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August 29, 2019 03:25 PM UTC

When DC Comes Calling: How Quickly They Forget

  • 18 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Andrew Romanoff and would-be 2014 CD-6 primary opponent Karen Middleton.

As the intraparty tempest following the entry into the Democratic U.S. Senate primary of former Gov. John Hickenlooper continues apace today, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s (DSCC) choice to endorse Hickenlooper from the outset in the race over a slate of lesser-known candidates continues to provoke debate, former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff is controversially slamming both Hickenlooper and Washington Democrats as morally equivalent to the Republican incumbent all sides say is the real target:

Two news stories broke today. One shows some of the nation’s most powerful corporate interests are bankrolling not only Cory Gardner’s campaign but also the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The second story shows the DSCC has spent the past six months blackballing our campaign—threatening to punish any firm that does business with us.

Why? Because I’m fighting for a Green New Deal and Medicare for All—priorities that don’t sit well with the party bosses and powerbrokers in DC…

The issue of whether national party strategists should endorse primary candidates based on their estimation of general election viability is of course perennially fraught in both parties. We’ll let readers reckon that moral question for themselves–we prefer to go case-by-case. But aside from the scorched-earth language Romanoff in particular continues to use, likening Hickenlooper and national Democrats he would presumably need as the nominee to the Republican in the race, there’s something important missing from this latest round of indignation.

Back in 2014, as the Denver Post’s Allison Sherry reported almost two years before that election in January of 2013, Romanoff was himself chosen by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to end the CD-6 Democratic primary for a seat critical to national strategy that year:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wasn’t shy Tuesday in talking about how much they want a Romanoff-Coffman 2014 ticket.

“Mike Coffman’s Tea Party approach puts him out of step with voters in the district, and a candidate like Andrew Romanoff would present voters with a real opportunity to elect a leader whose values match theirs and who will protect the middle class,” said DCCC spokeswoman Emily Bittner.

By the end of the following month, February of 2013, all of the potential primary challengers to Romanoff in his ill-fated run for CD-6 in 2014 were unceremoniously out of the race. Romanoff ran unopposed for the CD-6 nomination, and went on to lose to Republican Rep. Mike Coffman by 9 points. It may be true that in both 2010 and now ahead of 2020, Romanoff was passed over for support by Washington, D.C. Democrats for another candidate–but in between those two events, in 2014, Romanoff benefited from exactly the same “favoritism” he’s mad about today.

We can’t be the only ones who remember this. Call it another past-due reality check.

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18 thoughts on “When DC Comes Calling: How Quickly They Forget”

  1. Has Andrew explained how his fetish with balancing the federal budget squares with the New Green Deal and Medicare-For-All (Whether They Want It or Not)?

    That was then, this is now?

        1. Oh God, you're right. Romanoff hooked up with Pat Caddell to fight the power in 2010.

          Do all these lefties singing his praises know Romanoff's whole story? Doubt it…

            1. And let's not forget the immigration special session of 2006:

              After the passage of legislation that so many of us in the Latino community fought against, then State House Speaker Andrew Romanoff bragged about its implementation, boasting, “Colorado passed more bills to curb illegal immigration than any other non-border state in the nation. We did more to solve the problem of illegal immigration than Congress has done in a decade.”

              Furthermore, he spent tens of thousands of dollars in special interest contributions to defend his law that denied basic government services to individuals who couldn’t immediately prove they were legal residents. Never mind that it was so poorly written that the following year, it was amended because the most vulnerable citizens in Colorado – the elderly, the homeless, the poor – were being denied services that they were eligible to receive.

              Now, as a U.S. Senate candidate, Speaker Romanoff condemns Arizona for passing nearly identical laws to the ones he supported here in Colorado. It leaves many of us wondering: who is the real Andrew Romanoff?

              https://www.denverpost.com/2010/06/23/will-the-real-andrew-romanoff-please-stand-up/

              This is fucking bullshit, man. This dude is no progressive. Who's going to tell the Bernie people supporting him?

              1. It sounds like you are trying to.

                Have you ever discussed the issue with Andrew? If not, please find an occasion to do so and ask him about it. I cannot say that you will like his answer, but I think writing him off without hearing his explanation is imprudent.

                Andrew is a good listener. If he is wrong, he will admit it.  I like that.

              2. So Andrew's worse-case narrative on immigration, a 13-year old position he no longer holds reflecting the political realities of then, but mirroring the position Cory and the Republican Party hold today, (and looks like they'll double down on between now and next November) is bad how again? 

