As far as anyone can tell, Senator. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) is indeed running for re-election in 2020. In Colorado.
Gardner’s campaign strategy is just starting to get rolling — we’ve seen hints of it in his rare public comments — and it looks like the narrative is going to be fairly simple:
That’s pretty much all you get from Gardner, as you can see from this Tweet today:
On this Super Tuesday, exercise your right to vote for the America we all know and believe in. Stand up for freedom. Fight back against socialism. #BelieveInAmerica #BelieveInColorado pic.twitter.com/BmPQMmBw5C
— Cory Gardner (@CoryGardner) March 3, 2020
If this seems like an oversimplification of a much more complex argument…well, that’s because it is. Gardner’s only real path to victory in November is to scare voters about socialism while he marches around the state blasting “God Bless America” from his truck speakers. There are student council candidates with more substantive platforms.
In Gardner’s defense, he doesn’t have many other options here. He can’t really pretend to care about health care anymore. He can crow about moving 27 whole people to a new Bureau of Land Management headquarters in Grand Junction, but that’s more of a bullet point than a message.
Gardner is so thoroughly attached to President Trump that nobody would believe him if he claimed to be bipartisan. He’ll definitely talk about the Arkansas Valley Conduit project, but that only takes up about 15 seconds. Gardner certainly won’t mention that The Denver Post famously un-endorsed him…and you can’t put “Coloradans deserves better than Cory Gardner” on a yard sign.
“SOCIALISM BAD!” obviously works a lot better for Gardner if Bernie Sanders is the Democratic Presidential nominee. It doesn’t make any sense as a tactic against likely Democratic Senate nominee John Hickenlooper, however, and it’s pretty pointless if Joe Biden or Michael Bloomberg win the Democratic Presidential nomination (but he’ll still say it anyway).
This is Gardner’s 2020 playbook. He’ll scream about socialism and pray for a Sanders nomination, and he’ll hope like hell that nobody notices that he’s never in Colorado. If the top of the Democratic ticket in November is, say, Biden and Hickenlooper, then “Plan B” is to drone on forever about how much he “believes” in Colorado and “believes” in America.
Things are looking blue indeed for Cory Gardner.
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What a joke. The economy of his home county and the entirety of rural America is a direct result of ‘socialist’ programs.
I believe in Colorado and America. That's why I will happily vote him out. If Hick is the nominee, I double-dog dare Coreless Cory to stick with that socialism tack.
If it’s good enough for Putin . . .
Senator Weasel done real good! . . .
. . . Republican capitalism at its very best!
“I have a dream, that before the end of the next millenium, Congress will build a water pipeline to Boone. But why, some say, Boone? Why choose this as our goal? We choose to build a pipe to Boone. We choose to go to Boone in the next millennium and do the other things, because they are easy. Any sorry gaggle of idiots in Congress should be able to make this happen.”
Paint me skeptical that bringing fresh water to Boone is going to reshape the future of its 339 residents.
Where was (then Congressman) Gardner six years ago when we had an Administration and Ag Secretary fully committed to these stressed rural regions with Strike Force? (that was a rhetorical question Nutter. The real answer is he was busy hating on the black guy and casting his 60th+ vote to gut the ACA)
Shame on you Pols. The font choice on Brown Nose Cory’s ‘not signs’ is terrible. You can do better. No Blue Ribbon of Participation for you.