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The White HouseOffice of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release January 25, 2012 Statements on the President’s State of the Union Address Colorado Governor Hickenlooper “The President tonight hit a tone about working together that is familiar to Coloradans. People here know that partisanship is a significant roadblock to partnership. We must use collaboration as a means to finding solutions to keep pushing our state and our country closer to full economic recovery. “We join the President in the pursuit of unnecessary regulations that handcuff aspiring entrepreneurs, and we applaud his support of great teachers and our nation’s military.

Will Colorado’s Democrat governor, John Hickenlooper attend and address the 3rd Annual Denver Tax Day Tea Party? Not likely. However, he has been invited to do just that.

Gov.-elect John Hickenlooper ... named Ellen Golombek to the head post at the Department of Labor and Employment. She is the state Director for America Votes. She has 20 years experience working on labor issues and worked for 14 years with the Service Employees International Union and the Colorado AFL-CIO... Senate Minority Leader Mike Kopp criticized her labor-union experience. He said the appointment was a contradiction of the bipartisan atmosphere promised by Hickenlooper. “His selection of a noted progressive activist and union boss in Ms. Golombek will certainly raise plenty of eyebrows in Colorado’s business community. And for good reason,”

While the conservative resurgence throughout the nation in yesterday’s election looks promising for Americans who are desperately reaching for the brake pedal to stop Obama’s out-of-control side-skid to the left, Colorado Democrats continue to hold on to considerable power. Given a refreshingly real choice between conservative secure-borders candidate Tom Tancredo and radical leftist Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, the voters chose the option that will ensure Colorado remains an open-borders, sanctuary state for illegal aliens. The Looper, as he is called by some conservatives, won fair and square – in pretty much a landslide. The invasion continues. For Michelle Malkin’s pre-election...

DENVER (AP) - Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has endorsed Tom Tancredo, the American Constitution Party candidate for governor. Palin urged voters Monday to support Tancredo, saying he will fight for lower taxes and smaller government. The 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee also said Tancredo will start growing the economy.

While Tom Tancredo's campaign thinks the Denver Post is trying to drag John Hickenlooper's carcass over the finish line in the guv race, Tanc has honor rally organizer Glenn Beck in his corner. On his radio show, Beck recently declared that if Tancredo was elected, he might move to Colorado, adding that voting for Big Tom was essentially like voting for him. See progressive yakker Ed Shultz take on these two alleged "Halloweenies" in a clip from his MSNBC program on view below:

The storybook romance of Colorado gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper and President Barack Obama. And why it matters...

Tancredo Stays Competitive In Colorado Gov Race Hickenlooper Remains Locked In 50 Percent Range POSTED: 6:39 pm MDT October 28, 2010 DENVER -- Tom Tancredo is quick to admit he brings plenty of baggage to the Colorado governor's race. Like the time he called Miami a "Third World country." Or when he got thrown out of the White House for suggesting then-President George W. Bush was soft on illegal immigration. Or when he refused to take part in a presidential debate because it was on a Spanish-language network. This week, he added more fuel to the fire when he said...

More polling news from the Tancredo campaign: Another poll has been released and the news just keeps getting better. This time the poll comes from the left-leaning Public Policy Institute Poll and it has us within 3% points of Hickenlooper: 47% to 44% with Maes dropping to an all-time low of 5%. This is within the margin of error — and the sponsor of the poll went on radio and said this race could be a “major upset.” We plan on making those words come true. The other good news is that the momentum is all ours — we are...

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Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper comments on disgraced Obama energy czar Van Jones.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper has a wide lead over his opponents going into the last days of the election, despite third-party candidate Tom Tancredo's ability to siphon votes from the Republican nominee, according to a Denver Post/9News poll. With 49 percent of those surveyed backing him, Hickenlooper now has more support than Tancredo and Republican candidate Dan Maes combined. Tancredo, a former Republican congressman, continues to peel off GOP voters, garnering 39 percent, while Maes continues to slide, coming in at 9 percent. Only 1 percent of those polled said they were undecided. "It's hard to see how Tancredo...

