Michael Bennet to be US Senator?

Denver Budget (4.00 / 2)

Stygius,

The Denver charter does not allow deficits so your line about a, "chronically unbalanced budget," is not accurate. Bennet's biggest accomplishment was leading the Mayor's gutting of the Career Service for employees.

Coyote Gulch

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by: CoyoteGulch @ Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 12:36:18 PM CST

Polis Reacts (4.00 / 1)

On a CoPols thread:

Great choice

While I have strong personal relationships and great admiration for many of the other candidates, I have to say that I am thrilled to see the Governor choose Michael Bennet.

I have known Michael through our work in education for several years. He brings extensive business experience to the job, which is what we need more of in the US Congress, and particularly in our Democratic party as we work to get the economy going again. I've never been one to say that we need a Congress of businesspeople, but if you look at the Democratic caucus, business people are under-represented relative to attorneys and career politicians. He also has extensive hands on experience in public education. I do believe he is ideally prepared to serve our state and nation, and it's not just because I'm partial to business and education experience in our delegation ;-)

Actually, Michael's experience and mine, while in similar fields, is different and complementary. In business, my work has been disruptive and bottom-up (e.g, starting companies). I've never run (nor desired to run) large companies. Michael has run holding groups and companies.

In education, while I did policy work on the State Board of Education, I focused on bottom-up reforms by starting and running charter schools to serve at-risk kids. In fact, one charter school I co-founded, the Academy of Urban Learning, was renewed during Bennet's tenure at DPS (thanks Michael!). Michael's experience on the other hand, is reform from the top down through a district. When he got the job I called him and said that I didn't envy him his position, reforming a large structure like a school district is extremely difficult work (and I hope his successor continues an aggressive reform agenda at DPS).

The truth is that in both education and business, we need to implement ideas from both the top down AND from the bottom up. While my own direct experience is in creative disruption, I also value the validity of Michael's experience "reforming" large companies and large public education entities. As much as I worked in the private sector to make slow-moving corporate behemoths irrelevant, and in education to bypass the painstaking and overly political decision processes of many school districts, in reality we are all part of the "solution."

Ideally, we can work together and mutually respect the importance of approaching problems from all angles. And we both bring a great appreciation that the only real mid to long term route to ongoing prosperity for our nation is improving the education that people of all ages receive.

Congratulations to Michael, I look forward to seeing him in DC!

Jared Polis
From Oklahoma City, OK, en route to DC (driving out with a car full of boxes)

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by: Aaron Silverstein @ Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 13:08:26 PM CST

Great choice (4.00 / 3)

While I have strong personal relationships and great admiration for many of the other candidates, I have to say that I am thrilled to see the Governor choose Michael Bennet.

I have known Michael through our work in education for several years. He brings extensive business experience to the job, which is what we need more of in the US Congress, and particularly in our Democratic party as we work to get the economy going again. I've never been one to say that we need a Congress of businesspeople, but if you look at the Democratic caucus, business people are under-represented relative to attorneys and career politicians. He also has extensive hands on experience in public education. I do believe he is ideally prepared to serve our state and nation, and it's not just because I'm partial to business and education experience in our delegation ;-)

Actually, Michael's experience and mine, while in similar fields, is different and complementary. In business, my work has been disruptive and bottom-up (e.g, starting companies). I've never run (nor desired to run) large companies. Michael has run holding groups and companies.

In education, while I did policy work on the State Board of Education, I focused on bottom-up reforms by starting and running charter schools to serve at-risk kids. In fact, one charter school I co-founded, the Academy of Urban Learning, was renewed during Bennet's tenure at DPS (thanks Michael!). Michael's experience on the other hand, is reform from the top down through a district. When he got the job I called him and said that I didn't envy him his position, reforming a large structure like a school district is extremely difficult work (and I hope his successor continues an aggressive reform agenda at DPS).

The truth is that in both education and business, we need to implement ideas from both the top down AND from the bottom up. While my own direct experience is in creative disruption, I also value the validity of Michael's experience
"reforming" large companies and large public education entities. As much as I worked in the private sector to make slow-moving corporate behemoths irrelevant, and in education to bypass the painstaking and overly political decision processes of many school districts, in reality we are all part of the "solution."

