October 06, 2023 12:23 PM UTC

Everything's Turning Up No-Bert

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• by: Colorado Pols

It’s been a bad couple of days weeks months for Congressperson Lauren Boebert (R-ifle).

It would be a rough week for any politician to have been the butt of jokes on late-night television for a scandal (#Beetlebert) that happened nearly a month ago. But Monday’s comedic onslaught is already the least of Boebert’s worries.

On Thursday, Boebert learned that Democratic challenger Adam Frisch — the guy she only beat by 546 votes in 2022 — is reporting a staggering amount of money in his latest fundraising report. As John Aguilar reports for The Denver Post:

[Frisch] once again topped himself in fundraising as he seeks a rematch to represent Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, bringing in nearly $3.4 million in the third quarter.

The latest campaign reporting period covers July 1 through Sept. 30. Frisch’s Thursday fundraising announcement comes after the former Aspen city councilman raised $1.7 million in the first quarter of 2023 and another $2.6 million in the second quarter…[Pols emphasis]

…Boebert, the hard-right GOP representative for the 3rd District since January 2021, has not yet filed her fundraising numbers for the third quarter. She and other candidates have until Oct. 15 to do so.

According to Federal Election Commission data, Boebert had $1.4 million in the bank at the end of June. She trailed Frisch in fundraising the first half of the year.

Frisch now has $4.3 million in his campaign warchest, which is more money than we can remember for a Colorado congressional candidate still one year away from the General Election. But again…as depressing as this may be for Boebert and her ever-shrinking group of supporters, this still isn’t even the worst news of her week.

Late last month, Boebert lost the endorsement of Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis, who made the rare decision to un-endorse a fellow Republican in her 2024 re-election bid. Davis cited the #Beetlebert mess as part of his decision to drop Boebert and throw his support behind Republican challenger Jeff Hurd instead.

As Charles Ashby reported for the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel on Thursday, Boebert won’t have the public support of any of the three Republicans on the Mesa County Board of Commissioners — a county that represents the largest population area in congressional district three:

As Boebert prepares to ramp up her campaign for reelection for the 3rd Congressional District seat, the backlash of her scandalous appearance and subsequent removal from the Buell Theatre in downtown Denver during a showing of “Beetlejuice” continues.

First-term Mesa County Commissioner Bobbie Daniel joined Commissioner Cody Davis in supporting Grand Junction attorney Jeff Hurd, citing his work in the community as well as his integrity…[Pols emphasis]

…Daniel made no reference to the Denver theater incident in her statement but in an interview with The Daily Sentinel, she said it was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“It was such a departure from the candidate that we elected. It was so severe,” she said. “That was really the final straw for me, seeing her in that light.”

We wrote in September that the #Beetlebert scandal could well be the thing that ends Boebert’s career in Congress. The vaping and the groping and the flash photography that got Boebert and a male friend booted from a musical theater performance in Denver is crippling for her re-election hopes because there is no way for her to hide behind partisan politics as an excuse. Boebert’s behavior was disgusting no matter your political affiliation.

So disgusting, in fact, that even some of her earliest supporters are backing away. As Ashby writes for the Sentinel:

…other Republican officeholders in the region said they were still evaluating and analyzing the situation before making any endorsements for Boebert or another candidate.

The third Mesa County commissioner, Janet Rowland, also a Republican, is a longtime supporter and friend of Boebert, and said that she will not be endorsing any candidates in 2024. [Pols emphasis]

“Typically, I don’t endorse candidates in an election year when I am also a candidate, and that will be the case for 2024,” Rowland said in the Sept. 28 Sentinel article. “Lauren is a personal friend of mine, so any thoughts I have about the theater incident I have shared with her personally.”

Rowland’s excuse here is nonsense; she endorsed Boebert in 2020 when the latter was a relatively-unknown candidate challenging incumbent Rep. Scott Tipton in a Republican Primary. Rowland was herself running for Mesa County Commissioner at the same time, yet still had no problem penning a letter of support for Boebert printed in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

Rowland isn’t endorsing Boebert now for a very simple reason: Boebert is too radioactive even for other Republican incumbents.

It’s not like Rowland has particuarly robust standards, either. This is the same Janet Rowland infamously compared homosexuality to bestiality not long before she was tapped to be Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez’s running mate back in 2006:

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. Homosexuality is an alternative lifestyle, that doesn’t make it a marriage. Some people have group sex — should we allow two men and three women to marry? Should we allow polygamy with one man and five wives? For some people, the alternative lifestyle is bestiality — do we allow a man to marry a sheep? I mean, at some point, you have to draw a line. [Pols emphasis]

In short, even someone who had no problem comparing a homosexual relationship to having sexual relations with an animal thinks Lauren Boebert is one step too far.

We’d say that it would be hard for things to get much worse for Boebert at this point, but we learned long ago never to underestimate Boebert’s ability to sink ever lower.