Tom Tancredo this afternoon criticized his opponent in the gubernatorial race, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, as an out-of-touch elitist after video surfaced of Hickenlooper talking of "backwards thinking" in rural areas of the Interior West. In the video, Hickenlooper is responding to an question from transgender journalist Eden Lane regarding why the Matthew Shepard Foundation would establish its headquarters in Denver. "I think a couple of things, I mean, you know, the tragic death of Matthew Shepard occurred in Wyoming," Hickenlooper says in the video taken in late 2009. "Colorado and Wyoming are very similar. We have some of the...

"I think a couple things, I mean, you know, the tragic death of Matthew Shepard occurred in Wyoming. Colorado and Wyoming are very similar. We have some of the same, you know, backwards thinking in the kind of rural Western areas you see in, you know, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico." ---John Hickenlooper

Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies today released the results of an automated survey of 1,067 likely voters in the state of Colorado looking at the race for Governor. The findings show Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and former Congressman Tom Tancredo in a statistical tie. Among likely voters, Democrat John Hickenlooper has 44%, American Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo has 43%, and embattled Republican candidate Dan Maes has 9% support. The generic “other candidate” has 2%, and only 2% responded as undecided. Since our Colorado Governor survey on August 25th, support for Dan Maes has plummeted from 27% to 9%, a...

Nothing says “sophisticate” quite like running down the rubes who live in the sticks, does it? After all, Barack Obama got elected after calling rural voters people “bitter” and who only “cling to guns or religion” through ignorance and fear. Via Mary Katharine Ham, John Hickenlooper offers an Obama-esque assessment of the rural and exurban voters in Colorado and assigns to them the same motivations that played into the murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. The money quote occurs at about the two-minute mark in this interview

In Colorado's race for governor, Democrat John Hickenlooper's fundraising lead is growing. Records out Tuesday show Hickenlooper has raised a total of $3.7 million for his campaign -- $222,000 was collected in the last month. American Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo has raised $682,000 overall; and Republican Dan Maes has collected $304,000. CBS4 political specialist Terry Jessup spent the day with the Tancredo campaign on Tuesday. Tancredo isn't worried about...

Tom Tancredo has moved within 4 percentage points of John Hickenlooper in the governor’s race, moving the race to “toss up,” according to the latest poll from Rasmussen Reports. Tancredo, who left the Republican Party to run on the American Constitution Party ticket, has 38 percent of the vote to Hickenlooper’s 42 percent. Support for Republican Dan Maes slipped again, and he now stands at 12 percent, Rasmussen reported. Ever since former GOP Congressman Scott McInnis’ candidacy imploded, Hickenlooper, the Democratic nominee and Denver mayor, has been in the lead in the governor’s race. However, he has generally remained in...

POLL: HICKENLOOPER 43%, TANCREDO 35%, MAES 16%: The Colorado governorÂ’s race is increasingly looking like a contest between Democrat John Hickenlooper and independent Tom Tancredo, according to Rasmussen. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Colorado voters shows Hickenlopper still ahead with 43-percent support, but Tancredo now earns 35 percent of the vote, his best showing so far. Republican candidate Dan Maes trails with 16 percent. One percent like another candidate in the race, and five percent are undecided. The survey of 750 Likely Voters in Colorado was conducted on Oct. 3. TEA PARTY LEADERSHIP ENDORSES TANCREDO: More than...

DENVER -- Mayor John Hickenlooper paid back $52,486 to the Internal Revenue Service in 2008 because of questionable conservation tax easements he participated in over the past decade, CALL7 Investigators have learned. After CALL7 Investigators started questioning the easement's value, Hickenlooper campaign staff provided 7News with a letter from the IRS telling Hickenlooper he could settle a claim to avoid litigation. "This letter is to inform you that (the IRS) has considered the federal tax implications of a group of returns reflecting charitable contributions of conservation easements in the state of Colorado," the IRS letter said. "Because your conservation easement...

Voters deserve to know how much of John Hickenlooper's charity has been to political groups like the Chinook Fund. The protest group Re-create 68 was one of the biggest annoyances in the long run-up to Denver's hosting the 2008 Democratic National Convention. And now we find out that a non-profit the mayor of Denver helped establish years ago actually funded Re-create 68 as it tried to disrupt the mayor's greatest challengepulling off the DNC. The 2010 gubernatorial race just keeps getting stranger. Re-create 68 caused Denver officials months of headaches, and the group's over-the-top comments contributed to fears that cost...

