July 08, 2020 12:58 PM UTC

World, Meet Lauren Boebert--But Don't Eat The Sliders

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• by: Colorado Pols

Lauren Boebert, the novice political candidate out of Rifle who pole-vaulted to the national spotlight after dispatching 5-term incumbent GOP Rep. Scott Tipton in the Colorado CD-3 Republican primary, is now getting the kind of scrutiny that congressional major-party nominees should always get.

And as the Daily Beast’s lede makes painfully clear today, it’s not going well:

In 2017, a Colorado restaurant’s tainted pork sliders poisoned dozens of attendees at a local rodeo, who came down with symptoms ranging from nausea to bloody diarrhea. Now the restaurant’s proprietor is running for Congress on her small-business-owner credentials…

The county health office began investigating, and quickly discovered that the event had been catered by “an unlicensed temporary retail food establishment associated with Shooters Grill.” The meat served there “was smoked at Smokehouse 1776, a retail food establishment located in downtown Rifle, Colorado across the street from Shooters Grill and owned by the same person.”

The main culprit was found to be the pork sliders, and those who ate them reported symptoms including bloody diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, and chills. Health authorities determined that the tainted pork was caused by “improper food safety practices of the unlicensed food providers.”

We took passing note back in May during Boebert’s battle to prematurely reopen the “COVID Cafe” of the reports back in 2017 that Boebert’s restaurant had sickened dozens of customers at a local rodeo where they were providing unlicensed food service. The prevalent local rumor was that some 80 people were afflicted with “Boebert’s Revenge,” also known as Clostridium perfringens, which causes a generally brief but exceedingly unpleasant condition readers know by such colloquial names as the “backdoor trots” or “Hershey squirts.”

Boebert herself denies the number of infected patrons was anywhere near that many, but we tend to think if you’re a restauranteur explaining exactly how many customers actually tested positive for Clostridium or not, you’re losing.

It’s just the tip of the iceberg, we’re told, for an unprepared candidate dreadfully out of her depth–but now that she’s the nominee in a district full of Republican voters no one can ignore, she’s sharing the stage with the biggest names in Colorado Republican politics. As was the scene yesterday in Fruita when Sen. Cory Gardner came calling for an obligatory photo-op with Colorado’s newest GOP luminary:

Great to be in Mesa County today with @CoryGardner and @laurenboebert. Colorado Republicans are united and excited to win in November. #copolitics #ResultsMatter pic.twitter.com/lNesPRY078

— The Colorado GOP (@cologop) July 8, 2020

The time has come, for good or ill, for Republicans to pose like a team!

But everybody is responsible for their own meals.