Senator Gardner, Radical Centrist

There’s a 6,000-square-foot cannabis dispensary—Euflora, the only pot shop along downtown Denver’s pedestrian mall—I’ve been wanting to check out. But first I’ve got a holiday party to crash. Luckily the dispensary is a mere three-minute walk from the luxurious Brown Palace Hotel and Spa, which has hosted gold speculators, gunslinging gamblers and other colorful patrons since it opened in 1892. On this brisk evening, Colorado’s junior U.S. senator has taken over one of its ballrooms.

Cory Gardner is a lawyer but not a three-piece-suit-wearing jackass. After working for his family’s agricultural company in eastern Colorado and getting a law degree, he became a spokesperson for the National Corn Growers Association. Republicans tapped him in 2005 to fill a vacant seat in the Colorado House of Representatives. In 2011 he was wooed eastward for a four-year stint in the U.S. House before finally capturing a Senate seat three years later. This November he’s running for reelection, likely against former Democratic governor John Hickenlooper, whom an Emerson College survey gives a more than 10-point advantage.

But Donald Trump’s advent has rendered almost all political scales obsolete. Six years ago Gardner captured one of the nation’s last purple Senate seats by running as a “freethinker.” Tides churned. Almost accidentally he now finds himself a Trumplican. On paper at least he has broken with the president on cannabis, immigration and foreign affairs, but his independent flashes are drowned out by loyalty to a party unrecognizable to his forebears. That makes Gardner’s race feel more internal than external—almost as though he’s running against his former self and all the principles he once professed to cherish.

Unlike many of his peers, Gardner, now 45, isn’t a millionaire, though he occasionally lives like one. Tonight is one of those nights when it’s perfectly legal, if unseemly, for him to use his Project West PAC to cover the tab for seemingly endless platters of beef Wellington, coconut shrimp and several offerings whose names I can’t readily pronounce.

Besides a couple rocking matching BIKERS FOR TRUMP black leather vests, the room hums mostly with well-dressed donors, conservative activists and senior staffers. Down the hall, Gardner emerges from an elevator with his wife, Jaime, and their three children. He heartily greets me as if this weren’t the third time I’ve seen him this December day.

He flashes his family a smile before encouraging them warmly, if absentmindedly, to head in without him. His wife responds with an honest frown. It appears she isn’t happy being abandoned among this lot of power-hungry scavengers.

“Probably like three or four minutes,” Gardner’s communications director, Annalyse Keller, says of my last moments with the senator. This makes me both angry and nervous, but I’m not on the ballot.

Numerous local journalists have warned me that the senator avoids the press, and when you google “Cory Gardner reporters” the top hits include “dodges,” “won’t say” and “declines.” His staff notoriously announces events with just hours’ notice, claiming accessibility while screwing understaffed newsrooms left scrambling to cover him. After the senator went nearly 500 days without a town hall, fed-up activists sent a “Cardboard Cory” cutout on a statewide bus tour to meet with constituents. Democrats paint Gardner as a shorter Donald Trump. There’s lots to discuss, but he’s not eager to talk.

I was in two of Gardner’s private meetings earlier, including one at a Denver passport office, which State Department employees wouldn’t let me record. Later, my allotted 10-minute interview stretched to 15 after I hopped into Gardner’s elevator. We talked about foreign policy because that was his focus. His staff even brought me to a gathering of the nation’s top defense contractors and climate-denying Armed Services Committee chair Senator Jim Inhofe, who quietly informed these pillars of the military-industrial complex that their world is dependent on Gardner’s election this fall. (Wink wink, cut the man a check already, was what I heard.)

Keller scooped me in the morning so I could ride with the senator between events, as I’d requested. That never happened, but for lunch, Keller and Jerrod Dobkin, communications director for Gardner’s reelection campaign, spun me for about an hour.

Later it hits me: All they scheduled over my four days here were two private events and a brief interview. But PLAYBOY flew me west to cover an issue that never came up at their handpicked meetings, which is why I’m now basically crashing a party his team never told me about.