While Mayor John Hickenlooper was trying to put on a "world-class convention" for Democrats in 2008, a charity he helped establish was giving money to a left-wing group determined to disrupt the event at every turn. Re-create 68 was just one of many groups that have received donations from the Chinook Fund over the years. The fund, which now donates to groups it says are considered "too new, too risky or too radical" for more traditional foundations, was established by Hickenlooper and others in 1987. Over the next 15 years, Hickenlooper's initial $2,000 donation turned into tens of thousands he...

In 2008, after the DNC had left Denver, Shout Bits reported on the many deceptions and whitewashes designed to make Denver shine. Denver is without a doubt a far left city; Republicans don’t even bother to field candidates for Mayor. Any troubles Denver might face cannot be blamed on anyone other than its own far left politicians. Mayor Hickenlooper temporarily cleaned up the graffiti, relocated the dozens of homeless that sleep on the streets, and temporarily patched the broken sidewalks. Things immediately returned to normal after the MSNBC crew left. Every block of LoDo (the neighborhood that hosted the convention)...

Andrew Romanoff entered the presidential robo-calls/appearances derby today, with a late entry from former President Bill Clinton. Clinton also brought up a fairly unexplored topic in this campaign, mentioning Romanoff as “the top-line candidate.” Tuesday’s results in Colorado may well turn up an indicator of how much Democratic candidates want to be seen with Obama for the general election campaign.

Financial disclosure statements filed by Denver Mayor and gubernatorial hopeful John Hickenlooper with the city in 2003 and 2004 show he has taken part in Colorado’s much-debated conservation easement program, receiving tax credits for land in Park County that he agreed not to develop. The records show he also received money from the sale of some of those tax credits to three well-known Denver businessmen, which is permitted under the program. The three individuals who purchased the tax credits also happen to be large donors to both the Democratic and Republican parties as well as Hickenlooper's current campaign for governor....

In the race to be Colorado's next governor, Republicans continue trying to tie the Democrats' new candidate, Mayor John Hickenlooper, to Gov. Bill Ritter, whom both are trying to replace. While Hickenlooper has yet to directly respond to his likely GOP opponent, Scott McInnis, but, in his comments on the campaign trail, he has been increasingly critical of Ritter, who helped shepherd the mayor into the race upon his surprise exit in January. And don't think Ritter hasn't noticed. Friday, In an interview with FOX 31 anchor Ron Zappolo slated to air Sunday night on "Zappolo's People", Ritter fired back...

When Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper spoke at the Colorado Environmental Coalition's "Rebel with a Cause" gala in May 2009, he showed he was down with the green crowd. Hickenlooper [at 3:00 of the video above]. "I’m one of those people that says I’m not sure how fast the climate..I’m not saying that the sky is falling. I’m saying that clearly the climate is changing, clearly mankind’s activities are causing it. And that we’d be insane not to be spending tens...tens and tens of billions of dollars every year buying insurance to begin to prevent and stop that change that’s happening....

Amazon’s move to drop its Colorado associates so soon after Gov. Ritter signed a new law creating a so-called “Amazon tax” is regrettable – but not shocking. There were plenty of signals that repealing a tax exemption for online retailers would face legal challenges and possibly just such a move as Amazon launched today. The Post editorial board was among critics who warned the new law looked awfully problematic for such little gain . John Hickenlooper missed a golden opportunity in not weighing in on this tax. Score one for McInnis. Suddenly he looks like the prescient one while Denver’s...

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s war chest in his bid to be governor has zero dollars. Meanwhile, the leading Republican candidate to be the Grand Old Party’s nominee topped $1 million, Scott McInnis’ campaign announced Friday. At the same time, Gov. Bill Ritter’s campaign contributions for the fourth quarter of 2009 swelled his coffers to more than $2.5 million. Unfortunately for Hickenlooper, though, state law bars the Democratic governor who dropped his re-election bid earlier this month from giving that money to his fellow party member. But that’s all right, Hickenlooper said in a telephone interview... “I’ve got a steep hill...

DENVER - After taking six days to decide, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is expected to announce Tuesday afternoon that he will be a Democratic candidate for governor. Sources tell FOX 31 News that Hickenlooper is still making phone calls informing top Democrats of his decision and firming up plans for a press conference that will likely take place around 4:15 p.m. on the Capitol's west steps or possibly nearby.

