Karen Breslin

Reader Scott H sent in an on-the-ground report about the primary opponent for Sen John Hickenlooper. Thanks to Scott for sending this in, and this is the kind of thing I love to publish, so commenters or lurkers, feel free to send this stuff my way, anonymously if you’d like.

Can Lightning Strike Twice?

Karen Breslin is certainly hoping so.

I went to a candidate meet & greet hosted by Drinking Liberally, something I’ve never done outside of Denver mayoral and city council races.  Around 20 people attended.

The candidate: Karen Breslin, is running to unseat Senator John Hickenlooper.  She is 64 with a law degree and teaches poli sci courses at CU-Boulder.  Her IRL political experience to date was primarying Michael Bennett in 22 with just her and one campaign volunteer.  In 24, she lost a DA’s race in a conservative district by 38 pts.  Go way back and she campaigned for Carter in WY in 1980.

Ole’ Hick will be 74 when he runs for a second term in 2026.  He’s promised not to seek a 3^rd term but Ms Breslin would like to send him packing early. 

Hick’s not well liked by anybody outside of the extreme center of the Dem Party here in CO…which makes up a lot of the Dem Party in CO.  Despite this article, there’s no indication of any groundswell of support for anybody to primary him.  And recall that Sepideh reported meeting campaign consultants for another race for statewide office saying that nobody was interested because Hick’s ability to raise gobs of money scares off any of the more inside-the-party challengers.

Ms Breslin didn’t have a stump speech, instead she engaged in a Q&A.  I knew from her web presence that one of her lines is:

“We don’t beat Trump by moving to the middle”

And her Q&A showed that plenty.  In tone and broad policy statements, it wasn’t very different than the recent AOC/Sanders rallies except that she took dead aim at Hick, Bennett and our DINO glibertarian, techbro governor, Polis, as being representative of the problem in Democratic politics.  She outlined how money and entrenched centrism result in party that has no vision, is responsive to big donors and corporations and waters down any remaining message about the Party standing for marginalized people and economic equality.

She highlighted how the Democrats as they are built now try to have it both ways in doing just enough to deflect attacks they don’t do much for anything other than the generic big donor/corporate class but ultimately, it’s nothing but half-measures that show no vision.  In no way is the Democratic Party of the last 40 years anything remotely close to a “left” party in her view.  They don’t fight, they react.

She used the ACA as an example.  It’s a halfway measure that doesn’t really solve the overarching problem of how health care is delivered in this country and provides Republicans with something to constantly bitch about.

She’s a big supporter of some kind of ‘Medicaire For All” program and that Democrats should be out actually fighting and advocating for programs like that, not trying to continually tinker and work the margins, again, it doesn’t convey vision to the average voter.

She related a perspective pushed by the Party in that elections consist of 85% money and 15% grassroots.  The idea is to disempower candidates in advance because of lack of money.  She indicated that the head of the CO Democratic Party has made some noises lately about a change in direction but feels that’s nothing more than a reflection of how the state Party actually is getting a bit nervous about liberal grassroots activities that might throw a wrench into continually rolling out milquetoast centrists, at best, like Hick and Bennett or at worst, DINOs like Polis.

She’s also big on a significant corporate tax overall, a guaranteed minimum income and an increase in the Federal minimum wage.  Lastly, she’s stated in previous interviews that if elected, she’ll only serve one term.

She’s saying virtually everything we say here and certainly it’s a message that’s been resonating nationally in the AOC/Sanders rallies.  But how she’ll be able to translate that into a campaign that gets out that message is still uncertain.  She sure as hell won’t get any support from the state party.