Now we know why it was so important to Joe Biden to come back to Colorado. And why he may be back again to campaign in a state that is, without question, solidly blue.
The rescheduled visit earlier in the week wasn’t just to raise money, although it’s safe to assume that fundraising trips always matter to politicians. And it wasn’t just for the opportunity to visit Pueblo and the CS Wind factory, a wind turbine tower manufacturer, while touting the job-creating and green-energy benefits of his Inflation Reduction Act.
No, he came to the state mostly for the chance to slam Colorado’s own Lauren Boebert and to do so, as he stood behind the presidential seal, in Boebert’s own 3rd Congressional District.
But why would he come all the way to Colorado to hammer Boebert, who was still in Washington when he spoke? And, for that matter, why would he bother spending any valuable presidential time on a know-nothing back-bencher like Boebert?
In Biden’s short speech in Pueblo, where he jokingly crossed himself after his first mention of Boebert, he made it all exceedingly clear.
In his reelection campaign, Biden plans to run not only against Donald Trump — his near-certain opponent — and the mounting threat to democracy and to the rule of law that Trump represents. But also against Boebert and her MAGA buddies and everything they represent, which includes divisiveness, grandstanding, State of the Union speech heckling, and a near-total lack of interest in policy or the workings of government.
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The term MAGA is not just for red-hatted Trump supporters any more. It has become, as the term Obamacare did, a double-edged sword. For their purposes, Democrats and assorted never-Trumpers have turned MAGA extremism into the ultimate insult and also rallying cry.
And to say Boebert, with her MAGA bonafides, is an easy target for Biden is to say that Nikola Jokić is a decent basketball player.
Here’s how Biden, who may invoke MAGA now as often as Trump does, described Boebert in his speech to the CS Wind employees and sundry guests:
“She is one of the leaders of this extreme MAGA movement. She, along with every single Republican colleague, voted against the law that made these investments and jobs possible. And that’s not hyperbole. That’s a fact. And then she moved to repeal key parts of this law and she called this law a massive failure.”
And for the, uh, punch line:
“You all know you’re part of a massive failure?”
The headline on a Washington Post analysis of Biden’s speech described Boebert thusly: “A MAGA celebrity … who embodies the perverse political incentives in the modern Republican Party.”
She’s also a MAGA celebrity who won her race in a heavily Republican district against then-little-known Democrat Adam Frisch by a mere 546 votes. Trump won that same district by 8 percentage points, making Boebert the biggest underperformer in the GOP’s 2022 election cycle.
And that was before she was kicked out of a performance of “Beetlejuice” for her caught-on-video-forevermore crimes against, um, propriety. You think that could cost her, say, I don’t know, 547 votes?
Frisch is running against her again, this time with strong backing from state and national Democrats. A few other Democrats, seeing how vulnerable Boebert is, are also running. And, even more notably, so are several Republicans, who are making the case that Boebert is not only a distraction but very likely unelectable.
To return to the House, assuming she runs again, Boebert would have to overcome an intense primary race, a toss-up-or-worse general election and, yes, just the fact of being Boebert.
But Biden, who would love for Democrats to flip the Republican-held House, didn’t come to town to influence one House race. You can be sure Biden is not very popular in the Republican-heavy 3rd CD. His approval ratings aren’t all that high in a lot of places. But, if you believe the polls, they’re a lot higher than Boebert’s.
What Biden wants to do is to nationalize Boebert and friends, including people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Boebert’s MAGA frenemy and an avid competitor in both mindless conspiracy theories and evidence-free calls to impeach Biden. Greene, it should be noted, was the GOP’s third biggest underperformer in 2022.
Add in Matt Gaetz, who’s leaving the House to run for governor in Georgia. And George Santos, who’s just, you know, leaving the House — and that’s despite support in his expulsion vote from Boebert, from Greene, from Gaetz, and, of course, from the new, far-right-wing Speaker-for-now Mike Johnson.
It’s not clear whether Boebert’s right-wing stands on the issues, including abortion in the post-Dobbs era, will particularly hurt her in her district. But we know from the 2022 election just how much her congressional antics cost her. And as you may remember, she promised after the election to tone down her act. Yes, that was also before “Beetlejuice” came to town.
Meanwhile, in anticipation of Biden’s trip to Pueblo, Boebert said, in her familiar subtle style, “I hope there’s not a silver alert that goes out for him.”
That must be everything Biden could hope for. It’s one thing to make a fair comment on his age. Biden is already the oldest person ever to be president, and by the end of a second term, he’d be 86. It’s another thing, though, for a member of Congress to make a not-at-all-funny dementia joke.
And what we know about Boebert, and a lot of other people in our dysfunctional Congress, is that she can’t possibly know the difference.
Editor’s note: Mike Littwin’s column will now appear online each Sunday, and premium Sun members will receive it early in their inboxes on Fridays.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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