“We haven’t really talked about cannabis laws yet,” I tell him in the ballroom.

“Yeah, yeah,” Gardner, now donning a tie for the first time today, says, nodding.

The senator is prepared: Cannabis is his bipartisan thing. He’s supposedly one of Washington’s last pragmatists—or moderates, though he doesn’t dare utter that M word in the Trump era. Gardner helped ease wholesale GOP opposition to marijuana after drafting the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States—or STATES—Act with Senator Elizabeth Warren in 2018. Like other proposals floating around the Hill, the legislation seeks to decriminalize cannabis federally, but it’s unique in that it focuses on empowering states so they can decide their own marijuana policies once the fear of federal interference is removed. Some Democrats now distance themselves from it; they’re demanding reparations, of sorts, for minority communities left ravaged by the war on drugs. To Gardner, his bill remains the only answer.

Although legalization is relatively new in Colorado, cannabis is no longer a novelty: Marijuana delivery is more sophisticated than pizza apps here. The roadblock for this burgeoning industry is federal prohibition. It’s the reason heavily armed security is required to protect these all-cash operations that federally insured banks are required to shun.

Gardner’s cannabis awakening came only after 55.32 percent of voters rejected his former prohibitionist stance and passed Colorado’s revolutionary recreational cannabis law in 2012.

“Where are you on that personally now?” I ask.

“It’s the STATES Act,” Gardner replies.

“But what do you think about marijuana personally?” I press.

“The state should decide,” Gardner says.

“Have you ever used it?” I ask, clawing for honesty.

“No, no,” Gardner says, laughing. “You can quote that. I always thought people might use that against me.”

He then dismisses my offer to try it with me.

For a decade I’ve witnessed Cory Gardner’s evolution. His once-dark hair is now silver. As a House freshman, he earned an approval score of 82 percent from the Tea Party’s Freedom-Works group. Then, as a senator in 2018, he backslid to 61 percent. Back in the House he was more conservative than independent, even supporting a fetal-personhood act—a position he conveniently disavowed in his Senate run.

After riding 2010’s Tea Party wave to Washington, in 2014 Gardner ran for the Senate as a freethinker. In 2016, after the pussy-grabbing video surfaced, he “rescinded” his Trump endorsement, only to endorse him again at the start of 2019. Just as this is a new Republican Party, this is a new Cory Gardner.

Not many polls are out yet. Those that are reveal the thin reddish-purple line on which Gardner is tiptoeing. Keating Research found that an astonishing 90 percent of Colorado Republicans approve of Trump, while only 63 percent view Gardner favorably. Even as Democrats paint Gardner as a radical conservative, many Republicans consider him a sellout for deviating from Trump even once. With Gardner, it’s always complicated.

Gardner is proud of Trump’s judges—“I’m going to point to all the judges,” he gushes over his 2020 campaign strategy—including two now on the Supreme Court. In 2018 he chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee and helped defeat centrist Democrats Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. On climate change, he says humans are the culprits, but he has helped unwind environmental regulations. He worked with Democrats on immigration, then supported Trump’s wall. The president is an isolationist, while Gardner wants engagement—though “Hillary Clinton opposed TPP,” he says, defending Trump.

His political calculations, or lack thereof, have turned heads. Voters are wondering which Cory Gardner is on their ballots: Trump lapdog or centrist? He’s played both parts well.

“Your brand is different than Trump,” I tell Gardner.

“It is. That’s right. Yeah,” Gardner replies. “We ran in 2014 as a different kind of Republican, and that’s exactly what we continue to be: optimistic, forward-looking, reaching out, finding solutions.”

Gardner has had his moments. After then attorney general Jeff Sessions rescinded the Obama-era Department of Justice memo shielding most locally legal cannabis companies from federal enforcement, Gardner temporarily held up Justice Department nominees. Eventually he and Warren crafted the STATES Act, which garnered positive headlines for Gardner after Trump told reporters, as Marine One spewed dirt about the White House lawn, “I probably will end up supporting that, yes.”

