Michael Bennet
The Rocky Mountain News is reporting that Denver Public Schools Chief Michael Bennet is going to be tapped as Ken Salazar’s replacement in the US Senate. I know little about Bennet, but my girlfriend key education sources say he has a good record on education policy, though obviously a Senator has much more wide-ranging responsibilities. When I was at Aspen for The Atlantic I saw him speak on this panel on the nominal subject of “is higher education for everyone?”
Bonus fact is that he’s the brother of The Atlantic’s editor, James Bennet.
Intuitively, it strikes me as a bit odd to reach for the head of a city agency rather than, say, the mayor of the city in question. But I don’t know squat about Colorado politics so maybe there are angles here that I’m missing.
UPDATE: Bennet’s been the subject of a recent Kate Boo profile that I intend to read after hitting “save” on this update.
27 Responses to “Michael Bennet”
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January 2nd, 2009 at 2:14 pm
i was a college classmate and friend of that city’s mayor, and i’m telling you, i don’t know how far back the fabled obama questionnaire went, but if it went back that far, that croaked him for sure!
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Bonus fact is that he’s the brother of The Atlantic’s editor, James Bennet.
Oh, good. I was worried for a minute that someone might have snuck into the Senate without being related to someone important. Kind of marginal, but I guess this count.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Hmm, do you guys think Matt really spells it “Rockey”?
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I’m just a little surprised that Salazar’s brother wasn’t promoted from the House to the Senate. I don’t think anyone considered Denver Mayor Hickenlooper to be a plausable pick for the Senate because he’d have a helluva time winning a state-wide election. Of course, I know even less about the current appointee, but Colorado Governor Ritter seems like a smart, savvy dude, so I’m inclined to think that this is probably a good appointment on that basis.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
You overlook the fact that this might be good for SUPERTRAIN(!), as Denver undertook one of the most ambitious mass transit projects in the country while Bennet was serving as the mayor’s Chief of Staff.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:34 pm
If you haven’t already seen this, you can bone up on Bennet with Kate Boo’s New Yorker profile:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/01/15/070115fa_fact_boo
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I don’t know squat about Denver, but to the general point at the end of the post, if Blago had lost the (very close) IL 2002 Dem primary to Paul Vallas the world would have been a much better place.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
My reaction this morning,
http://steampoweredopinions.blogspot.com/2009/01/bennett-to-senate.html
I’m easing back into the real world after a relaxing Holiday break from the news, blogs and my RSS feed and the big news of the day is that Michael Bennett has been chosen to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Ken Salazar.
I’ve worked with Michael Bennett on a handful of occasions and have been thoroughly impressed by him. In fact my statement after my first meeting with him was that he would make a great Senator some day. I’m surprised Ritter picked him and I think there are some obvious political concerns – can he raise money? What is his constituency? Is his name ID statewide high enough? That said I have little doubt that Bennett will be a fine and capable Senator.
Congratulations to Mr. Bennett.
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Still, Dreamgirls was seriously over-rated.
January 2nd, 2009 at 6:45 pm
I have a hunch that Ritter did this because he has eyes on the seat in 2010. The state is experiencing a budget shortfall (either better-than-most or just-as-spectacularly-bad-as-other-states, depending on whether you believe the Governor’s or the Legislature’s numbers), so maybe it’s not the best time to be governor of that state in 2010-2012.
As for Vallas, it’s tempting to say that if he had won in 2002, then Obama either would have been beaten by Blago in the primary in 2004, he would have decided to run for mayor in 2003 for fear of being beaten by Blago, or a successful Governor Vallas (basically the Democratic equivalent of Mitt Romney) would have been a credible-enough presidential candidate in 2008 to split off enough upper Midwest votes to give the Dem nomination to Clinton. I’m not sure any one of those is probable, but taken together, I think that p > 0.50.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:38 pm
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/01/15/070115fa_fact_boo
Bennett’s record with the Denver public schools is another example of failing upwards — just like Obama’s record of failure running the Annenberg Challenge, blowing huge amounts of money on the Chicago public schools with no measurable benefits. The kids don’t benefit but the glamorous young politician-wanna-bes make out like bandits.
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:45 am
Hickenlooper (Denver’s mayor) probably wouldn’t take the seat. It’s not his style to be a small fish in a big pond, and his talents are better suited to executive jobs. John Salazar was probably just percieved as too nepostistic a choice. The two people that I thought had the strongest shot were Andrew Romanoff, state Speaker, or Diana DeGette, US House District 1 (Denver proper). Romanoff is term-limited out of a job soon and generally considered a rising star, and DeGette holds a seat that is easy to keep Dem. Both are talented, capable options that would have been good senators. I don’t quite understand the Bennet choice, unless Ritter is simply opting for a place-holder until the ‘10 election, which I suppose is fair enough. It’s not like an appointee finishing two years of a seante term is going to be given any committee assignments. I don’t see Bennet winning state-wide, frankly. Colorado’s still fairly purple.
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:59 am
“Bennett’s record with the Denver public schools is another example of failing upwards — just like Obama’s record of failure running the Annenberg Challenge, blowing huge amounts of money on the Chicago public schools with no measurable benefits. The kids don’t benefit but the glamorous young politician-wanna-bes make out like bandits.”
Sailer hits it on the head: another case of a yuppie who gets rewarded for ‘caring’ about black and brown kids without having done anything real to help them. What say you, Dalton alumnus?
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:09 pm
This is FANTASTIC news. A movement guy in the Senate. I’m trembling. Bennet has a history of actually improving test scores in Denver. This is an excellent way to start the new year.
http://www.dfer.org/
January 3rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
kmeyer57, as i noted above, i’ve known hick for many, many years, and he was interested in the senate seat (there was a writeup in the denver post early last week in which he acknowledge that he’d talked to ritter about the seat and his interest in it).
as for steve sailer, try and learn some facts, why doncha? the annenberg challenge was run by walter annenberg himself: it was his pet project at the annenberg foundation. the idea that obama “ran” the chicago component of the project is as deranged as is the idea that obama was palling around with terrorists because billy ayers was also involved with the challenge.
i often wonder what it must be like to believe the tripe that steve sailer puts before us; fred at 10:59 shows us: it makes you small-minded, bitter, and pathetic.
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:27 pm
“fred at 10:59 shows us: it makes you small-minded, bitter, and pathetic.”
That’s quite a large-minded appraisal, Howard. Someday, perhaps, I’ll be as happy and fortunate as you, having drunk the Koolaid that rich liberals like Bennet or Yglesias who themselves were educated in expensive, lilly-white private schools actually care about “inner city” schools.
January 4th, 2009 at 7:45 am
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January 6th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Give Governor Ritter some credit for recognizing the emerging trend that political leaders do not have to be hacks from the political machine. Michael Bennet is a trailblazer on the new frontier of educational reform. His intellect, courage, and talent will benefit the Senate. Being a political novice is an asset.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:24 am
Here’s the best writeup on Bennet from a real local perspective.
Michael Bennet’s big gambles
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