October 03, 2024 11:20 AM UTC

Calvarese Punches Boebert Hard On Burn Pit Vote

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• by: Colorado Pols

Democratic CO-04 candidate Trisha Calvarese is an arithmetic longshot running against Colorado’s controversy-eating carpetbagger Rep. Lauren Boebert in this heavily Republican district, but Calvarese has been raising big bucks to make the most of her run–and as Ernest Luning at the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog reports, Calvarese is out with a hard-hitting new spot calling Boebert out for her vote against the PACT Act providing benefits to servicemembers exposed to toxic burn pits:

Calvarese’s new ad opens with footage of the candidate comforting Danielle Robinson, whose late husband, Sgt. 1st Class Heath Robinson, an Ohio Army National Guard veteran, died at age 39 following prolonged exposure to toxins released by burn pits at military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“When Heath came home from Iraq, he was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer caused by toxic burn pits,” Robinsons says in the ad. “After Heath passed away in 2020, they named the bill caring for burn pit veterans after him. But Lauren Boebert voted against it. She even heckled when Heath was honored at the State of the Union.”

At that point, the ad inserts an image of Boebert yelling during the 2022 State of the Union address while President Joe Biden pitched the legislation, followed by a clip of Robinson’s reaction in the House gallery, where she sat next to first lady Jill Biden as the president’s guest for the speech.

Adds Robinson: “My family deserved better. So did the veterans she voted against.”

It’s a gut-punch of an ad backed by a reported six-digit buy on one of Boebert’s most problematic votes, a vote that illustrates the choice between taking care of veterans or adhering to Boebert’s government-drowning general principles–with the latter winning out. This is the vote that Boebert famously retorted “I’m not spending $600 billion forever” when asked to justify siding with a tiny minority of far-right Republicans against sick veterans.

Even after last December’s district switch the money continues to flow freely to Boebert’s opponents, and this is how you use it to the best possible effect.