It wasn’t much of a campaign event, as the nine or ten people present who weren’t part of the campaign or the media seemed pretty likely to vote for him anyway. But former governor John Hickenlooper, now the Democratic nominee for Cory Gardner’s U.S. Senate seat, found the Saturday morning meeting in a Greeley backyard invigorating and critical.
“I think it’s important to talk to people face-to-face,” Hickenlooper said after the event concluded. “Maybe it’s because I’m such an extrovert, it’s cruel and unusual punishment to keep me locked in my family room day after day after day. It’s healthy for me. And I think people say things in person differently than on Zoom, but I do Zooms, 60 to 100 people, similar discussions. The campaign is more at this point about what’s Cory Gardner’s record in Washington over the last 10 years. What’s he done? He says he’s bipartisan, but the bipartisan bills mostly have no meaning. Since I can’t do big rallies, I do TV ads, digital ads, and I do Zooms, 10-12 a week. But I want the campaign to be about this.”
Hickenlooper met Saturday morning with five community leaders, a Greeley-Evans District 6 middle school teacher; A District 6 school board member and nurse; the CEO of Sunrise Community Health; a Longmont firefighter who grew up in Greeley; and a doctor who works with Life Care Center of Greeley.
The masked, socially distant roundtable took place, sans table, in the Greeley backyard of the home of a pair of supporters, former District 6 school board member Judy Kron and her husband, Rocky.
Hickenlooper heard from Therese Gilbert, who teaches seventh grade in District 6. Gilbert told the former governor that she felt the school district had made the right decision to open up schools at the end of the summer, but that the struggle of funding remained a major issue.
From school board member Natalie Mash, also a nurse with Sunrise, he heard about the struggle Mash witnessed in those she cared for and served in acquiring desperately needed healthcare, especially during the pandemic. That was echoed and amplified by Mitzi Moran, CEO of Sunrise, who pleaded with Hickenlooper to work toward serving the still-unserved portion of the population that can’t afford Obamacare or their employer healthcare and/or weren’t otherwise able to acquire appropriate health insurance.
From Micah Holmes, a Longmont firefighter who grew up in Greeley, Hickenlooper received a report on the experience of first responders during the pandemic, and heard of the struggle with transporting folks who the responders knew well were likely not coming home from the hospital.
Finally, Dr. Keith Thompson, a doctor of internal medicine with Life Care Physician Services, LLC., spoke of the frustration, which he shared with folks in the field of assisted living, of state health agencies’ approach to correction and direction, with an emphasis on the former. The tendency has been punitive action rather than sharing best practices and instruction. That particularly seemed interesting to Hickenlooper.
“I can’t believe they’re not sharing best practices,” Hickenlooper said. “Maybe that’s happening in a way he’s not aware of, but things like that. And then hearing as firefighters they’re good on money but are worried about going down the hill later. That’s important.”
Hickenlooper took opportunities to poke at his political opponent, Gardner, noting that, should he be elected, Hickenlooper would host at least four town halls per year. Notably, Gardner was the same day appearing at a debate on the Western Slope, which Hickenlooper had declined to attend. But Gardner’s record on large-scale public appearances has been heavily questioned, nonetheless.
The clash between the two of them was made more stark by the news of the previous evening, that of the death of longtime pioneering Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which creates a vacancy on the highest court in the land. Gardner’s February, 2016, comments, about replacing a Supreme Court justice in the final year of a president’s term, have been brought back to the fore in the hours since Ginsburg’s death.
“I think we’re too close to the election,” Gardner said then. “The president who is elected in November should be the one who makes this decision.”
Hickenlooper spoke to that upcoming decision point for the sitting senator, Gardner, who decline to answer the question at his event out west later that day.
“Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, I’m still processing it. I was so sure she’d live a couple more years at least, she’s so tough,” Hickenlooper said. “I think a lot of people, Republicans and Democrats are broken-hearted about it, but Cory Gardner was emphatic, TV footage has him saying, ‘this is too close to a presidential election, too much is at stake.’ We’ll see if he keeps his word. But that’s why I’m running.”
President Donald Trump has said he will look to fill the vacancy as quickly as possible, and even those Republican senators who were the most outspoken about then-president Barack Obama’s lame-duck status impinging upon his right to elicit a vote on a Supreme Court nomination — Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee, was never given a chance at a confirming vote — have reversed course to support their party’s executive.
“I was ready for a break, but there’s so much at stake,” Hickenlooper said. “I’ve never been a great speaker or debater, but I’m good at listening to people and bringing people together.”