Ken Salazar as Vice President? Dean Singleton, owner of the Denver Post, thinks it’s an idea worth considering.
In an unscheduled call to the Dan Caplis Show on 710 KNUS, Singleton said the former Secretary of the Interior brought several desirable qualities to the role (audio embedded below).
“I think she might come West and look at a Ken Salazar, perhaps,” Singleton said. “Solid, centrist, 5th generation Hispanic rancher. He’s been on the national scene. He’s clean as a whistle and has no scandal, and he won’t have (any scandal) because he’s such an honest guy. And that gives her a Hispanic running mate from the West who will be more centrist than the campaign she’s running.”
In other parts of the discussion, Singleton predicted Florida Senator Marco Rubio would ultimately win the Republican nomination for president. Under that circumstance, Singleton went on to predict Ohio Governor John Kasich as the likely VP nominee in order to deliver Ohio’s crucial electoral votes.
If Rubio were the nominee, Singleton sees the presidential election being dominated by the themes of age, especially as it translates to whether Americans want policies of the past, or new policies for the future.
“And it’s the perfect race (for Rubio) assuming Hillary gets the nomination — or if she doesn’t, and if Joe Biden does — you’re going to have somebody who’s almost seventy or past seventy talking about things of the past, and a young guy who’s Hispanic, who grew up in a family that struggled but did get much of the American dream, saying, ‘Look, I’m talking about the future, and you’re talking about the past.’ If the Republicans have a shot in ’16, that’s the shot. And I think you’re starting to see it develop.”
In the interview that lasted roughly half an hour, Singleton also talked at length about the Post‘s controversial decision to endorse Cory Gardner in the 2014 race against Senator Mark Udall. The discussion about the Post‘s endorsement of Gardner is not without a tinge of extra curiosity, because it has only been revealed in the past week that Caplis may enter the 2016 race against incumbent Senator Michael Bennet.
In the audio clip below, the discussion with Singleton starts at 29:30.