January 02, 2024 12:51 PM UTC

Boebert Blames Babs For Her Own Self-Destruction

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• by: Colorado Pols

As Sudiksha Kochi at USA TODAY reports, Colorado’s pinballing portrait of perturbation Rep. Lauren Boebert, fresh from last week’s gobsmacking switcheroo from CD-3 to the on-paper friendlier confines of Colorado’s crimson-red CD-4, is trying to explain away her most likely career-ending move by blaming Hollywood celebrities who have donated to the campaign of Boebert’s erstwhile Democratic opponent for Boebert’s desperate decision to pull up stakes for the Eastern Plains:

Boebert last week announced she will not run for reelection in her current congressional seat in Colorado’s 3rd District and will instead run in the state’s 4th District, which Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., currently represents. Buck announced last year he will not seek reelection in 2024.

In an interview on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Bannon said Democrats have raised millions against Boebert heading into 2024. The Republican lawmaker accused Democrats of not having “policies that they are running on, they’re simply running against Lauren Boebert.”

“When you have Barbra Streisand coming in and donating to the Democrat. When you have Ryan Reynolds coming in and donating to the Democrat, it shows you that Hollywood is trying to buy their way into Congress,” Boebert said.

Back in October, readers will recall, Democratic opponent Adam Frisch’s fundraising reports made news for contributions from a modest number of celebrity donors, including actors Ryan Reynolds and Barbra Streisand. Although donations from celebrities naturally attract more notice than from ordinary people, neither of these actors came close to maxing out–and their combined couple of thousand dollars are just a drop in the bucket of Frisch’s multimillion-dollar war chest. Donors to Frisch’s campaign were not “buying” Boebert’s seat, they were taking advantage of the opportunity Boebert herself created by coming within 546 votes of defeat in 2022. Now that Boebert is damaged goods running in somebody else’s primary, the “Hollywood money” is more likely to flow to Boebert’s new opponent Deborah Flora whose husband Jonathan Flora is a movie producer of some repute.

But, you know, Boebert’s got to tell Steve Bannon something. Even Boebert’s most unshakeable fans acknowledge that this desperate switch to run in a district across the state from her own faces long odds; just, in theory, somewhat better odds than facing Adam Frisch again.