At a Republican district 4 congressional primary debate in Ft Lupton, CO, last Thursday, Colorado’s very own US Representative Lauren “Bobo” Boebert (R-CO) took fifth place out of 5 in a small straw poll, grabbing 12, or 10 % of the votes. The word “carpet bagger” was mentioned a few times. Given that her home district Democratic opponent has accumulated a large war chest, she decided the odds in the 2024 election were poor. So she loaded up the pickup truck, truck nuts and all, and crashed the party in district 4.
Boebert hails from Silt, CO, but was born in Florida. For today I’ll leave this nugget alone.
Let me back up. Boebert was elected twice in Colorado district 3 to the US House of Representatives, most recently in 2022 by a very slim margin. District 3 lies in the much less populous western third of the state. Most all of it is high, dry and approaching vertical in many places. A 65 % majority of the population is rural and mostly conservative.
The tragic comedy that is Boebert is available on Google so I won’t take time to repeat any of it. Suffice it to say that she is even unpopular among Republicans in District 4 as we saw Thursday.
It appears as though the depth of shame isn’t bottomless among district 4 Republicans. Who knows which straw it was that broke the camel’s back. I’m guessing it was the frisky hijinks at a certain musical that did it.
Here she is: Boebert.house.gov
Colorado is peaceful enough nearly everywhere that a sidearm is just dead weight that you carry around needlessly. Like everywhere else, the coppers need to carry a sidearm because the threshold for stupid behavior continues to drop. Otherwise, it is a form of peacock plumage displayed to make a statement. If the Taliban were hunkered down in Boulder or if I had to move in next to a strip joint in Denver, I suppose I’d carry one too.
Colorado’s very own congressperson, the twice elected Rep. (R) Lauren Boebert of the 3rd Congressional District, was caught misbehaving during a theater presentation of Beetlejuice at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts the other day. Besides vaping and some very mild hooliganism, she was caught on surveillance video making out with her date. Like many others who have attended Beetlejuice, they couldn’t resist the urgent pull of their tingly bits. You may recall that Pee Wee Herman had a similar problem as well.
Let me emphasize that there is nothing wrong with making out, mind you. I know many who claim to have done this. After all, this was the true purpose of the drive-in movie theater in years past. Heaven only knows how many solid citizens walking around today were conceived at a drive-in. I think that the move away from bench seating in the automobile had a negative effect in this. But I digress.
Colorado’s 3rd District covers quite a bit of turf as you can see. Most of it is desiccated and somewhat vertical so the overall population density is low, thus the large size. A lot like Wyoming. There is a bit of agriculture but no real corn and soybean acreage like a proper farm state.
As with other western states, Colorado has a mix of folks of polar opposite politics who find themselves concentrated in separate zones. Running down the middle of the state is the majority of the population stretching from Ft. Collins to Colorado Springs. Nobody can decide if Pueblo is part of this corridor despite being on I-25. This is the urban corridor along interstate highway I-25 and west to the start of the Rocky Mountains. This band of settlement has for the last few election cycles voted majority Democrat and has driven state politics in the legislature and the governor’s office. Oh, and the House of Representatives and the Senate too. This includes the I-70 corridor running west halfway to Utah. There are scattered islands of liberalism like Durango smack in the middle of Boebert country. I feel for them- really, I do.
Some have tried to explain away Boebert’s behavior as being not uncommon for a refugee from that Fertile Crescent of sweaty redneck-ism, Florida. She is after all a pistol packin’ grandma at age 36 and close to being properly “deevorced.” Regardless of her background, she has lifted herself from the obscurity of the swamps to become a full-throated Centurion of MAGAstan. It is a real accomplishment.
America is now a place where audio and video tapes of titillating content starring national politicians will not lead to their downfall. Instead, they get an uptick in their popularity by rabid apologists who will make urgent whataboutism style counter-claims about Hunter’s laptop. MAGA folk cheer their politicians like people do at a professional wrestling match- with vigor and encouragement of more violence.
East of the I-25 corridor you soon encounter another conservative swatch of the state, border-to-border between two state panhandles- Nebraska and Oklahoma. This area has much more pivot irrigated farmland than in the western side of the state. Corn, wheat, and sugar beets are popular crops east of the interstate. Through what I suspect were underhanded dealings in the past, Oklahoma is said to have been paid to be a buffer between Colorado and Texas. Many will say that this was a smart move. (Relax- it’s a joke)
In Colorado we have two bookend corridor cities that are well known for their politics. Boulder, northwest of Denver, is to Colorado what San Francisco is to California, but without Silicon Valley or a suspension bridge. It is liberal progressive and a bit on the exotic side. The Hippie movement arrived in the 60’s and never faded away completely. In the 70’s and 80’s you could see ex-hippies with thinning gray ponytails tooling around town in their Beamers. No one bats an eye when weird news sprays out of there. It’s expected. Every state should have a Boulder. Look at Texas of all places- they have Austin.
Colorado Springs, on the other hand, is deeply entangled with far-right conservative Christian evangelicals. Add to this mix a large population of very conservative retired military and you have something very special. The city plays host to Fort Carson and the North American Air Defense Command, NORAD, deep within Cheyenne Mountain southwest of town. You can bet that the Russian and Chinese strategic commands have the exact coordinates of this facility. The US Air Force Academy resides in the forest north of town with its unique chapel jutting proudly above the landscape.
