XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.gossip.celebrities, alt.politics.elections   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: blue.dope.state@denverpost.com   
      
   On 03 Jan 2024, Rod Steele  posted some   
   news:un3nj4$37aea$2@dont-email.me:   
      
   > She's the best choice for Colorado.   
      
   Lauren Boebert’s current congressional district shares a border with the   
   one she wants to represent next year. But she’d have to drive nearly 300   
   miles from her home to reach it.   
      
   That distance underscores the surprised reactions prompted by her decision   
   last week to abandon the 3rd Congressional District, where she narrowly   
   avoided a reelection defeat in 2022. The controversial right-wing Western   
   Slope firebrand’s announcement of a switch for the November election to   
   the 4th Congressional District, on the state’s Eastern Plains — seeking to   
   represent an even more politically conservative district than the one she   
   sits in today — is not getting the kind of welcome she might have hoped   
   for.   
      
   “It looks like she’s so in love with the D.C. swamp that she will do   
   whatever it takes to stay there,” her old friend Greg Brophy, a farmer and   
   former Republican state lawmaker from Wray in northeastern Colorado, told   
   The Denver Post. “Sometimes your friends do things that disappoint you.”   
      
   In just minutes, the second-term congresswoman’s Dec. 27 announcement   
   upended the dynamics in two of the state’s eight congressional races. It   
   also prompted speculation about her own fate, given the 4th District’s   
   deeper red hue: Can Boebert increase her chances of returning to Congress   
   in 2025 by throwing her hat into that already crowded race?   
      
   U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, a fellow Republican who’s held the seat for five   
   terms, has announced he won’t run for reelection this year. Candidacy   
   rules don’t require hopefuls for congressional seats to live in the   
   district they want to represent, though they must reside in the same   
   state. Boebert has said she plans to move to the 4th District this year.   
      
   So far, views on Boebert’s chances — and her bombshell decision — are   
   mixed, even among Republicans.   
      
   Colorado GOP chair Dave Williams last week chastised her for “jeopardizing   
   our ability to retain Congressional District 3 as well as our slim   
   majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.” RINO Watch Colorado, an   
   organization that targets GOP candidates that it says have betrayed their   
   conservative bona fides, followed up with a scathing denunciation of   
   Boebert’s move, characterizing it as a surrender to “the enemy” and an   
   egregious example of carpetbagging.   
      
   “Her self-serving bid to hold on to power guarantees CD3 will now go to a   
   Democrat or a uni-party Republican In Name Only,” the group posted on its   
   website.   
      
   The 3rd District includes most of western Colorado and many southern   
   counties. The 4th District covers the state’s rural eastern third, along   
   with a chunk of Douglas County, a Republican stronghold for decades in   
   south metro Denver. The two districts are Colorado’s most expansive.   
      
   They border each other in southeastern Colorado along the Pueblo, Crowley   
   and Las Animas county lines — far away from Boebert’s longtime home in   
   Garfield County. Her statement last week noted that she “spent years   
   living on the Front Range” and played up the two districts’ common rural   
   interests.   
      
   For her part, Boebert argued her switch would make it more likely that   
   Republicans, who now have a seven-seat edge, could “protect our House   
   majority” by holding onto both Colorado’s 3rd and 4th districts. She said   
   in her statement that the 4th District “is hungry for an unapologetic   
   defender of freedom with a proven track record of standing strong for   
   conservative principles.”   
      
   Sandra Hagen Solin, a Loveland-based Republican political and policy   
   strategist, called Boebert’s decision “both savvy and desperate.”   
      
   “Her desire to maintain some semblance of power and enjoyment of a   
   prominent media profile motivated her to seek an alternative path in the   
   face of a very likely defeat in CD3,” Solin said. “CD4, with its   
   significant Republican advantage and Congressman Buck’s departure,   
   presented the perfect opportunity for her.”   
      
   An analysis produced for Colorado’s redistricting commission of the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)