporter, in Washington unsuccessfully trying to persuade the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to reverse its decision to pull one million dollars from the insurgent campaign of former Colorado House of Representatives Speaker Andrew Romanoff against Congressman Mike Coffman (TP.-Aurora), wondered out loud which of the two — Albright or Brophy — has more gravitas.
Brophy was one of several Republicans who ran for governor this year, but he failed to make it to the June 24 primary. During his campaign, which ended at the Republican State Convention in April, he was most conspicuously shown practicing his assault weapon in target practice, evidently to show the NRA, the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, and other gun rights supporters where he stands on the most controversial aspect of Colorado’s 2013 legislative session, which required background checks for purchases of guns and a limit on the capacity of magazines.
For her part, Albright recounts that she is “kind of an adopted daughter of Colorado” because she lived in Denver when her family fled Czechoslovakia in 1948; her father, Josef Korbel, was a prominent professor at the University of Denver. She then goes on to explain that Hickenlooper should be reelected because of his skill in diplomacy, notably, when he brokered a difficult compromise earlier this year which prevented a costly and contentious ballot fight over limits to oil and gas drilling.
For his part, Brophy, who represents the geographically massive Senate District 1 in the Eastern Plains of Colorado, whines that Hickenlooper has a “persistent habit of viewing with contempt the people or ignoring the concerns of those who don’t happen to live within view of his Denver neighborhood.”
Hickenlooper’s opponent, Bob Beauprez, who has devoted a large part of his net worth of $100 million to defeating the incumbent Democratic governor, lost to Democrat Bill Ritter by 17 points in 2006. In 2005, as a Congressman, he cosponsored the notorious Personhood Amendment — — which would criminalize abortions, and which is again on the ballot as a constitutional amendment this year. Beauprez is so desperate to defeat Hickenlooper that he has now reversed stands on reproductive rights: he said in a debate against Hickenlooper on Wednesday that, if he were elected, he "would not stand in the way” of women making their own choices. In 2006, Beauprez was ridiculed for being “Both Ways Bob” for taking inconsistent positions as a Republican member of Congress between 2002 and 2006.
As the solitary reporter listened to Democratic strategists here at DNC headquarters, he noticed that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told an aide to contact the Hillary for President campaign to put Hickenlooper on Hillary’s short list for a running mate in 2016.
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