Located at the base of Pikes Peak, “The Springs” enjoys considerable scenic splendor and a conservative upper middle-class tenor. None of my liberal friends contemplate moving there no matter how splendiferous the place may be. It’s a cryin’ shame. This is the city where the wedding cake bakery went to the Supreme Court to protect their right to decline to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. They won. If I were a bakery owner who didn’t want to do business with someone, I would have given an outrageous price or a 12-month lead time or both with payment up front. There are easy yet subtle ways to poison an awkward business deal.
It will be interesting to see if Lauren gets reelected in 2024 given her antics. I have a nauseating feeling that she will be reelected given the demographics of her district. It’s one of those “she may be an idiot, but she’s OUR idiot” things that MAGAstan people can relate to. We’ll see.
From my self-appointed, presumptuous and totally bogus position as temporary apologist for the State of Colorado, I wish to convey our deepest regrets for the reelection of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) to the US House of Representatives. She very nearly lost. You may be asking yourself how it is that this newly blue state produced such a mouthy, unwholesome pistol-packin’ troll. My answer would be that it is impossible to account for the stupid voting decisions some people make.
So, here we go again. We will be treated to another term of the despicable duo of Reps Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert skipping their merry way down the MAGA trail.
This is where I would have liked to paste a funny cartoon. I can’t because they’re all copywritten.
So, what’s the deal with Colorado politics? It used to be pretty darned conservative. That’s easy to answer. There is now a large liberal to centrist urban population. Comparing us to California, though, is fightin’ words. No Coloradoan tolerates such a put-down. And then there is Texas …
And now some geopolitical scribblings. Going west from the Kansas border to the east and across to the western border with Utah, the north/south running Rocky Mountains abruptly jut skyward in the middle of the state, sharply marking the western edge of the Great Plains of the United States. Along this westward direction from Kansas, you’ll drive through the eastern plains and halfway across the state until you encounter the mountains. The eastern plains are sparsely populated and comprised of semi-arid land. There is dryland farming and a good bit of center-pivot irrigation, but it is in no way the richest farmland around.
The rural parts of the state are reliably Republican to a large extent. The several counties making up suburban Denver generally dominate the politics of the state, which is presently Democratic. Colorado Springs, though, could be called the buckle of the state bible belt. It is the center of Christian nationalism around these parts.
Coloradoans generalize regions of the state in terms of the eastern slope and the western slope. This refers to which side of the continental divide you are talking about. There are certain real differences between the two. But, both sides do favor the ridiculous Wal-Mart Broncos. The southern part of the state is largely forgotten about. New Mexico could pull a land grab and invade southern Colorado but no one would notice for at least a week.
Continuing westward from the eastern plains, we encounter the Front Range Urban Corridor where a large fraction of the state’s population is found. This region sits along the eastern slope foothills and reaches from Fort Collins in the north to Pueblo in the south along Interstate 25. The political distribution ranges from centrist/liberal from Denver northward and conservative in Colorado Springs. I just don’t know what the hell happens in Pueblo.
I think it is fair to say that the rural parts of the state, which is most of the state in land area, trends to Republican sentiment. Despite the geographical advantage of land area, most of the population lives in the urban corridor which trends from centrist to more liberal politics.
From about the continental divide westward is the western slope. This part of the state is reliably Republican for the most part. The Republican trend includes the southern part of the state as well. Boebert’s District 3 covers the L-shaped west and south 1/4th of the state. It is approximately half of the land area of the state. Given the conservative nature of the district, it is surprising that her race was so close. But, you know, maybe folks have actually been payin’ attention to her terrible behavior. Will it temper this behavior? Seems doubtful.
Post script.
I am shocked but not surprised by the mass killing at the LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs the other day. Th’ Springs is a hub of prickly white nationalist evangelical Christians whose bizarre eschatology parks them always near the end of times. What a weird way to live.
I have nothing constructive to add here, but it’s just too funny to leave alone. A scandal has hit the news. Cracker Barrel has announced they are offering a new plant-based sausage on their menu. It has resulted in an flood of outrage on the interwebs. Here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, indignant customers are venting their outrage over an optional menu item as a menacing sign of what is to come.
The US Navy may be adding it to their menu, sparking righteous indignation from our very own pistol packin’ Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). It was proposed for the 2023 defense budget. Boebert cried out that it is “liberal woke garbage”. It’s a new food choice for our sailors, Lauren. You are crying wolf again.
According to a source that I don’t trust and never quote, the New York Post, Tejas Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) voted against it in 2021. In a Twitter thread, he exclaimed
“A woke military that drafts our daughters, wastes resources on Green New Deal garbage, holds no one accountable for Afghanistan disaster, and prioritizes playing leftist politics over destroying our enemies,” he wrote in the thread. “Rep. Roy voted no.”
Oh! The horror of it! A vegan meat substitute is an example of wokeness, they rage. To be woke is to be aware of social injustice and to tolerate the choices of other people. But to the lunatic fringe, it is a crime against MAGA land.
It will be interesting to see what the restaurant does about this, if anything. It is an amusing tempest in a teapot.
Lamentations on Chemistry 