I hear “probably” because Trump is a pathological liar, at least according to fact-checkers. Gardner hears only “yes.” Whether it’s naivete or blind faith, he trusts Trump—even after he reversed himself on DREAMers, gun control, foreign policy and more.

“He said it to me on the phone, gosh, almost a year ago,” Gardner says. “He said it to me in person many times since then.”

Trump told reporters “probably” in June 2018. Some two years later, not even a tweet, even though federal prohibition has now been rejected by 33 states, the District of Columbia, four territories and some Native American tribes. As a good Republican, Gardner blames Obama: “If this was so important to them, they would have done something.”

Even as he embraces such tired conservative talking points, there’s an obvious disconnect between Gardner and today’s GOP. That’s why I’m chasing this flustered senator who remains proud of his conservative record but runs from reporters. It appears Gardner doesn’t want to discuss Trump lest he mess up and say what 2016 Gardner was thinking when he rescinded his endorsement of the self-proclaimed groper in chief. In 2014 and 2016 he stood out—but after facing conservative fire, 2020 Gardner is tied to Trump. Or so his opponents think.

By some metrics, Gardner’s style is effective. The Lugar Center named him the fifth-most-bipartisan senator in the 115th Congress. Trump relocated the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado and, at least temporarily, housed U.S. Space Command here. Democrats say those are prepackaged gifts from the administration meant to divert attention from Gardner’s record since Trump took office.

“I understand why they’re frustrated,” Gardner says. “They wanted me to be the old fuddy-dud Republican, and unfortunately, what they’ve seen is somebody who’s effective at getting things done. I get why they’re angry.”

Democrats can’t fathom why Gardner isn’t angry. While the senator is rhetorically tough as hell on Russia and North Korea, Trump praises their oppressive leaders. If he’s tried, Gardner hasn’t moved Republicans on climate change or immigration. Trump has also delivered nothing on cannabis—private assurances don’t count. (Neither the White House nor members of Trump’s campaign responded to numerous offers for the president to weigh in.) Of course, Democrats bitch about any Republican who has assisted Trump, especially those, like Gardner, who voted to kill Obamacare while supporting massive tax cuts. But his story is more complex.

“Compassionate conservatism” was a recent GOP mantra, but that makeover began to fade even before Trump started wielding sledgehammer-style conservatism. That’s why, at least compared with Trump’s rebranded GOP, Gardner looked angelic for co-sponsoring the Dream Act.

“He stuck his neck out, and I appreciated it,” Dick Durbin, the number two Senate Democrat, tells PLAYBOY. “It wasn’t an easy call in the age of Donald Trump. In my world, it stands tall.”

Gardner also receives praise from the cannabis industry, which becomes evident minutes into a private tour of an expansive cannabis grow in Aurora, Colorado.

As I enter the dispensary at this Terrapin Care Station (one of six), the Cheech and Chong tropes dissipate. Its warm wooden floors lend a ski-lodge ambience, and the polished display cases alert visitors that cannabis is taken seriously here. Exotic offerings abound, including Live Nectar, a crystal-like amber substance that burns more smoothly than the hundreds of joints nearby, the latter expertly labeled so users know whether they’re sparking, say, a PBR or a Jameson. There is also a variety of gummies, jellies, tinctures and even THC bath salts that promise a body buzz.

Past the dispensary, Terrapin founder and CEO Chris Woods—wearing jeans, a white button-down shirt and a purple plaid sports coat—plays tour guide. As I head through the secure doors, my nostrils dance from the sweet, pugnacious aroma emanating from roughly 3,000 plants. The 35,000-square-foot facility is fitted with 216 natural lights that encourage the plants to pump out roughly 350 to 400 pounds of sticky buds monthly.

