Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) took a significant step toward a potential presidential run in 2020 by forming a political committee that will allow him to boost his national profile, the Colorado Sun reports.
“The term-limited Democrat created a federal leadership PAC called Giddy Upthat can collect as much as $5,000 a year from donors — money that he can use to cover his political travel, develop policy proposals and donate to other candidates.”
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) “is edging closer to a potential run for president, following what he called an ‘encouraging’ summer mulling a campaign,” Politico reports.
Said Hickenlooper: “What I saw was an interest … a genuine interest in terms of what we’ve done in Colorado.”
“Hickenlooper, one of several current and former Democratic governors considering running in 2020, said he has not yet made a decision about the race. But in a sign that his political operation is ramping up, he will travel to the Southeast this month to help the campaigns of Democratic gubernatorial candidates Andrew Gillum in Florida and Stacey Abrams in Georgia.”
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) told Axios that he has talked to a lot of “old friends” this summer about a potential 2020 run.
Said Hickenlopper: “I’ve done politics for 15 years…and I still feel like I’m on the steep side of the learning curve. It’s been very, very useful to talk to people and say, ‘What are the sacrifices?’, ‘What does it take to be successful?’ We’re still working on it.”
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) is “weighing a 2020 run and will decide ‘in the next month or so’ whether to take proactive steps like early-state political travel and launching a PAC,” CNN reports.
Gov. John Kasich “tried to shut down reports that he is considering an independent presidential bid in 2020 with Colorado’s Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper,” NBC News reports.
Said Kasich: “Look, ‘Kasich-Hickenlooper,’ first of all, you couldn’t pronounce it and second of all, you couldn’t fit it on a bumper sticker.”
When told that those words weren’t a denial, Kasich flatly said, “the answer is ‘no,’ okay.”
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) told the Denver Post that he’s not running for president in 2020 and that his recent remarks on CNN were misconstrued.
Said Hickenlooper: “I thought that couldn’t have been more clear that I wasn’t going to run. If you were legitimately going to run for president, you’d form a PAC. Literally everyone does. I haven’t formed a PAC. I’m not going to form a PAC.”
Just published: The Opposite of Woe: My Life in Beer and Politics by Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Denver Post: “Hickenlooper recounts the first time he smoked pot at age 16. And his attempt to grow marijuana outside his bedroom window in suburban Pennsylvania. His love-sick depression as a freshman at Wesleyan University and the lithium capsules he needed to survive final exams. And the time in college he ‘got a little high’ and took a nude self-portrait in a bathtub.”
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) became the latest Hillary Clinton supporter to express doubt about her candidacy for president, saying the 2016 election is “kind of grim, to be blunt,” the Denver Post reports.
Said Hickenlooper: “I don’t know where this whole thing is going to go in terms of her … (e-mail) server and whether there is something in there that is really going to turn out to have broken the law — which I think would be the death knell.”
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) told the Wall Street Journal there’s no chance he’d run for president.
Said Hickenlooper: “No, my God. What a dogfight. You’d have to convince me, and I don’t think there’s a way, a human way to convince me. At least the way I look at my life it would be the last major undertaking I get in my adult life. And I’d have to believe that I was changing, somehow doing something incredibly important for the country and changing it, and I don’t see that as remotely feasible in the present world.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Wonk Wire, Political Job Hunt and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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