Ideally, we can work together and mutually respect the importance of approaching problems from all angles. And we both bring a great appreciation that the only real mid to long term route to ongoing prosperity for our nation is improving the education that people of all ages receive.

Congratulations to Michael, I look forward to seeing him in DC!

Jared Polis
From Oklahoma City, OK, en route to DC (driving out with a car full of boxes)

Jared Polis

www.polisforcongress.com

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by: jpolis @ Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 13:08:42 PM CST

I am not ready to fall in line. (4.00 / 3)

Unity is good, and I certainly want Bennet to know that as my Senator he has my support for the next two years.

But Ritter only gets to appoint someone for the remainder of the term. After that it is the voters duty to decide who they want to represent them.

It is unfortunate that Ritter did not pick someone as either a placeholder, or someone so clearly a powerhouse that they would clear the field for re-election, but the fact is that he picked someone who creates the very real possibility of a legitimate primary.

That may make holding the seat harder for the Democrats in 2010, but it would be worse not to choose the best person for the job. Is Bennet the best? He may be, and if so he will have a short time to prove himself. If someone else believes they are better, I hope that they have the strength of will to step forward.

Rallying around the flag, wherever Ritter decided to toss it, might very well be our best chance of having someone with a (D) after their names in office, but that is not what I really want. I vote for Democrats because they field the best candidates that share my core values. I don't know yet if Bennet is that guy, and if someone else wants to make their case, I am listening.

(cross posted elsewhere)

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by: Aaron Silverstein @ Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 14:03:32 PM CST

A highly qualified placeholder? (0.00 / 0)

Ritter might actually have done something intelligent here. Bennet is clearly a highly competent technocrat who ruffles few feathers. By working for harsher terms of employment for civil servants and going around muttering platitudes about entrepreneurship, Bennet might even have endeared himself to the Chamber of Commerce types with the lower-gaged bones through their noses. But it's clear that Bennet is in no position to win a statewide race in two years, and a well-organized primary opponent could tip him over and go on to win in the general. So maybe Ritter was thinking, "Let's get a competent, moderate Dem--maybe a slight improvement on Salazar--piss as few people off as possible, and then have an interesting primary in a couple years."

There is no elite, so take your place in the driver's seat.

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by: Stagarite @ Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 15:03:13 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Oh Really? (0.00 / 0)

Bennet may have the support of state party people, but can he win a statewide election in two years?  Can he raise 6-8 million bucks by this time next year?  Can he be popular in the rural parts of the state?  Will he have the support of Salazar's networks, of Udalls?  Time will tell.  If he faces a primary challenger, all bets are off.

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by: Dr B @ Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 14:38:48 PM CST

We'll see (0.00 / 0)

I think a Mike Miles-esque primary challenger is bound to emerge regardless of the pick. But can such a candidate ever break out of the activist circle? Doubt it.  

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by: Stygius @ Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 14:53:26 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I think (4.00 / 1)

Bennet makes sense.  In such a tight budget year can all the various counties and cities really afford all the special elections to be held in the domino effect to happen would someone like Perlmutter or Hickenlooper get the nod?  This is just the fiscally pragmatic choice.  ;-)  Now someone's going to mention picking Romanoff wouldn't cause the dominoes to tumble either, but there's the bachelor of the year race that would cause other dominoes or something like that.  

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by: johne @ Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 19:34:02 PM CST

Okay, but is he going to... (4.00 / 1)

...run for re-election? And if so, can he put together a campaign and raise money?

I'm like Aaron--I'm not jumping on board just because he was annointed and has a "D" after his name. I don't know anything about this guy and he's going to have to earn it.

What I take from this is that we now have a Senator who's never run for anything in his life, never put together a campaign, never had to raise money, and is unknown to almost all the Democrats in the State.

If Romanoff or Hickenlooper--or any other Democrat--had been picked, they would start out with campaign experience, fundraising ability, and the support of all Democrats.

This guy has none of the above. So explain to me how he gets re-elected in two years?

I'm just askin'...

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by: BGW1964 @ Sat Jan 03, 2009 at 14:05:42 PM CST

[ Parent ]