The circus has officially come to Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. Entering stage right, and I mean, far right, is Republican nominee Lauren Boebert.
This week I received a fundraising letter from Boebert, which includes a picture of her with a pistol strapped to her side and her arms folded over as if she is running for county sheriff or maybe congressional class clown.
Her letter looks as if it is ripped out of the Trump campaign playbook. It contains all of the dog whistle trigger words like socialism, “left-wing lunatics” and AOC’s Squad, that get far-right Republicans fired up to write checks. Not once does it mention her opponent by name.
Boebert brags about defeating five-term incumbent Congressman Scott Tipton, who she previously criticized for being in bed with the Squad and not being conservative enough. She attacked Tipton in the primary for failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which currently protects approximately 300,000 people with pre-existing conditions in the district.
Tipton, by all measures, is a very conservative Republican. Tipton voted with Trump a whopping 95% of the time and enjoyed a lifetime A rating with the National Rifle Association. Apparently, he still wasn’t conservative enough for Boebert, who drinks and serves the Trump Kool-Aid.
Most Colorado Republicans are running away from Trump, not Boebert.
Boebert has tweeted about putting Trump’s face on Mt. Rushmore. When asked, Boebert failed to answer the question of whether she thought it was appropriate for Trump to ask a foreign government to investigate a political rival.
The district leans Republican, but it is no sure bet for a political party that has just nominated one of the most extreme candidates in the country. Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District is mainly rural and also includes Grand Junction, Durango, Aspen and Pueblo. Registered Republicans have a 5% party advantage over Democrats (32% to 27%), but it will be the unaffiliated voters 38% who will decide this race between her and Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush, who formerly served as a state representative. Democrat John Salazar served this district before Tipton.
As a result of Tipton’s defeat, The Cook Political Report moved this race from a “solid” to a “likely” Republican seat.
Boebert has promised to “check off every conservative checkbox there is”.
She has made guns her top priority and wants her donor pool to believe that the Democrats are coming for their guns. Forget the fact that Mitsch Bush supports the Second Amendment as well as responsible gun ownership.
The red flag bill passed by the Colorado legislature in 2019 was a big part of her decision to run for Congress. The law, supported by the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police, allows a judge to issue an emergency order allowing the temporary removal of guns from individuals determined to be a risk to themselves or others. Boebert blames Tipton, who was busy serving in Congress and not the Colorado legislature, for not being vocal enough in opposing the measure.
She owns the Shooter’s Grill in Rifle, where her servers open carry loaded guns. According to her website and news reports, Boebert allowed one of her juvenile servers to carry a loaded gun at her diner. Colorado law prohibits juveniles from carrying firearms and unlawfully providing a handgun or permitting a juvenile to possess a handgun is a Class 4 felony.
Shooter’s Grill also made news for violating a cease and desist order issued by the Garfield County Public Health department for ongoing violations of Colorado’s Safer at Home Order, which resulted in a 30-day license suspension. Boebert told Real Patriot News that the mask rules for her staff were absolutely ridiculous.
And, if that’s not wacky enough, Boebert has spoken approvingly of QAnon, a fringe movement that touts a far-reaching, unfounded conspiracy theory that spreads inane claims about deep state and other forces attempting to bring down Trump.
The conspiracy theory is predicated upon a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who rule the world and believe that Trump was elected to stop them. Facebook recently removed one of the largest QAnon groups for misinformation, hate speech and harassment. Twitter banned 7,000 QAnon-connected accounts and took action against some 150,000 more.
In May, she appeared on the show, Steel Truth, and told far-right personality and QAnon supporter Ann Vandersteel that she was very familiar with the QAnon movement. When asked her opinion of the movement Boebert said, “I hope that this is real, because it only means America is getting stronger and better and people are returning to conservative values.” She added that, “everything that I have heard of this movement is only motivating and encouraging and bringing people together stronger, and if this is real it could be really great for our country.”
Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District voters have an opportunity to show that they can out-crazy the “left-wing lunatics” of the Democratic Party. Let’s hope they take a pass.
Doug Friednash is a Denver native, a partner with the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck and the former chief of staff for Gov. John Hickenlooper.
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