Mayor John Hickenlooper announced his gubernatorial bid this afternoon, saying "I love Colorado every bit as much as I love Denver." Hickenlooper said his agenda is going to be about jobs... The packed news conference on the west side of the state Capitol attracted top Democratic leaders and Denver movers and shakers. Hickenlooper talked about being mayor and the measures he has helped push. "We went to the voters every single time so we could decide what kind of city they could live in," he said. Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter, whose unexpected decision to drop his re-election bid set off...

There are appalling new developments in the cop-killer case in Denver. As reported by the Rocky Mountain News, Det. Donald Young’s suspected killer, 19-year-old illegal alien Raul Garcia-Gomez, was employed at a restaurant co-owned by the city’s mayor, John Hickenlooper. Garcia-Gomez worked for the Cherry Cricket for 10 months despite a federal notification sent to the business last month that his papers were bogus... Just killing the cops no one else will kill... Denver Post reports that Garcia-Gomez worked a shift at the Cherry Cricket after ambushing the police… the Rocky Mountain News reports that Mayor Hickenlooper’s restaurants employed about...

Gov. Bill Ritter is planning an 11 a.m. press conference Wednesday at which he is expected to announce that he will withdraw from the race for governor, numerous sources close to Ritter confirmed tonight. The governor's office made calls to the Colorado Senate president and Speaker of the House to ask about their availability to attend the press conference. At the same time, Washington, D.C. blogs were reporting that Ritter would drop out of the race for governor. Repeated calls for comment to Ritter's staff and communications director were not returned tonight. The governor was said to be making calls...

Millions of undocumented people in the U.S. should be given a path to legal status after the country finds a way to stop illegal immigration, business and government leaders said in a report Wednesday. The University of Denver report argues that legalizing as many of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants as possible could strengthen the economy and national security. But it should come with conditions, such as requiring new immigrants to learn English, pass criminal and medical background checks, and pay any taxes that they owe, the document states. The report is the product of a year of discussions...

The video above, promoting Hick Town, a proposed documentary/reality series by director George Hickenlooper starring his cousin, Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, has been available on YouTube for months. Most of the footage was shot during the Democratic National Convention -- hence the presence of Barack Obama, among other political heavyweights. But in recent days, a much saucier trailer turned up on the website of Epoch Films, a firm with which George is associated. As noted in an Examiner.com blog by Lisa Jones, John can be seen declaring, "I tell you how you deal with the press. You fuck the press!"...

The two cities of El Paso and Denver are 800 miles apart, but they both exist in the rarified world of "sanctuary cities," where mayors and city officials love to proclaim, "We welcome all immigrants, regardless of immigration status." This is PC code for welcoming illegal aliens, but it also means they welcome the prosecution of Border Patrol agents and immigration enforcement agents who take their jobs too seriously. The prosecution, imprisonment and eventual release of El Paso Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean made headlines for two years, but few Americans outside Denver have ever heard of...

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper recalls getting "a feeling in the pit of my stomach" when he learned that the Rocky Mountain News was shutting down. "Even when they were uncovering corruption in the city, even when they were embarrassing us or causing us discomfort, they were making the city better," he says. "It's a huge loss." The grim echoes of the nearly 150-year-old paper's demise Friday could be heard in newsrooms and communities across the country. Although the Denver Post will still cover Hickenlooper's region, some cities -- most notably San Francisco -- are facing the prospect of life...

DENVER (AP) ― Denver's mayor and workers at about a dozen businesses are wearing pajamas to work Thursday to raise awareness about homelessness.

A college-age protest group that wants to camp overnight in City Park during the Democratic National Convention next month is going to have to find another place to sleep. Mayor John Hickenlooper told radio host Mike Rosen, who writes a column for the Rocky, that Tent State University's plans for a sleepover for as many as 50,000 protesters are out of the question. The mayor also told Rosen that the city might turn on the sprinklers if the protesters don't abide by Denver's 11 p.m. curfew. Councilwoman Carla Madison, whose district includes City Park, said overnight camping is not an...

