October 24, 2022 11:20 AM UTC

Joe O'Dea Keeps Making a Joke of "Country Over Party"

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

If you compared the day-to-day news coverage of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe Odea’s campaign to the message in O’Dea’s ads, you’d be hard-pressed to know they’re describing the same person. On the one hand, O’Dea’s ads are heavy with his “Country over Party” and “Joe won’t vote the party line” message, while on the trail Joe has voluntarily aligned himself with a veritable who’s who of Republican Party icons–in addition to well-publicized trips back East to kiss the ring of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

This weekend, O’Dea appeared with National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chair Sen. Rick Scott and Republican National Committee chair Ronna “We Don’t Talk About Uncle” Romney McDaniel (photo above) at a public event in Thornton. Last weekend, O’Dea held a less-than-auspicious “meet and greet” with 2020’s Colorado GOP Senate loser Cory Gardner. The week before that, O’Dea announced a fundraiser starring none other than former President George W. Bush.

Are you feeling that “Country over Party” vibe yet?

There is of course one particularly famous Republican who has soured on O’Dea’s campaign after O’Dea announced on CNN that he would “campaign against” Donald Trump, and the loss of support O’Dea faces from Trump’s non-transferable voters who were “holding their nose” to begin with in anticipation of voting for O’Dea is generally considered to be a greater liability than any support O’Dea might gain from swingable “never Trump” conservative voters.

But O’Dea has a countermeasure for this development too, it seems:

With an endorsement from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is widely believed to be positioning himself to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024. DeSantis, who is doing his level best to make himself as polarizing a political figure as Trump himself, can now count Joe O’Dea as part of his crew.

But does any of this make O’Dea look less partisan? The answer of course is that it doesn’t, O’Dea has simply chosen a side within the Republican Party’s upcoming civil war over whether Trump should get another chance to be President. Swing Colorado voters aren’t going to distinguish enough between Trump and the only slightly less villainous Gov. DeSantis enough to consider O’Dea any kind of “post-partisan” third option. In every way that matters except for fealty to the person of Donald Trump, O’Dea is a partisan Republican who will dance with the ones who brought him.

A vote for O’Dea is a vote for Mitch McConnnell, Rick Scott, and now Ron DeSantis.

It’s the message O’Dea chose, and Democrats should be delighted to help spread it.