                Again, this is the equivalent of someone who drank fracking fluid (reflecting what he felt was a political reality then) and now wants to be a climate hero. I said I won't trash any of the candidates in the race and I'm going to stick to that position. This all seems like unproductive banter and a waste of electrons.  

                I say this with all due respect to opposing views. 

                I’m not a BernieBro.

                Any one of them have my vote in the general. 

      2. Yes, that ad….

        As some of you may have noticed, I am something of a fiscal moderate when it comes to taxes and spending. I didn't entirely disagree with Andrew's message but WTF, he used that to start his campaign as a Democrat?

         

         

        1. So you agree with the policies, just not the ad? Or rather, his timing?

          The point is, the only way we will ever change the way power is brokered in this country is by electing people with integrity who will do the right thing. Have YOU ever acted upon bad advice?

          Give me an honest man who is not above making a mistake in judgement. John ran for president because he wanted to BE president. He is running for the senate for purely political reasons. I see it as the Hickenlooper Insincerity Campaign.

          I am pro-Romanoff because I know both men. I believe I know who will be the better senator for the people of Colorado…not the corporations of Colorado

           

          1. So you agree with the policies, just not the ad? Or rather, his timing?

            Yes, and yes. I think Andrew was right in recognizing the deficit and the need to address it. But I wouldn't have made it the center piece of my campaign. And certainly not as part of the kickoff which should be something that will appeal to the base.

  2. Forgive my ignorance.  Did Karen Middleton actually file to run in the primary?  I see this diary talking about a "probable primary," but I couldn't find a campaign filing for her on the FEC site.

    The only thing I could find generally about her "campaign" was this piece talking about her meeting with the DCCC and "gauging support."  Were she to have filed to run, like the dozen-ish folks who already have in the race that Hick's popped into, that would seem to be a pretty analogous situation.

  3. Here’s a “reality check” for you, Alva.  If Hickandwhatever is so teh awesome as you want everyone here to believe, then two slates of “lesser-known” candidates should pose no problem, let alone just one? . . . 

    . . . the DSCC can go piss on your “scorched earth”.  Their record of late is hardly one of unqualified and unquestionable successes.

    PS — hasn’t Mr. Fantasticooper said or done anything wonderfully worth reporting on this week???

      1. Whaaaat???   I loves me that little Frackenquacker guy . . .

        . . . he’s undeniably the very bestest ex-presidential polling-at-under-1% not-Cory-Gardner candidate to enter the Colorado senate race this past fortnight — everybody knows that!!! — I mean, he’s, what, like nationwide, right???

        Plus, his record in Colorado; he’s made funny commercials in the past. And, done other stuff here too, someone once said, I think . . . I know for sure he put money in a parking meter! He even takes showers; well, at least he took one. But it sure was fun to watch over and over. And, he also, no — wait, that was a different guy — well, anyway . . . He’s got a resumé full, really full, of having resumé things.

        I just wish Alva would spend a few more of his Romanoff-bashing electrons talking up the H-Lo guy here, so that everyone else gets as eager and excited as I am to hold their nose and demonstrate their strong preference and undying love for the man 15 months from now . . . 

        . . . I hope that’s not too much to ask.

  4. I don’t think Andrew talking about a balanced budget is any more/less interesting than another candidate who drinks fracking fluid claiming to be a climate hero.  This conversation is less than constructive.  Let’s let the primary process be and do what it’s designed to do. We’re each in our own camps for now. I’ll vote for John if he’s the victor. In the meantime I’d like to think we can have at least a brief period of ‘marketplace of ideas’? 

    1. Marketplace of ideas?  I'll have a pound of socialism in my health care, a free market with an underlying safety net in agriculture and a triple helping of dog-eat-dog capitalism in high tech please.

      1. #Voyageur2020! 

        PS: Hemp capacitors, a P-20 education system in CO powered by renewable energy sources developed on state land board properties; mass transit run solely on biodiesel, wind and solar power.  A network of rural charging stations provided by the state’s rural electric cooperatives. Fresh, local food in all school cafeterias.  Fully-funded Ag Research Stations from marijuana tax revenue  

        PPS: A unicorn 🦄 with a nice side-saddle for our little beauty queen with the soiled blue dress for when he finally sees the light and we make him Grand Marshall of the parade. 

        A guy can dream, right? 

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