January 03, 2022 08:15 AM UTC

Never Thought I'd Be Here

• 1 Comments
• by: Ckonola

I’m in the middle of doing something I never thought I’d do. I’m actively supporting a Republican.

The demographics in CD3, as of November 1, per the Secretary of State’s Office are: Total Active Voters 503,742 (100%); Unaffiliated 208,141 (41.32%); Republican 156,336 (31.03%); Democrats 130,257 (25.86%). The Unaffiliated group is hardly homogeneous. When the Tea Party movement was strong, many Republicans switched their affiliation to Unaffiliated, including the current Chair of the Mesa County Republican Party. Many young people, disdainful of labels, did not affiliate with any party when registering to vote. I became unaffiliated when the local chair of the Mesa County Democrats told me to shut up and sit down because I was too liberal, something I haven’t been able to do since I first protested the VietNam war as a teen.

This district spans a geographic territory larger than some states, but includes two population centers: Pueblo and Grand Junction. Currently the Representative is Lauren Boebert, who won because of the support of people like Janet Rowland in Grand Junction. Without Grand Junction, Tipton would probably still be our Representative.

My semi-educated opinion is that Grand Junction will be the key to defeating Lauren Boebert in her bid for reelection. I have been asking my progressive friends to register as unaffiliated in order to vote in the GOP Primary. There are two compelling reasons to do so, vote for Marina Zimmerman and Bobbie Gross. (Gross is running against Tina Peters in the Primary.)

My strategy seems to be gaining some traction. There is now a group self named “Liberals for Marina” that is hosting a Meet-n-Greet for Marina Zimmerman on THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2022 AT 6:30 PM at The Art Center of Western CO 1803 N 7th St, Grand Junction, CO 81501. We are of the opinion that a sane Republican is a much safer bet than putting all of our eggs into the DEM Primary race, especially given the demographics of CD3.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time with Marina, who I first discovered on Twitter and have followed for quite some time. She is no liberal, but she is light years ahead of Lauren Boebert. Marina impressed a lot of us when she set up a booth at Grand Junction’s Pride Fest, and genuinely engaged with and listened to the issues of the LGBTQ community here. As an “Army Brat” (although I think her father was Air Force) she has lived all over the world, and has respect for cultural diversity. While working in a male dominated industry (she’s a crane operator) she advanced into management. At the same time she worked on getting an education in planning. Contrast that with Lauren Boebert, who only got a GED when she decided to run for office.

Marina had asthma as a child. She has no problem with public health. She had a Delta break-through case of Covid-19 and believes her vaccines saved her life. She is not anti-abortion, although she would prefer that no abortions happen after 17 weeks. I’m not sure what the 17 week cut-off means to her, but the gist of what she told me is that at some point it is irresponsible to keep delaying a decision. She does believe that there should be exceptions to any abortion restrictions, to include the health of the mother, an unviable fetus, incest.

My strategy: get as many people as possible to convert to unaffiliated and vote for sanity in the GOP Primary.

There are many good DEM candidates, and I understand the dilemma about which party’s primary to support. I’m willing to allow the party regulars to decide who their candidate should be. I will say that originally I had hoped for a Donovan/Zimmerman General Election. Since Donovan was written out of the district, my current choice is Donald Valdez in the DEM primary. The last DEM to hold that seat was John Salazar, a Latino farmer from the San Louis Valley. Sound like Donald Valdez!

We live in interesting times. Join me in some Good Trouble!