JOSH KRAUSHAAR: For Some, a Presidential Campaign Is No Résumé Builder.

My former governor:

John Hickenlooper

It’s tough to put an accomplished two-term governor on this list, but Hickenlooper has stepped on his bipartisan legacy in Colorado with his lackluster bid for the presidency.

The first sign things aren’t going as planned? When your home-state protégé, Sen. Michael Bennet, decides to run for president with a similar campaign message—despite your presence in the field. Bennet, while not yet catching fire, has raised nearly three times the campaign cash of his mentor.

The second? Suffering the indignity of not being recognized at the first Democratic debate, having to remind security that he actually was a candidate.

The third? Not being able to defend capitalism in his campaign kickoff despite his great success as a brewpub-founding entrepreneur. If there was a lane for Hickenlooper, it was as a free-market-defending Democratic moderate. By failing to define himself that way from the beginning, he lost his best opportunity.

Hickenlooper is still running, but much of his original campaign team has left. He raised less than most serious Senate candidates in the last fundraising quarter. A very winnable Senate race would have been a worthy capstone to his career. Now it looks like he’s headed to an early retirement instead.

Plus, Beto O’Rourke, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Tim Ryan at the link. Lots of ego and bad decisionmaking on display.