One-On-One With Former Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Presidential Candidate
COATES: CNN's two-night Democratic presidential debate on July 30th and 31st is the best opportunity yet for the candidates to have a defining moment. And one of those candidates joins me now. He's former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. It's a pleasure to see you.</s>FMR. GOV. JOHN HICKENLOOPER (D-CO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hey, Laura.</s>COATES: You know, Governor, you got a debate lineup, you now know what is going to be with you on stage that night. What's your immediate reaction to who you're going to be with that night?</s>HICKENLOOPER: You know, and this is the honest to goodness truth, I didn't count who it was because I want to make sure I get my message out, right, that I'm the one who was an entrepreneur, small business person. I was a mayor and a governor and I've actually done the big progressive things that other people are really just talking about. So, I like who I'm with. You know, I think I'm kind of in the middle. I didn't want to be off at one end or the other so I'm third in from the edge. I mean, I think it's all good, but I really didn't care.</s>COATES: You're talking about your actual stage position, but you're also pretty moderate. And you're on the stage with two of the most progressive candidates out there right now, Warren and, of course, Sanders. Is that going to influence the way in which you have a strategy of how you're going to play this, how you're going to hold court this time?</s>HICKENLOOPER: Well, I've been saying for a while now and not everybody agrees, but I think as Democrats, we got to be clear that we're not socialists and I know we're not. I mean, but these large, expansive, solutions to some of the vexing problems of America push people away in many cases, and I think to say that we're going to in four years take away all private insurance, ask 180 million Americans to give up their private insurance, I don't think that's realistic and I think that's not how you win election elections, so we pushed a public option. Where as it grows, costs will come down, quality will improve then ultimately, you know, maybe we get to a single-payer option but it's after 15 years and it's an evolution. It's not a revolution.</s>COATES: So, for you those are kind of pipe dreams to have the sort of lofty ambitions of what the Democratic socialist has been talking about and progressives. But you know it might be resonating with a lot of people. The poll numbers really are out there. And also, for the upcoming debate, the next debate in September, you're going to have an increase in what it's going to take to qualify to be a part of that debate. You're talking about you need 130,000 donors. You're shy of that, to say the least. What are you going to do to get more owners?</s>HICKENLOOPER: Well, we're reaching out, we're trying to reach out in different ways and talk more about who I am and where I came from and not just my achievements as a mayor and a governor. I want to let people get a sense of, you know, that my mother was widowed twice before she turned 40 and that, you know, she told us that we couldn't control what life threw at us but we could control how we responded, who we were. And I think some of those things, like how my mother, you know, she really prepared me not just for losing my job as a geologist and having to open a brew pub, but she prepared me for how hard it is to make change. Right? In government. And how you have to get everyone at the table and you have to -- you have to be persistent. You have to have grit, have to stick with it. I got to let people know some of those life stories about myself. It's not all just about, you know, we reduced unintended pregnancy among young women by 54 percent, and here's how we did it. It's about the human stories.</s>COATES: So, part of the resilience you've been taught, of course, the reaction that your mother has instilled in you, the notions of it, what's your reaction to the president's racist tweets this week?</s>HICKENLOOPER: Well, you know, it's unconscionable. It's inconceivable. And any -- any American should be outraged. That said, we spent the whole week talking about Trump and he's been on TV every evening pretty much nonstop. Do you think maybe that's part of his -- I don't want to go so far as to call it a strategy, but it's his instinct. It's almost -- I don't know, it's an animalistic --</s>COATES: Mission accomplished in many ways for him.</s>HICKENLOOPER: Yes. Exactly. I think he feeds on dividing us and getting us angry and shouting out and what I try to do is I denounce what he said, and then I say, yes, and by the way, if you're a soybean farmer in Iowa, it's going to take you 10 consecutive good years to get back to where you were two years ago, so let's keep our eye on the ball. Let's look at all the places where President Donald Trump has failed to deliver all those promises he made.</s>COATES: But you want to deliver on voting rights in this country.</s>HICKENLOOPER: Yes.</s>COATES: You got a new plan you're going to unveil with us tonight. Tell me about this. Colorado is known for its voting. It's known for the idea of being able to -- you have to opt out of democracy, not opt into it. Tell me why it would work nationally.</s>HICKENLOOPER: Well, I think this is something that I'm very proud, and Colorado is rightfully proud of, over the past decade we have been building -- probably the past 15 years -- building a, what I think of as a national model. So, we have mail-in ballots, which increases voter participation. We had turnout, we were either first or second each of the last two elections 75 percent turnout. And it saved our counties 40 percent of what it costs them to put on the elections. So, it's a mail-in ballot. You can make your decisions on voting at your kitchen table or if you want to, you can take that ballot down and vote in polling places just like you did in the old days. There's a backup paper ballot, so no one's going to double dip --</s>COATES: Alleged fraud.</s>HICKENLOOPER: No one's going to allege fraud. It makes it much harder for cyber hackers to come in and disrupt the counting mechanism or any of the other steps during an election. We've also gone out and made sure we have same-day registration so people that just weren't thinking of it, they can show up and register to vote the same day that they do vote. And that, again, gets you another 6 or 7 percent, of people participating in elections. The key thing is in all these things, there is a whole long list of stuff we've been working on, making sure that convicts, once they finish their term, they should be allowed to vote. They paid their debt to society. Each of these allows generally more people from all different backgrounds to vote but it does favor people from low income backgrounds. They are the one who more often than not were being discriminated against. Their voting rights were being diminished or limited. And I think we've done a great job of reaching out and saying, hey, if this is a democracy, we want everybody to vote.</s>COATES: Governor Hickenlooper, making democracy a contact sport. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks for joining the program today.</s>HICKENLOOPER: Thank you.</s>COATES: In Puerto Rico, thousands of people protesting today, calling for the governor to step down. We'll go there, next.