Tom Tancredo is going to give Obama Democrat John Hickenlooper a strong run and may even beat the Denver mayor on the issues. In Friday’s debate on Channel 12, which can be viewed on Denver’s CBS4, Tancredo attacked Hickenlooper on education, taxes, spending, running a sanctuary city, bilingual ballots, and PERA. Hickenlooper did himself no favors with his endorsements of ObamaCare, printing ballots in Spanish as well as in English and in his denials that he runs a sanctuary city and would make Colorado a sanctuary state. And Hick’s double talk about why he won’t disclose his 20-year-record of giving to ACORN and other hard left groups just won’t wash with Republicans or independents. You can summarize the debate this way:

1. Teacher Tom Tancredo would fix K-12 and higher education in Colorado so every kid has a chance to learn how to take advantage of the great opportunities that America and the world offer. Tancredo and his family are educators who have the best interests of students and their parents at heart.

John Hickenlooper is the tool of the Colorado Education Assn., which is in business to enrich teachers and school administrators and deny the needs of taxpayers, parents and kids. On education, Hickenlooper is pro teacher, not pro kid. Hickenlooper knows where his campaign contributions and 527 ads are coming from.

2. Tom Tancredo recognizes that PERA needs real financial and governance reforms as advocated by Walker Stapleton, the GOP candidate for state Treasurer. He knows that both taxpayers and PERA’s pensioners need to bite the bullet and make some hard decisions that won’t be popular with anyone.

John Hickenlooper says that government employees should run PERA because it is in charge of their pensions, but what he really means is that it is okay for government employees to bankrupt PERA and to put taxpayers on the hock when it has to be bailed out with higher taxes. Again, Hickenlooper is the candidate of the employes of the state of Colorado because they want to be their own bosses and use taxpayers’ money to enrich themselves rather than to invest in the transportation system, prisons, public safety and other essential government services. Hickenlooper won’t do anything that undermines his popularity with government employees.

3. Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R CD 6), knows that Obamacare is a pork laden, poorly conceived and unfair law that nationalizes the health care system, enslaves physicians and health care workers as never before and gives the Obama administration the power to deny care while at the same time forcing consumers to buy very benefits rich and expensive health insurance that few will be able to afford without job-killing government subsidies. He says the state health exchanges mandated under ObamaCare will be futile bureaucratic programs that will create more expensive jobs for government employes.

John Hickenlooper shows that he is a loyal Obama Democrat by not only endorsing ObamaCare but also by promising to put special interests from the health care and health insurance industries and other special interests in charge of designing the state’s health exchange. Again, Hickenlooper is putting the special interests who fund his campaign and 527s in charge of creating a program that will enrich them at the expense of taxpayers.

4. Tom Tancredo dramatized John Hickenlooper’s support of sanctuary cities and a sanctuary state by handing the mayor a letter that he had sent Hick several years ago. The letter called on Hick to have Denver cops turn illegal immigrants that they encountered over to ICE, which enforces immigration laws. Hick not only failed to reply to the letter, he also has refused to order Denver cops to work with ICE. Hick’s lame explanation that going after illegals would cost too much ignores how much more illegals cost Colorado than enforcing the laws would.

5. Tom Tancredo made it clear during the debate, as he has in recent weeks, that he would spend his term as governor working with the General Assembly and voters to restructure and downsize Colorado’s bloated government. He says he knows that downsizing the government would be a slow, difficult process, but he also knows that it has to be done. He is the only politician in the state who knows how to make Colorado’s state government more affordable for taxpayers and more effective for those it is supposed to serve.

John Hickenlooper has proved during his two terms as mayor of Denver that he balances budgets by raising taxes and fees. He talks a good game about cost cutting and making the government more cost effective, but he’s a liberal tax and spend Obama Democrat. Nobody believes he would downsize Colorado’s government if he became governor.

6. Always honest and a straight shooter, Tom Tancredo has given his income tax returns to talk show host, Peter Boyles. He’s authorized Craig Silverman to talk about his returns if Dan Maes releases his returns for 1999, which Maes won’t do. Since Maes has made himself a “non issue” in the campaign, Tancredo has indicated that his returns will be made public.

The secretive John Hickenlooper has been living in a bubble so that he won’t infect votes with the facts about his charitable gifts to hard left groups like ACORN and even groups that he disagrees with. He has released the summary pages for his income taxes for many years, but he refuses to release the sections of the returns that show who he has given money to over the last 23 or so years. His very lame and ludicrous excuse is that if he knows his returns will be published and that his charitable activities will be open to criticism, he would bow to peer pressure and pressure from the public and change how he gives his money away. What a way to tell voters that you fund groups that they won’t and don’t like. This is pure cowardice in action.

LINKS:

Gubernatorial candidates face off in first debate. CBS4Denver.com

Hickenlooper’s health care reform delusion, by Mary Smith.

Tancredo says Hickenlooper “a wild-eyed liberal”, by Kelly Maher.