John Hickenlooper To Decide On 2020 Run By March
(CNN) -- Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who will head to Iowa this weekend, said Tuesday that he hopes to decide whether he will run for president in 2020 by March.
Asked by CNN's Erin Burnett on "Erin Burnett OutFront" when he would decide on a run, the Colorado Democrat joked, "You journalists are always so impatient."
"We should, I hope, by March," he said. "We spent a lot of time working on it and, you know, we're trying to make sure we make the right decision once."
When Burnett asked what he thought would make him stand out in a quickly crowding Democratic field, the two-term governor focused on his experience fostering compromise.
"I'm probably one of the few, if not the only candidate who's actually been able to bring people together who were in conflict, they were feuding, and get them to put down their weapons, take the time to hear each other and then actually achieve progressive goals through their willingness to work together and create a compromise," he said.
Hickenlooper served as governor from 2011 to 2019, and oversaw the legalization of recreational marijuana use in 2012 and the sale of pot starting in 2014 despite his initial opposition to such policies.
While some Democratic candidates are starting their campaigns with apologies for their previous stances, Hickenlooper said he did not regret his state's trial-and-error approach to the policy.
"I was against it from the beginning because we were worried about a spike in teenage consumption," he said.
"So we had to put in a system, even though I opposed it, to make sure that we gave it a fair chance to work -- states are the laboratories of democracy," he added.
He said that while the state had made mistakes, such as not regulating edibles and labeling sooner, "we figured that stuff out." And based on survey data, "no demographic has really seen a significant increase in consumption except seniors," he said.
By Caroline Kelly, CNN
The-CNN-Wire
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