Bennet, Shumlin and Hickenlooper Moving Up in the Political Ranks

Left to right: Michael Bennet ’87, John Hickenlooper ’74, Peter Shumlin ’79

Some Wesleyan alumni are seriously making their ways up in the political ranks, my friends: all three of our school’s top current politicians have been nominated to lead the two official campaign organizations of the Democratic Party. Senator Michael Bennet ’87 will be the new Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), and Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin ’79 will lead the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) with Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper ’74 as the DGA vice-chair!

The news broke earlier this afternoon and evening: Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced Bennet’s new position at today’s Democratic Caucus luncheon, stating that “Michael is one of the brightest rising stars in the Democratic Party, and he is exactly the right person to lead our efforts over the next two years.” Later on in the evening, it was announced that the DGA had elected Shumlin as their new chair, along with Hickenlooper as his side-kick. Quite the day for Wesleyan politicians indeed!

For some fun facts about Wesleyan students correcting political journalists on their research skills, look after the jump.

POLITICO.com was one of the first website to break the news on all of these accounts earlier today, first and foremost with this article about Bennet’s nomination. However, the author originally stated that Bennet graduated from Wesleyan College, an all-girls school in Macon, Georgia. Wesleying poster Chile emailed the author notifying him of the error, and the mistake was corrected within hours. While this is an easy error to commit, given how many Wesleyan colleges/universities there are, it is nonetheless ironic coming from POLITICO, which is owned by Allbritton Communications… Yes, “Allbritton” as in the Allbritton Center. Indeed, alumnus Robert Allbritton ’92 is the owner and founder of POLITICO, and he and his family are some of the school’s most prominent donors.

Despite the little journalistic mistake, this all makes for some big news on the Wesleyan College University front.

Read about Governor Shumlin’s bear-fighting abilities here.