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention has used the city's gas pumps to fill up and apparently avoided paying state and federal fuel taxes. The practice, which began four months ago, may have ended hours after its disclosure. An aide to Mayor John Hickenlooper released a statement Tuesday evening saying that Denver 2008 Host Committee members would pay market prices for fuel and would also be liable for all applicable taxes.

GLENN: Now, here's one of the most incredible stories I have read today and I've read a lot of incredible stories. Wait until I get to the John Edwards story. I've read a lot of incredible stories today. Here's one from the DNC host committee in Denver, tanking up at city gas pumps to avoid paying the $0.40 a gallon in combined Federal and State gas taxes. Let me repeat that. The DNC would like to save money for their convention and so they have decided that they're going to buy it from the State gas pumps. You know where...

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention has used the city's gas pumps to fill up and apparently avoided paying state and federal fuel taxes. The practice, which began four months ago, may have ended hours after its disclosure. An aide to Mayor John Hickenlooper released a statement Tuesday evening saying that Denver 2008 Host Committee members would pay market prices for fuel and would also be liable for all applicable taxes. However, Public Works spokeswoman Christine Downs told City Council members just hours before that host committee members were fueling up at the city pumps. The city does not...

The host committee for the Democratic National Convention set for Denver next month is avoiding paying state and federal taxes on gasoline by gassing up vehicles at a city fuel depot, according to a city councilwoman quoted yesterday on the Web site of the Rocky Mountain News. "There's something there that just doesn't seem right ..." the Denver official, Jeanne Faatz, said at a city meeting yesterday. "I believe this [tax free gas pump] is only for elected officials, government dignitaries," Mayor Hickenlooper said at the session, according to the News. [Snip] Republican National Convention's host committee in [Minneapolis], Teresa...

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention is using the city's gas pumps to fill up on fuel, avoiding state and federal highway taxes, officials said today. "There's something there that just doesn't seem right to me because, in a sense, you're saying then that the officials who pass the laws are not willing to live by them, and that concerns me," Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said. The issue came up during the council's weekly meeting with Mayor John Hickenlooper when the Public Works Department requested authorization to be reimbursed by the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee for use of "fueling...

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention is using the city's gas pumps to fill up on fuel, avoiding state and federal highway taxes, officials said today. "There's something there that just doesn't seem right to me because, in a sense, you're saying then that the officials who pass the laws are not willing to live by them, and that concerns me," Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said. The issue came up during the council's weekly meeting with Mayor John Hickenlooper when the Public Works Department requested authorization to be reimbursed by the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee for use of "fueling...

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A jazz singer shocked some Denver residents after replacing the words to the national anthem with those of the "Black National Anthem" during the annual State of the City address this week. Rene Marie was asked to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" before Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper delivered the annual address on Tuesday. Instead, she sang the lyrics of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" — a hymn commonly referred to as the "Black National Anthem" — to the tune of the national anthem, MyFOXColorado.com reported. "If anyone has got a right to be angry it's probably me," Hickenlooper told the station....

As Denver dignitaries gathered today for Mayor John Hickenlooper's State of the City address, City Council President Michael Hancock introduced singer Rene Marie to perform the national anthem. But that's not what she did. Instead, Marie performed the song "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," which also is known as the "black national anthem." When she finished, the proceedings moved forward, and the "Star-Spangled Banner" was never performed.

One of the most notable incidents from Tuesday's State of the City address occurred even before the mayor's speech began. After the Pledge of Allegiance, Rene Marie was introduced to sing the national anthem. But that's not what she sang. Martin actually sang the tune of the traditional national anthem with the lyrics to "Lift Every Voice and Sing." It's a song some have called the National Black Anthem, the Negro National Anthem or the Black National Anthem. Once she finished performing, there was a moment of awkward silence and then the crowd gave her mild applause. Marie said she...

As Denver dignitaries gathered today for Mayor John Hickenlooper's State of the City address, City Council President Michael Hancock introduced singer Rene Marie to perform the national anthem. But that's not what she did. Instead, Marie performed the song "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," which is also known as the "Black National Anthem." When she finished, the proceedings moved forward, and few seemed to notice that the Star Spangled Banner was never performed. One who did notice was Councilman Charlie Brown, and he took to local talk radio Tuesday afternoon to blast the lack of the nation's anthem at the...