Opinion: Authenticity isn’t always a winner, John Hickenlooper is learning
Authenticity is a rare commodity in politics, and Hickenlooper has it by the barrel-full. The problem is that authenticity can be more of a burden than a blessing: For all the warnings against being prosaic, there’s a reason candidates give stump speeches and use talking points. The media—and the voters—expect politicians to act and talk and think in a certain way, at least when the lights are on.
It was this sense of “community”—a word he uses constantly—that he otherwise lacked. Children did not play at the Hickenlooper house. He was skinny, socially awkward and dyslexic. He also had a severe case of prosopagnosia, or face blindness, a rare condition that impedes one’s ability tor recognize familiar faces. All of this made it nearly impossible to fit in.
Hickenlooper liked geology and initially hoped to keep working in the field. But he came to see the firing as a blessing. No longer would he settle for solitude. Thinking about other things he liked—drinking beer, being around people, drinking beer while being around people—Hickenlooper hatched a crazy plot: He would start a brewpub, part brewery and part bar, with a full-service restaurant to boot.
These were the early days of entrepreneurial hardship, pinching pennies and gutting out whatever tasks came his way. In this case, when a friend offered “beautiful, old, art deco toilets” for $10 apiece, Hickenlooper pounced, not realizing they were in a building with no running water and therefore choked with years-old excrement. He was undeterred: On moving day, Hick got down to lift them by the base, one by one, proving his maniacal commitment to himself if no one else.
At the grand opening, a panicked Hickenlooper poured beers in solo cups for 25 cents each because the dishwashers couldn’t keep pace. Calhoun chuckled at the newcomer’s awkwardness. Yet as she and her colleagues got to know him over many late nights at the bar, they concluded he was just about the most colorful—and curious—character they’d ever met.
Hickenlooper struggled mightily in the first year to turn a profit. Friends worried that the bar would go under. Eventually, he took the dramatic step of approaching the handful of restaurant and bar owners in the neighborhood and suggesting they join forces with a common purpose. It was an uneasy conversation to have; Hickenlooper argued that unless more people started coming to LoDo, they would all go out of business before long.
Watching him roam the restaurant, listening to his yarns, it’s easy to envision him behind the bar, holding court with customers late into the night, telling old tales and picking up new ones, comfortable in his skin and at peace in the community he created. It was “a killer life,” he says, one that he could not imagine changing.He wants to tell me about it. But first, he needs to show off the kitchen.
Distressed at the prospect of leaving his “killer life” behind, Hickenlooper took 12 weeks of vacation to make his decision. He traveled the world with friends, eating and drinking in exotic locales and pondering a life in politics. Few of them thought he would change careers. He doubted it, too. And then, without much of a warning, he jumped in with his typical spontaneity—no staff, no plan and no expectations. “I was the last person to get into that race,” he recalls.
At the home, top, of prominent local Democratic activist Jack Wertzberger in Dubuque, Iowa, Hickenlooper surprises the crowd by finding the piano before anyone notices him enter and playing showtunes, bottom. | Stephen Voss for Politico Magazine The job itself proved to be far tougher. In Hickenlooper’s first term, Colorado suffered a wave of unremitting wildfires, including three of the four most destructive in the state’s history, destroying more than a thousand homes, causing millions of dollars in property damage and claiming the lives of numerous citizens. Then, in 2012, a dozen people were killed and 70 injured when a shooter opened fire at an Aurora movie theatre.
Hickenlooper’s cozy relationship with the Chamber of Commerce crowd, and his mass slashing of state regulations, is sure to come under scrutiny from the left. So too will his initial objections to the legalization of recreational marijuana, a stance that Hickenlooper eventually softened on, acknowledging the rapid swing in public opinion and the encouraging early returns from Colorado’s pot experiment.
Hickenlooper says if he sees a person often enough, “four or five times per month, I begin to kind of get it.” Still, it’s difficult to overstate just how crippling this condition might be for someone who is about to spend the next 10 months—if not longer—working party activists and rope lines.
The fact is, whether it’s the way Hickenlooper reaches certain decisions or the decisions themselves, his centrist instincts place him out of today’s Democratic mainstream. Even when Hickenlooper gets worked up, warning me that he’s about to “get raw” with his criticisms of Trump, he finds a way to dial back. “What word is most synonymous for ‘fascist’? It’s ‘bully,’” he says. “And dividing people has been a tool that bullies have used, but also dictators have used, for years.”
“I think beating Donald Trump is absolutely essential. And I think at this moment and in this time, it would be very hard to beat Donald Trump if you had a Republican on the ticket,” he says, a pained expression exaggerating the creases in his brow. “There are so many Democrats so angry at the Republicans that they would feel betrayed.”
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