I was gone for a week to see the eclipse — I’ll have a couple posts on some political/social aspects of some of my travel experiences in a few days. As part of my trip to see totality in Texas, I traveled through CO-4, the eastern Colorado district that Lauren Boebert parachuted into after realizing that she would lose CO-3. As you might recall, Ken Buck tried to screw Boebert over by quitting in a way that forced a special election. Unfortunately, the state GOP has sided with Boebert in two ways.
First, they demanded that their nominee for the special election sign a pledge not to run for the seat in the primary. Greg Lopez, the Republican nominee for the special, signed that pledge.
Second, they endorsed Boebert at their convention in Pueblo and shat upon the other candidates who had the temerity to challenge the God-emperor Trump’s decision to anoint St Lauren as the rightful heir to the House of Buck.
On the ground in CO-4, I didn’t see a single Boebert sign. I did see signs for Richard Holtorf, the guy who would have probably replaced Ken Buck if Boebert hadn’t decided to leave CO-3. Holtorf is pissed because he was screwed over, but he’ll probably make the primary ballot because he’s gathered enough signatures to do so despite the state GOP’s wishes.
It’s hard to feel sorry for a guy like Holtorf, who wears a AR-15 tie pin and would probably have exactly the same voting record as Boebert if he were elected. Still, I would have liked to see Boebert flushed from our politics. I don’t know enough about CO-4 politics to know if the voters there might still reject Boebert, but I do know that there are a shitload of Trump signs and flags along the highway, and his supporters know that he’s behind Boebert. It’s a R+13 district, so probably not worth putting serious money behind a Democratic challenger.
As someone whose main interest in politics is the House of Representatives, it’s tough to see this, but here we are. I invite those who know more about Colorado politics to correct me if I’m wrong.
