Hickenlooper email: The tone’s the thing

Denver mayor and gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper sent out an email Friday asking readers to join his campaign. The mail reads like Hick talks: folksy and optimistic. It describes the responses he got when he asked Coloradans to send in ideas about how state government could improve life here. He starts with a front-porch kind of anecdote, complements readers and talks about the value of listening. That’s great. Let’s just hope his campaign has already considered the three pretty basic ideas he has received from readers that he highlights in the email.

Great ideas come in obscure places.

Dirk Anderson was on a mountain in frigid temperatures when his glove blew away. If it weren’t for the quick thinking of his brother Seth, Dirk would have lost his fingers to frostbite. It was a eureka moment for them: Why not make a jacket with the gloves built in? Loki USA Apparel in Grand Junction is the result, and we think people will soon think of built-in gloves the way they think of wheels on luggage: Why didn’t we do this before?

There are thousands of great ideas like this out there. We got more than 1,200 submissions after we asked you for your thoughts.

Listening is the first step — but we need a bit of your time between now and November to make sure that we spread the word about the campaign and hear from as many people as possible before election day…

We’re working every day to make sure that every Coloradan has a chance to weigh in on the future of our state during this campaign. If you give us a few hours of your time and help us reach out to our fellow citizens, we’ll be rewarded with more great ideas like these:

“Start by giving small businesses tax breaks and incentives to hire people on a full time basis with a livable wage.” – Karl from Denver

“Use our community colleges and vocational schools as training grounds for the next generation of energy workers…Fund these schools to train a new generation and retrain the current generation who have been disenfranchised by the economic bust.” – J. Kay from Erie, CO

“Work with agencies, local governments, special districts…to reduce duplication of efforts. This way there would be additional resources and money to fund other programs and jobs that help with needed community projects that go unfunded currently.” – Judy via Facebook

Politics at its best is about ideas. But we need to burn through some shoe leather and mouse pads to make those ideas a reality…

Thanks again for all of your support! Keep those ideas coming!

John Hickenlooper

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