Matt Yglesias

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.