Why I’m voting for Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper

I already did my ballot proposition analysis for Colorado this year.  Now I’ll (briefly) tell you how I’m voting on our major state candidates this year.

For Senate: Michael Bennet

Campaign site | Senatorial site | Wikipedia

I am not a huge Michael Bennet fan.

Bennet was appointed to his position when Obama appointed Ken Salazar to be Interior Secretary.  From the beginning, he tried to show he was “independent” of the Washington establishment and the Democrats, though he eventually came through on most votes.  He is, by all accounts, a centrist Democrat (by sentiment or design). I find myself irked (not outraged, but irked) by him as often as not, and there are any number of candidates I’d prefer, but I don’t particularly dislike him. Damning with faint praise, I suppose that is.

Bennet, though,  has one huge, massive, undeniable thing going for him as candidate for the US Senate: he’s not Ken Buck. Buck, who was the surprise candidate for the GOP  is on the list of top crazy radical conservative Tea Partistas on the national ballot this year.  Electing this loon to the US Senate would be a horrible mistake. Feel free to search around here, or online, for all of the zany stuff Buck’s been saying and doing and proposing.

That’s why I’m voting for Michael Bennet.

For Governor: John Hickenlooper

Campaign site | Mayoral site | Wikipedia

I’m going to take the flip direction from the Bennet endorsement above.  It’s true that Hick has the huge superior qualities of being neither ultra-conservative non-entity Dan Maes or xenophobic ego-balloon Tom Tancredo, either of which would be awful for this state.

But, all things considered, I actually like John Hickenlooper.  He’s not a traditional politician, though he’s learned to move in political circles. He was a geologist, then went on to own a brew-pub.  He’s been Denver mayor now for a couple of terms.  He’s squarely pro-business, but not in a knee-jerk anti-consumer or anti-environment or anti-anything-but-profit way. He’s done some positive things, environmentally, as well as dealing with budget issues and trying to build coalitions. He has a good set of newspaper endorsements from around the state.

More importantly, he been running one of the nicer campaigns out there, his ads focusing mostly on … well, what he’s done, what his message is about, etc.  A sampling:

Now, there’s more to a politician than ads, but the combination of positive message, a sense of humor, and style that’s not polished to the max does say something.

Plus, as I mentioned, he’s not Tom Tancredo, a man so determined to prove that he’s indispensable to the nation with his message that “The Illegals are coming! The Illegals are coming!” that he broke (multiple times) his own pledge for term limits, ran (quite unsuccessfully) for President, and now, hating being out of the limelight, is running as the largely-self-appointed American Constitutional Party candidate for governor.

And that’s why I’m voting for John Hickenlooper.

Note: Bennet has been running behind Buck, but has pulled up close to him.  Hickenlooper originally had a commanding lead over the split Tancredo/Maes opposition, but as Maes has justly faded away, Tancredo has pulled closer. Thus one of my reasons for posting all of this, in case it makes any difference.