Voters need to know which Join Hickenlooper is running for the Senate. It could be the staunch law-and-order oil-and-gas man so defensive of fossil fuels and mining he drank fracking fluid. Later, he sipped river water tainted by the Gold Hill Mine disaster. He was the environmental left’s worst nightmare, with a “D” after his name.

Instead, voters get Hickenlooper 2.0 and all his dysfunctional glitches. The new Hick avoids the public and media, appeasing with silence the Democratic Party’s new radical base of fists-in-the-air militants — the barbarians who have the state capitol building and parts of Denver looking like a war zone.

Hickenlooper’s silence on violence equals tacit approval. As Irish philosopher Edmund Burke declared, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Hickenlooper will say and do nothing to admonish people trashing Colorado.

Compare today’s Hickenlooper to the original version endorsed by The Gazette in 2010.

In October of 2011, an increasingly violent left-wing Occupy Denver crowd gathered to protest and camp on the grounds of Colorado’s capitol building. They flouted orders to leave and disobeyed the city’s 11 p.m. curfew. When law enforcement cracked down, the activists invoked their First Amendment rights.

Then-Gov. Hickenlooper balked, saying fee speech does not give license to jeopardize public health and safety.

“No one supports the First Amendment more than we do,” the governor told the media after ordering his state patrol to arrest and clear protesters. “But we have state laws and city laws that must be obeyed by everyone.”

Hickenlooper consistently showed little patience for the activists, who complained of an inequitable financial system that favors the “1%” — which includes multi-millionaire Hickenlooper. To quell the protests, Hickenlooper teamed up with then-Attorney Gen. John Suthers — the state’s former corrections chief, former U.S. attorney, and Republican with a long history in law enforcement.

Hickenlooper, first as Denver mayor and later as governor, tried and failed to be a law-and-order Democrat. He planned to solve nationwide homelessness in 10 years, only to see Denver become a national magnet for the homeless.

Hickenlooper embraced and enacted the center-right “broken windows” crime philosophy in which law enforcement cracks down on minor criminals before they commit more serious crimes. The left says “broken windows” policing targets minorities and causes overreactions to minor crimes. They point to the arrest of George Floyd, suspected of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill, who died during an arrest in Minneapolis. They make the same case for Eric Garner, who died when New York police tried to arrest him on suspicion of selling cigarettes on a sidewalk.

During Hickenlooper’s first years as mayor, arrests for marijuana possession soared. His full embrace of “broken windows,” and his work with a Republican lawman to stop violent protests, would scandalize base Democrats if they knew about it.

The modern Hickenlooper wants us to forget his past in a desperate attempt to appease the far-left. He refuses to condemn the violent riots, saying on his web site “people have a right to not be victimized in their day-to-day lives or when they peacefully protest injustice.” That’s great, but there’s nothing peaceful about burning cars, breaking windows, destroying businesses, and painting profanity all over the capitol building.

The modern Hickenlooper’s website talks about keeping people safe by fixing “racism and a broken criminal justice system” that is “anything but just.” He wants nationwide decriminalization of pot and “restructuring at all levels” of law enforcement. Don’t fight crime, fight the police.

Hick 2.0 tries to sound woke but doesn’t know the rules. The left blasted him this summer when he said “every life matters” when asked about “Black Lives Matter.” He corrected himself. His website despairs inequities among “the Latinx community” and “white” Coloradans. Never mind the widely published 2019 poll that found only 2% of Latinos are OK with the label “Latinx.” Never mind that more than half the “Latinx” population is white and the label has nothing to do with race.

John Hickenlooper boldly told the public “I’m not cut out to be a Senator” while running for president last year. Hick 2.0, treating the Senate as a booby prize, does not know who he is. He’s the Windows 8 of politics, disconnected from the past and present. Unable to find relevance, he needs the approval of a violent crowd that is harming our state. That’s why the public seldom hears from him.