One Year Since Denver Post Revoked Cory Gardner’s Endorsement, He’s Still “Too Busy Walking a Political Tight Rope to be a Leader”

One year since the Denver Post editorial board took the unprecedented step of revoking their 2014 endorsement of Senator Cory Gardner, their words ring more true than ever before — Gardner is a “a political time-server interested only in professional security” and “too busy walking a political tight rope to be a leader.”

Gardner’s 100 percent allegiance to President Trump over his constituents has earned him a litany of negative editorials from Colorado’s newspapers — including several who supported his first senate campaign. The Boulder Daily Camera, The Greeley Tribune, The Aurora Sentinel and the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel have all called out Gardner for his absence, lack of leadership, and failure to protect Colorado’s public lands.

Over the past year, The Denver Post has also criticized Gardner’s failure to defend the U.S. Constitution, refusal to act on gun violence and defense of Trump’s abuse of power.

Here’s a look back at the Denver Post un-endorsement: 

EDITORIAL: Our endorsement of Cory Gardner was a mistake

By THE DENVER POST EDITORIAL BOARD

March 14, 2019

Key Points:

• We endorsed Sen. Cory Gardner in 2014 because we believed he’d be a statesman… We see now that was a mistake – consider this our resolution of disapproval.

• Gardner has been too busy walking a political tight rope to be a leader. He has become precisely what we said in our endorsement he would not be: “a political time-server interested only in professional security.”

• Gardner was not among the 12 Republicans who joined Democrats in rejecting President Donald Trump’s use of a national emergency declaration to allocate funds to a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

• We fully expect to disagree with our lawmakers from time to time — in fact we’ve been critical of Gardner but stuck by him through tough but defensible votes including the attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

• Put simply this is a constitutional crisis and one of Colorado’s two senators has failed the test.

• In contrast, Gardner was a never-Trumper in the primary who in recent months endorsed the president’s re-election campaign even as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation continues to unveil the worst of this administrations web of lies and deceit. Tuesday’s vote was the last straw.

• We no longer know what principles guide the senator and regret giving him our support in a close race against Mark Udall.

Read the full editorial here.

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