I may have to change my mind about Mark Kelly's earlier lack of presidential ambition. Listen to the whole interview
Last edited Sun Feb 15, 2026, 08:43 AM - Edit history (1)
https://www.c-span.org/program/international-telecasts/sen-mark-kelly-d-az-speaks-at-munich-security-conference/673382#!The part the made my antennae perk up was NOT when the interviewer was directly trying to draw Mark out on running. The part that made me sit up and notice was when he remarked that not only way the Trump regime not doing anything to help build up our relations with the rest of the world, but when he said that previous administrations had not done enough, either.
https://www.c-span.org/program/international-telecasts/sen-mark-kelly-d-az-speaks-at-munich-security-conference/673382#!
As one who has constantly been over here on the NATO/EU end of things, I don't totally agree with him there. The efforts of Clinton, Obama and Biden may have not always gotten to page one, but they were unrelenting. Bill Clinton DID even get us involved in the Balkan war in the 1990s. That was not a passive interest.
However, the fact that Mark chose to even take up the subject carried, for me, anyway, a subtle "we need to do more" message. Obviously, he was no longer referring to the Balkans, and he is VERY concerned about the Ukrainian conflict. Kudos to both the interviewer and to Mark for not diverging into economics or domestic politics, which must have been tempting as hell. But at a security conference being held in a country which is only two small countries (for trolling Republicans, that's "country's" to you) over from a shooting war involving the Red Army. the last thing that should have been on the agenda was "tax the rich," and indeed, it wasn't.
But back to the theme of my OP--if Mark is publicly saying that administrations of both parties have been subpar on an important issue, either he is planning to get more active as a Senator, or he thinks he needs to get involved on a higher plane. If you're already a member of the U.S. Senate, and you want to be more actively involved in our global foreign policy, the only higher plane left is the Oval Office.
Listen to the part of the interview when he tells what inspired him to run for the Senate in the first place.
I will bring it up with him on Friday. That doesn't mean he has made a decision about running, or that he is ready to share it with me if he has, or that I am allowed to say anything if he DOES tell me (I religiously respect "off the record" requests). But I m no longer certain that he has ruled it out. There is also the added consideration that his Senate term is up in 2029, and that if he wants to stay in elective office beyond then, he has to decide if he wants the nearly sure thing of six more years in the Senate, or the very iffy shot at the presidency.
Of course, two years is an eternity in politics, and by then, his chances for the Oval Office could seem an impossibility, a sure thing, or anywhere in between.
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I'm not on his daily list of "must call" people, but I've known him and Gabby for close to 20 years. We last actually spoke in person in DC in January of last year, so I guess we were due. I'm not Secretary of State, so Rubio got invited to Munich where I was not, even though I speak 7 more European languages than Rubio does. It's OK, I still work for a living, and wouldn't have been able to get away anyhow. Although I live in Germany, it's at the other end from München (Munich), and Paris is actually closer.
Here is a shot from the "Marcs and Johns" dinner I organized in DC a few years ago:
I have told this before, but the restaurant gave us our own room, since there were three US Senators present. It turned out that outside our room, at a table next to the door, two Republican Senators were having dinner. They poked their heads in to say hi to their Democratic colleagues, and their eyes widened when they saw my brother and me. They obviously knew Gabby and Robin Hickenlooper, but had no clue who my brother and I were, and obviously wanted to ask who the two unknown "movers and shakers" were that could command the presence of three of their Democratic colleagues at one table. We had a big laugh about that after they left. I never found out if they got up the guts to ask later on. "By the way, just who WERE those two guys at the restaurant the other night?" Of course, if they DID ask and got a truthful answer--"just two brothers we all know"-- the Republicans would probably never have believed it anyway 
He has his own internal pollsters with their pulse on voter sentiments to the extent possible, but I will let him know that he has supporters in places I frequent.
Don't forget, these are not really circles I travel in on a regular basis. 99% of the time, I just get up and go to work just like the rest of us normal mortals. Plus, some of these people got famous way after I met them. When I met Mark, he was more "Gabby's husband" than anything else. She was the celeb (and deservedly so).
Hey, if he wins and asks me to be Secretary of State or Ambassador to the UN. then you can call me a celeb and say you know me! That's probably as close as either of us will get
