As we close out the books on the horror that was 2023 and wait in dread for whatever fresh hell is in store for us in 2024, just remember that life could be worse.
You could be Lauren Boebert.
In the spirit of the great American divide, Boebert has spent the year making a convincing case as 2023’s leading American divider.
In 2023 alone, she dumped her wayward husband. She dumped her boy-toy Beetlejuice grope buddy, possibly for the great crime of being a drag-queen-tolerant Democrat. And now, to cap off the year, she has dumped — to the shock of nearly everyone — Colorado’s entire 3rd Congressional District, only to be seen taking up with Colorado’s 4th CD voters even though, it seems, no one there has actually asked her to even stop by.
And while I don’t know this for sure, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Boebert also had a hand in persuading Sean Payton to dump Russell Wilson.
That’s quite a year. And that’s without even mentioning Boebert’s very public split with fellow far-right provocateur Marjorie Taylor Greene, her prominent role in dumping the eminently dumpable Speaker-for-then Kevin McCarthy or her near-daily, evidence-free insistence that House colleagues join her in voting to dump/impeach Joe Biden.
Maybe the only person she never considered dumping was Donald Trump. Because that’s never going to happen.
So, now what?
Want early access to
Mike’s columns?
Subscribe to get an
exclusive first look at
his columns twice a week.
It’s obvious that Boebert’s announcement that she’s not running in the 3rd CD — the district in which she lives — is a desperate attempt to save her phony-baloney job. As you’ll recall, she barely won re-election last time out — by a mere 546 votes over then-little-known Democrat Adam Frisch — in her supposedly safe Republican district. In 2020, Donald Trump won the district by eight percentage points, leaving Boebert as the GOP’s leading underperformer in 2022. And that was pre-Beetlejuice.
You don’t need to be a political pundit to explain the disenchantment with Boebert among 3rd CD voters. It’s as easy as this: In her few years in Congress, she has been an embarrassment to the district, to the state, to anyone who believes that governing matters.
Democrats have been pouring money into the race, with Frisch greatly outraising Boebert, who had been seen as probably the nation’s most vulnerable House GOP incumbent. Biden even came to Pueblo, the largest city in her district, to very publicly dump on Boebert. With Boebert out of the race, whoever wins the GOP primary in the district will be favored in the general election, although who knows how much damage Boebert has done to the Republican brand.
And it’s also obvious why Boebert decided to run in the 4th CD, where Ken Buck, the longtime incumbent, is retiring. Trump won there in 2020 by 16 points, and the odds are that any Republican candidate, possibly even Boebert if nominated, would be heavily favored against any Democrat.
The primary lineup is already crowded, and no one expects Boebert to be able to clear the field. As Jesse Paul pointed out in The Sun’s Unaffiliated newsletter, it’s unclear just how Boebert would be able to serve her constituents in the sprawling 3rd CD — which covers nearly half of Colorado’s land mass — while also competing in the GOP primary in the sprawling 4th CD.
Let’s just say that it’s a sure thing that Boebert will break records for claimed campaign mileage reimbursements. In her 2020 run, she claimed 38,712 miles, which equals, as one reporter dryly noted, a trip and a half around the earth’s circumference.
If, as Boebert likes to say, it was God who called her to run for office, does that mean that God also figured out her best chance to stay in Congress was to switch — or should we just say, cut and run? — to the 4th CD? I don’t want to second guess a deity, but he could just as easily have pointed her toward Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming or Arizona — all of which also border Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
☀️ MORE FROM MIKE LITTWIN
I do have some small hope, though, about the 4th CD race. It’s that Ken Buck will step up and denounce Boebert’s move. OK, I’m not holding my breath on this one, but we have seen Buck take a few bold public stances regarding Trump in the months before announcing his retirement. It won’t take any great courage — or wisdom — to call on his constituents to reject Boebert.
You may remember Buck’s explanation for his decision to leave Congress. He blasted Republicans (like Boebert) who couldn’t give up the Big Lie and concede that Trump lost in 2020. He blasted Republicans (like Boebert) who won’t condemn the January 6 insurrection. He blasted Republicans (like Boebert) who call those who assaulted Congress that day “patriots.” He blasted Republicans (like Boebert) who want to impeach Biden without cause. He blasted Republicans (like Boebert) who seem uninterested in doing anything about the problems facing America.
Buck didn’t call out Boebert by name, but he might as well have. Buck, like Boebert a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, is as conservative as anyone in Congress. He has also spent an unreasonable amount of time on the crazy end of the GOP caucus. You can go back to his losing Senate run against Michael Bennet in 2010 when he compared homosexuality to alcoholism.
Still, everything Buck says he doesn’t like about today’s Republican Party is perfectly embodied by Boebert herself.
The GOP field to succeed Buck already featured a few MAGA zealots before Boebert’s announcement. Try state Rep. Richard “Buckwheat” Holtorf just as one example. But I don’t see anyone in the race who could conceivably spark the kind of chaos that follows Boebert wherever she goes.
In announcing her move, Boebert says she’s making a “fresh start.” As part of that fresh start, she says she plans to move from her 3rd CD home in Silt to some unidentified location, at some unidentified time, in the 4th Congressional District.
Given her track record in maintaining relationships, the best advice I could offer is that if Boebert actually does move, she should consider renting.
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.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at [email protected].
Follow Colorado Sun Opinion on Facebook.
English (United States) ·