August 14, 2019 09:42 AM UTC

Cory Gardner Talking Points Robot Appears in Minturn

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• by: Colorado Pols

Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) made a 2020 re-election campaign stop in Minturn on Tuesday. It was not particularly inspiring, even by Gardner standards.

As Nate Peterson captures for the Vail Daily, Gardner was asked some tough questions — for which he provided some very Gardner-esque non-answers. Check out this discussion:

Joy Harrison, the former chair of the Eagle County Democrats, pleaded with Gardner to support the CORE Act in a seven-minute back-and-forth exchange.

“It’s an incredibly important bill that would preserve these incredible public lands for our kids and our kids’ kids,” Harrison said. “Your vote and your support is absolutely critical because Republican Senators, your colleagues, are looking to you to see what you will signal.”

“The CORE Act has supporters and it has people who don’t like it,” Gardner said. “I think what’s important in Colorado is that we find that way to find something that people can support. I think that’s incredibly important.” [Pols emphasis]

“You’re dismissing so much work and so much coalition-building that has gone into this,” Harrison said.

“All I said is we’ve got to find a way to find something that works,” Gardner responded. 

“The work is already done,” Harrison said.

Gardner wasn’t done waffling, however, later adding this: “To be clear, I do not oppose this bill.” Clear as mud, sir.

Gardner is a caricature of himself at this point. Last week in Wheat Ridge, he answered questions about immigration, racism in politics, and gun violence with nonsense platitudes like, “I’m going to do what’s right for the people of Colorado,” and our personal favorite, “If we have an immigration policy that works, most Americans are going to agree with almost all of it.”

From gun violence to health care, Gardner mumbles out non-answer after non-answer. When he’s not taking credit for things he actually opposes, Gardner attempts weird subject changes in response to basic questions. For example, consider this answer to a question about whether Gardner supports Trump administration efforts to gut the Obama-era Clean Power Plan:

“I voted that climate change is real.”

Uh, okay. What in the hell does that even mean?

Gardner has been getting slammed for regularly ignoring constituents and reporters in Colorado. Now that he’s finally showing his face in his home state, he’s not doing himself any favors by prattling on like a mindless politician. It’s not a mystery why Gardner faces an uphill battle on his road to re-election in 2020.