A Feature, Not a Bug for the DSCC

It turns out that former Colorado Governor, and current Colorado Senate Candidate, John Hickenlooper, is under ethics investigation for taking gifts from lobbyists.

This has been the case for some time, well before when the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee endorsed him in the PRIMARY.

Why would they endorse in the primary?

I'm sure that some will claim that this was just an oversight, but I believe that it was deliberate.

Where most of us see this sort of crap, and think, "Corruption," but I think that Chuck Schumer and his Evil Minions^™ see that and think, "He shares our values."

Between Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Sherrod Brown, it makes it hard for Democrats to suck up to Wall Street, payday lenders, and oil companies, and the like, and another liberal in the Senate would make Chuck's job just too damn hard:

The Colorado Independent Ethics Commission is expected to release an investigative report this week into allegations that John Hickenlooper, a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2020, violated state law by receiving free private jet rides and other gifts from corporations when he served as governor. While Hickenlooper has denied any wrongdoing, and last year the Denver Post editorial board said the complaint consisted of “politically motivated lies,” there are fears that the investigation stands to damage Hickenlooper’s chances in Colorado.

………

Some progressives worry that Hickenlooper, the current frontrunner and the Democratic Party’s preferred candidate, could fumble the party’s chances of flipping the seat if he is found guilty of violating the state ethics law. Hickenlooper, who abandoned his lagging presidential campaign in order to run for Senate in August, is one of eight Democrats vying for the chance to take on Sen. Cory Gardner, one of the most vulnerable Republicans heading into 2020. And though he was a popular governor and leads Gardner in head-to-head polls, Hickenlooper’s pro-fracking record could also be a liability in the primary, especially as voters’ anxieties over the climate crisis rise.

………

In August, The Intercept reported that former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, a progressive candidate largely considered to be Hickenlooper’s main competition, called the DSCC’s intervention a “recipe for disaster.” He said that if voters are told that their voice doesn’t matter, “then why would they show up in November?

The original complaint focused on travel including a trip to the Bilderberg Meeting in Italy and related luxury lodging and transportation costs, such as a ride in a chauffeured Maserati limousine; a flight from Dallas, Texas, to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to attend the American Enterprise Institute’s Jackson Hole Symposium; and a private jet from New Jersey to Colorado. (In 2006, Colorado voters passed a constitutional amendment that created additional restrictions on gifts to elected officials, including a ban on gifts exceeding $53 per year.)

The complaint is being dismissed as a political hit job, and there is definitely an element of that, but Hickenlooper is literally a guy who literally drank fracking fluid to demonstrate his allegiance to the oil industry, so these allegations are going to stick.

And Chuck Schumer and the DSCC are backing him because  they are worried about a real Democrat hurting the feelings of the K Street lobbyist crowds.