Each plant has a unique RFID tag that eventually matches the label on the products that consumers purchase, enabling health officials to trace any contaminants. One room boasts an elaborate lab where employees in blue coats and rubber gloves—along with hair and beard nets—show off vials of liquid THC and petri dishes brimming with pure THC crystals that are, except for their enticing golden glow, oddly reminiscent of crack rocks.

Around 3,000 similar, if mostly less elaborate, licensed marijuana businesses dot the state. The industry has witnessed more than $7 billion in sales over six years, reaping $1 billion in state revenue. According to my host, Cory Gardner deserves credit.

“It could very well have been the case that this industry would not exist how it is today if it weren’t for Cory,” Woods says.

Woods doesn’t like politicians, but Gardner won his respect for battling Sessions. And Peter Marcus, Terrapin’s communications director, says Gardner’s mark is industry-wide.

“As a Republican standing up, pounding the dais, saying, ‘I will not let these nominations go through until you respect states’ rights’—those are the major talking points for the industry that you wouldn’t necessarily have gotten had it been a Democrat who you expected to obviously stand up and be good on marijuana,” Marcus says.

In a past life as a reporter, Marcus covered Gardner. He says numerous entities endorsed cannabis proposals after Gardner’s outspoken advocacy provided cover. To him, Gardner is “a guy who’s been on the wrong side of liberal issues for his entire time as a politician, going back to the statehouse. That was what was significant about it: the headlines generated from this specific man taking this to the people like that.”

But even with praise coming from some surprising voices, Gardner is still saddled with a Trump-size problem.

On a Tuesday morning in December, three days before the Brown Palace event, more than a dozen reporters—cameras, note pads and recorders in tow—huddled outside the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Inside, senators examined “The Future of U.S. Policy Towards Russia.” In the past it would have been a staid, bipartisan event, but in Trump’s Washington, formerly innocuous hearings generate headlines. This was evident when Mitt Romney of Utah, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee who has remained critical of Trump, made news for breaking with the president by saying—gasp!—he agreed with the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies and blamed Russia, not Ukraine, for election meddling.

In between Romney and Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, sat Gardner. During the hearing he joked with both men, who represent opposite wings of today’s GOP. Addressing the issue at hand, he sounded more like a classic GOP hawk than this new breed of Trump-before-all-else pols. So instead of pivoting to the middle, as Romney has, or putting his head in Trump’s crotch, where Johnson’s head seems to rest these days, Gardner went old school—think Iron Curtain Reagan Republican—and accused Russia of being a state sponsor of terrorism.

That’s where Gardner stands out: He’s constantly trying to appease moderates without alienating Trump’s base. But at least for now, Trumpism has killed conservatism. That may explain why Gardner hurried into the hall after asking questions that felt out of place in Trump’s Washington.

“It’s always good to continue the pressure,” a quick-paced Gardner told me through a nervous smile. A moment later he asked, “I went the wrong way, didn’t I?”

“No,” a staffer intoned.

True to form, at least these days, Gardner was hurried, running when he didn’t have to. He knows Trump has transformed the GOP in his own image, shrinking its tent to such a degree that some prominent traditional conservatives no longer feel at home there. I ask him, as he has labored to carve out his own perch in this new GOP, if he has ever felt out of place.

“No, not at all,” Gardner says. “I’m a Republican. I believe in getting government out of the way.”

Gardner has battle scars from crawling in Trump’s trenches, along with some nicks from crossing him. As the senator prepares for what may be the fight of his career, the very commander for whom he has sacrificed so much—his brand, his identity and, some say, his integrity—is the one he must fear the most. But it’s impossible to distance yourself from someone like Trump, especially after being his mostly reliable rubber stamp. That’s why, whether Gardner likes it or not, Colorado voters will be presented one choice in November: Vote for or against Trump. In Gardner’s case, just as in the case of leaders in other battleground states, no matter how fast or how far he runs, he can’t erase four years of Trump from voters’ minds.

Even if, at times, it’s what he desperately longs to do.