KUSA-- From President Donald Trump’s alleged comments on immigration to the opening of the 2018 legislative session, it’s been a busy week in Colorado politics.
9NEWS political reporter Brandon Rittiman sat down with our political commentators, Republican Kelly Maher and Democrat Ian Silverii, to break it all down.
TRUMP
Maher and Silverii agreed that calling African nations “shithole countries” was out of line.
Where they differed was whether any of the Republicans running for governor will be able to effectively balance Trump’s popularity with their base with the need to court unaffiliated voters this fall.
TANCREDO
A constant thorny issue inside the Colorado Capitol is how to fix the growing problem with the public employee retirement system.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo got pricked by the issue this week when he accused folks of twisting his words about cutting teacher retirement benefits.
Maher said she spoke to Tancredo about the issue, and he assured her he’s not looking to change the system for current retirees.
HICKENLOOPER
This is Gov. John Hickenlooper’s final year left in office, and he outlined what he’d like to accomplish during his final state of the state speech on Thursday.
The ambitious laundry list included finding more money for roads and bridges, fixing the public pension system and finally figuring out how to fulfill our constitutional obligation to fully fund education.
Maher thinks Hickenlooper’s setting himself up for a presidential run in 2020.
“That speech was aimed clearly for the kind of every man that was the kind of blue collar workers in rust belt states that delivered Donald Trump the presidency,” Maher said. “And that’s really what that speech seemed like to me.”
Silverri’s responded by highlighting Hickenlooper’s accomplishments and saying, “Maybe America could use a little bit of that old