Poor Joe Biden.

If you happen to be in Washington, D.C., and are going by the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, try to avert your eyes. Some of Colorado’s Democratic leaders are driving the bus running over President Biden after he pardoned his son, the brilliant businessman and renowned artist Hunter Biden.

It is not a pretty sight.

Yes, these are the same Colorado Democratic leaders who enthusiastically insisted for years Biden had the physical and mental strength of a 30-year old who ran circles around his staff. They willingly acquiesced to the charade of a dynamic chief executive who defied the ravages of age.

They gallantly stood by their doddering president refusing to see what America could clearly see. They followed the Democratic crowd standing behind Biden after he reneged on being a one-term “transition” president and defiantly sought a second term.

Even when it was clear Biden’s presidency was a hot mess with the self-inflicted damage of spiraling inflation and an open border, our Democratic heroes were afraid to declare the emperor had no clothes.

Only after his disastrous and embarrassing debate with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump did Biden exit the race just a few months before the election, leaving Democrats with the hapless, incoherent Vice President Kamala Harris as their nominee. These Colorado Democratic leaders slinked away from Biden and engaged in another bout of delusion she was a much stronger candidate.

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But they suddenly found their inner political courage as Biden contradicted months of denials he would not pardon his son.

So what changed for possible 2028 presidential aspirant Jared Polis, who is currently the lame-duck governor of Colorado; or U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, both of whom are rumored to be considering a run for the open governor’s seat in 2026?

There seems to be a common thread that runs through those three prominent Democratic officials and their high-minded condemnation of the president: personal ambition. And President Biden is suddenly a big wet blanket on their aspirations they cannot shed fast enough.

They abandoned Biden and pounced on the pardon because they can. There is no political cost to piling on poor Joe Biden.

To Sen. Bennet’s credit, he was among the first Democratic senators to call for Biden to withdraw from the presidential race after that disqualifying debate performance in July. But his political courage stopped there as he quickly fell in line behind Harris who led the Democratic Party to a large electoral defeat.

The silence from U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, who has already declared his candidacy for reelection in 2026, about the Biden pardon is deafening. 

Maybe he feels some kinship with President Biden on the age issue. Hickenlooper will be 74 years old during his reelection campaign and he would be 80 years old at the end of a second term in 2032.

A former Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2020 against Hickenlooper, Trish Zornio, has publicly called on him to consider not running again given his age and what she claims is a lackluster record in his first term. I doubt Zornio’s comments suggesting Hickenlooper is Colorado’s Joe Biden will be in isolation. 

One of the inevitable results of Colorado’s Democratic domination is a huge reservoir of young, ambitious Democrats are chomping at the bit to run for higher office. Hickenlooper is a big obstacle to those ambitions and more questions about just why he thinks he needs a second term are inevitable.

Make no mistake about it, the 2028 campaign for the Democratic nomination for president has already begun and every action Polis takes during his final two years as governor will be with an eye toward 2028. Polis is staking out some interesting political territory with his quick criticism of the pardon and also his embrace of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as the possible Secretary of Health and Human Services under President-elect Trump.

These are not impulsive actions. Polis did not become governor by some accident like Bennet became a U.S. Senator. Polis took advantage of the political opportunity Biden’s pardon presented him.

An open governor’s seat doesn’t happen very often and Bennet and Crow know that.

Bennet is in the middle of his third term after being appointed to the seat in 2009, when U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar resigned to become President Barack Obama’s secretary of the interior. Republican control of the Senate could extend deep into the future and Sen. Bennet knows it.

Crow, along with U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, and even the discredited, incompetent Secretary of State Jena Griswold, are all rumored to be gubernatorial candidates.

Gov. Polis, Sen. Bennet and Rep. Crow saw the opportunity to strike some political independence from the rot of the Biden era and they took it. Expect more in the future.

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who managed campaigns for U.S. Sens. Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, and Gov. Bill Owens.  He was campaign manager for U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota when Thune unseated Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle in 2004.