Dan Baer in 2020 CO Senatorial race
On Civil Rights:
I'm lucky to have grown up gay, but there's still work to do
In the bad old days, many American politicians who happened to be gay either denied or downplayed this aspect of their life. But Dan Baer, a former U.S. ambassador during the administration of President Barack Obama, has made it central to his
campaign's narrative."I feel lucky, in a sense, to be gay--which is something weird for me to say given the number of years I felt like that was an albatross around my neck and thinking it was going to keep me from leading a fulfilling life,"
Baer says while seated beside his husband, climate economist Brian Walsh, in their Five Points home. "I feel like I'm fortunate to have grown up gay in a place"--he spent his formative years in Littleton--"that wasn't yet hospitable to LGBT people.
Obviously, there's still work to do. But that shaped me in ways that's been a driving force behind my human-rights work, because it made me care about creating the ability for people to live lives of their own choosing."
Source: Westword.com on 2020 Colorado Senate race
Apr 30, 2019
On Education:
Education is a social benefit & an investment in our country
Baer's time with the Colorado Department of Education has convinced him "that we need to no longer think about education as purely a social benefit and start to think about it as an investment in the United States in respect to AI and automation.
We need to make sure Coloradans have the skills we need to have good jobs in the next ten to twenty years,
and the federal government needs to take a leadership role on the R&D side. That's why there's some portion of education spending that should come from the
Defense Department budget--and that's a conversation I'd like to have, because education is a national security issue."
Source: Westword.com on 2020 Colorado Senate race
Apr 30, 2019
On Energy & Oil:
Address climate change, but not the Green New Deal
He's also a strong advocate for legislation to address climate change; he stops short of embracing the
Green New Deal, but praises the proposal for the way it demands major progress on an urgent issue as opposed to settling for small, intermediary steps.
Source: Westword.com on 2020 Colorado Senate race
Apr 30, 2019
On Foreign Policy:
Served as US ambassador to OSCE & multilateral organizations
The introductory campaign video for Baer's campaign underscores plenty of differences between him and the rival Dems itching to take down Gardner at the ballot box.The clip boasts shots of Baer with Obama-era figures such as Hillary Clinton and
John Kerry that date from the period when he served as deputy assistant secretary of state and U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. But arguably more memorable is footage of him driving for Lyft, which he says
he does on occasion as a way of meeting and learning about a wider range of people than the typical candidate encounters.
Baer served as a fellow at Harvard's Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics before joining the Obama team in 2009 and
sticking around for more than seven years.
"At first, I worked on human rights from Washington and many places around the world," he recalls. "I covered Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe, as well as multi-lateral organizations."
Source: Westword.com AdWatch on 2020 Colorado Senate race
Apr 30, 2019
On Government Reform:
Tackle corruption and role of big money in politics
If elected, Baer says, his top priority would be "tackling corruption and the role of big money in the system. I made a pledge from day one that I'll accept no corporate PAC money, and I've gone a step further and said I will never become a federal
lobbyist. I think the revolving door where people go to Washington and serve for as long as they serve and then quickly go to K Street and become millionaires as lobbyists is corrosive to the public confidence in Washington."
Source: Westword.com on 2020 Colorado Senate race
Apr 30, 2019
On Health Care:
Address insurance non-coverage, but no single-payer system
A big agenda item for Baer is universal health care. He prefers immediate steps to help people without coverage now as opposed to making an all-or-nothing bid for a single-payer system in part because of what happened in his own family. "My dad
got cancer for the first time when I was in high school, then went into remission for eight years. But he was diagnosed again when
I was in graduate school. We had health insurance, but the hospital, in the summer of 2002, told him that he had used up the hospital days that were on the policy and had to go home even though he wasn't really in a condition to do that.
So I came home from school to help my mom and help with a seven-year-old brother who required care, too. And my dad died at our house on Dexter Street."
Source: Westword.com on 2020 Colorado Senate race
Apr 30, 2019
Page last updated: Dec 07, 2020