August 07, 2014 08:25 AM UTC

Throwback Thursday: Mike Coffman and the Teabaggers

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• by: Colorado Pols

As we head into August of this 2014 election season, Rep. Mike Coffman remains one of the most vulnerable members of Congress in the entire nation, in a district considered a model for balanced representation–so much so that the CD-6 race has become a "petri dish" for understanding how politics in America today works.

But it wasn't always such a close business for Rep. Coffman, who was originally elected to Congress in a very different CD-6. Prior to redistricting in 2011, CD-6 was an ultra-safe conservative seat and the stomping ground of Rep. Tom Tancredo. This was the district that gave Tancredo latitude to become a national embarrassment to Republicans on the issue of immigration, happily re-electing him year after year now matter what kind of headlines he made. When Coffman ran for the seat in 2008, he went to great lengths in the primary to tell voters how he would use this "very Republican seat" to take "strong positions."

With that history explained, today's "Throwback Thursday" photo of Coffman, at a Tea Party rally on the west steps of the Colorado Capitol from that pre-redistricting glückliche Zeit, will make a lot more sense! Without that background, it's kind of difficult to square this picture with the Mike Coffman voters in today's CD-6 are supposed to be getting to know today:

It seems to us this could be…the word is not misused, we guess, because it's exactly what it looks like.

Suffice to say that it's one of many photos from this bygone era that could come back to haunt him. Shortly.