December 13, 2023 10:17 AM UTC

Sens. Gardner, Liston Jump On Anti-Boebert Dogpile

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• by: Colorado Pols

As Ernest Luning at the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog reports, add two more Republican elected officials to the growing number publicly refudiating America’s Most Vulnerable™ incumbent GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert in the aftermath of the “Beetlebert” scandal and announcing their support for Boebert’s opponent, Barbora Hurd’s husband:

State Sens. Bob Gardner and Larry Liston on Tuesday endorsed congressional candidate Jeff Hurd, the Grand Junction Republican challenging U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert in next year’s GOP primary.

The Colorado Springs Republicans say they’re supporting the first-time candidate because they believe Hurd will deliver results.

“Jeff is a leader of character who will work hard to deliver on issues important to western and southern Colorado. He will deliver for our farming and ranching families, fight to protect our water, push for energy independence, and always put Colorado first,” said Gardner and Liston in a joint statement released by Hurd’s campaign…

Luning reports that the occasion prompting this show of support was a fundraiser held in Denver last night for Boebert’s opponent featuring the two Colorado Springs lawmakers along with former Gov. Bill Owens and Sen. Hank Brown. One of the indicators we’re all eagerly waiting for is whether Boebert’s opponent can raise enough money to compete, so hopefully they brought in a lot of cash last night. But in terms of actually peeling away support for Boebert in the district, the opinion of these two decidedly uncharismatic El Paso County state lawmakers won’t count for much. We’re not even sure why they rated their own press release.

Not to mention that for anyone paying close attention to El Paso County politics, Sen. Liston in particular has got his own issues that might make his endorsement more problematic than persuasive. Liston was just recently censured by the El Paso County Republican Party for his bit part in the endless drama that has engulfed the organization under chairwoman Vicki Tonkins. That prompted the state GOP under Tonkins’ friend Dave “Let’s Go Brandon” Williams to call for an investigation of Liston for alleged “abuse of power,” and it’s a controversy that continues to divide El Paso County Republicans.

As for Sen. Bob Gardner? Gardner’s job since winning office all the way back in 2006 has been to put people in the Colorado General Assembly to sleep. When the goal of Republicans in the Colorado Senate is to obstruct the majority by occupying debate time with voluminous bloviation that manages to stay just relevant enough to the subject to not be gaveled down, Gardner is their star player. Unfortunately, the oratorical skill to bore colleagues into submission doesn’t lend itself to being persuasive in any other situation, and again we’re left wondering what segment of CD-3 GOP primary voters this endorsement is meant to appeal to.

Much like the Colorado Springs Gazette’s endorsement of Jeff “You’ve Never” Hurd, what we have here are pleas by the Republican party’s corporate class to grassroots CD-3 GOP primary voters to support an extremely generic unknown alternative over the crowd-pleaser who buried her primary opponent in 2022. While these usual suspects are the only tools in the party elite’s bag for this job, we still can’t say it will be enough to topple Boebert in the primary.

And if Boebert does prevail in the 2024 primary, she’s going to want some red-on-red payback of her own.