Still Playing "Not That Kind Of Republican": Colorado's Cory Gardner Urging Retreat In Border Showdown | Blog Posts

Still Playing "Not That Kind Of Republican": Colorado's Cory Gardner Urging Retreat In Border Showdown

01/24/2019

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It's one of the great tragedies of Colorado politics that Tom Tancredo is no longer in Congress and Cory Gardner is. Though he benefitted from the endorsment of Tom Tancredo earlier in his political career, Cory Gardner has always been very soft on immigration. [Tom Tancredo Standing By Endorsement Of Cory Gardner Over ACP Candidate In CD-4, by Robert Moore, Huffington Post, May 25, 2011] Gardner is also one of those Republicans desperate to earn a pat on the head from hostile journalists, and is willing to denounce Republican voters to do it. Consider this article from The Atlantic when Gardner ran for the Senate.

Gardner, who is locked in a tight race with incumbent Mark Udall, has made it clear he's Not That Kind of Republican—not one of the cranky old men that have dominated the Colorado GOP for years, helping Democrats win by alienating the suburban swing voters who decide elections here. Indeed, Not That Kind of Republican might as well be Gardner's slogan—never mind that Democrats say it would be a lie...

Gardner, who is currently in the House of Representatives, readily admits his party has "overreached" in the past. He promises to be a pragmatist who focuses on kitchen-table issues. Democrats dismiss this as election-year posturing, but Gardner insists he's been consistent: As a state legislator, he notes, he advocated a renewable-energy bill over the Republican governor's veto; he has long been pushing his party for some sort of immigration reform (though he's slippery about what that involves); and last year, "a lot of nasty things were said about me in my own party about my unwillingness to demand the government shutdown," he says. Gardner acknowledges Obamacare isn't going anywhere as long as President Obama remains in office, and he says that if Republicans gain the Senate majority, "I'm going to be shouting from every desktop possible" in favor of an inclusive, bipartisan approach.

[Not That Kind Of Republican, by Molly Ball, The Atlantic, October 31, 2014]

Once again, Cory Gardner is eager to preen for the journos, and is gleefully betraying President Trump and the Republican Party by urging a surrender on immigration, not for the first time. [As outcry grows over separation of migrant families, Colorado’s Cory Gardner calls for practice to stop, by Mark Matthews, Denver Post, June 19, 2018]

GOP Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado is will support the Democrats’ proposal to temporarily fund the government until next month, even though it does not include additional border security funding as President Trump has demanded.

The Senate is poised to vote on Thursday on two measures that would reopen the government: one GOP version that includes $5.7 billion for border wall funding and adjustments to immigration law and another from the Democrats that would fund the government until Feb. 8, giving some time for a more permanent solution to be reached.

[GOP Sen. Cory Gardner to vote for Democrats' proposal to reopen government, by Diana Stacy Correll, Washington Examiner, January 24, 2019]