John Hickenlooper snubs rural Colorado because “backwards thinking” voters don’t matter all that much. They don’t matter in terms of getting him elected. That was his attitude as governor, so it comes as no surprise he has almost nothing to do with rural Coloradans while running for the United States Senate.

Hickenlooper blew off Saturday’s Club 20 Western Slope debates with Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican from the rural Eastern Plains farming town of Yuma. Hickenlooper could have done the debate virtually but avoided it entirely.

For those unfamiliar with Western Slope politics, Club 20 is a major player. It bills itself “The Voice of the Western Slope,” as a group comprised of government, tribal and business leaders from 22 western counties.

Hickenlooper won his 2014 re-election because of voters in metro Denver, a few other Front Range urban counties, and a handful of resort counties populated with multimillionaire coastal transplants. Of Colorado’s 64 counties, he carried only 25. Had it been a county-by-county race, Hickenlooper would have lost in a landslide.

In some rural counties, this race was not in the universe of close. Republican gubernatorial nominee and former U.S. Rep.

Bob Beauprez carried several rural counties by more than 80% of the vote. It was no match for the power of city residents who voted for urban special interests, such as charging stations and subsidies for battery cars, lavish spending on urban mass transit, and the legalization of recreational drugs.

Hickenlooper put to rest any question about his low view of rural Colorado when asked why the Matthew Shepard Foundation chose Colorado as its headquarters, instead of Wyoming. Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming in 1998 when beaten, tortured and left to die on a fence. Evidence suggested at least one of two suspects became enraged and more violent upon learning Shepard was gay.

Colorado was an appropriate location for the headquarters, Hickenlooper said in 2010, because “we have some of the same, you know, backwards thinking in the kind of rural Western areas you see in, you know, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico.”

Hickenlooper fought for former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which threatened to devastate rural Colorado with soaring energy prices and shuttered coal mines. Under his watch for eight years as governor, life throughout rural Colorado became increasingly difficult as the cities thrived and the countryside fell behind in medical care, education, employment, median household incomes, broadband and more.

Recent census data from the American Community Survey reveals 10 of Colorado’s poorest counties are rural and far away from the Denver metroplex. That could explain why Hickenlooper avoids rural campaign events with Gardner.

Or, it could be that Hickenlooper neglected rural Colorado even during times of historical disaster.

In June of 2018, Hickenlooper broke Colorado’s ethnical contributions laws by boarding a private jet to Bilderberg meetings in Italy. Once there, he broke more ethics laws by riding around in a Maserati limousine, provided by Fiat Chrysler, and accepting elaborate free meals. Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission convicted him this year for breaking the law with that trip and another. Commissioners convicted him of contempt and charged him with the highest fines in the commission’s history.

Hickenlooper broke the law with illegal travel gifts just six days after the 416 Fire ignited near Durango. It was out of control and becoming one of history’s most destructive Colorado wildfires when Hickenlooper chose to leave the country. The fire destroyed 54,000 acres and cost the rural economy tens of millions in damage.

As the 416 Fire continued burning, Hickenlooper left the state again for a summer vacation in New Hampshire.

Neglect of rural Colorado will ultimately harm Coloradans in Metro Denver, Colorado Springs, and up and down the Front Range urban corridor. People move to Colorado because of a rural environment that offers forests, rivers, scenic vistas, endless recreational opportunities and villages with charm and cultural diversity one does not find in the city.

There’s a reason Hickenlooper avoided the most important political event on the Western Slope Saturday. He left rural Colorado behind for eight years and has no answer for it. It’s one more reason he told the world: “I’m not cut out to be a senator.”

The Gazette editorial board