There’s an old saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I won’t say whether Colorado’s Lauren “Bobo the Congress Clown” Boebert and Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) kept imitating each other when they got to the House but they seemed to echo each other a lot. It was like they were auditioning for Trump’s endorsement to be MAGA Queen of Capitol Hill. My how times have changed. Greene has been getting a LOT more attention AND on serious matters, criticizing Trump on multiple fronts and even earning some (albeit grudging) support from Democrats. She’s built her “brand” to a point where she feels she no longer needs Trump’s approval to be relevant. With her recent and pointed attack on Trump I can’t help but wonder if Boebert wants to do the same.
MTG and Trump have had a public falling out. Most people (including me) think that while MTG’s attacks on Trump involved more than one issue her clear intent to keep ripping him over the Epstein files their relationship is beyond repair. However her seat was still safe. Few people crave attention more than MTG but she resigned anyway effective a year before her term’s due to expire even though her seat was safe despite the falling out with Trump.
‘Gang Greene’ clearly thinks she can get the kind of attention she craves by repeatedly taking shots at Trump. So much so that by this time next week she won’t even be a Congress Critter anymore. I find it interesting in an appalling way that true to her nature MTG’s resignation from the the U.S. House of Representatives will be effective on January 5. That’s a couple of days AFTER she’ll have served five years in Congress, and her Congressional pension and all the other lifetime perks will be guaranteed.
MTG could have gone after Ossoff’s Senate seat which is thought to be the GOP’s best chance for a flip, or run for Governor as Brian Kemp won’t be able to run for re-election. Apparently she’s chosen to pass on both those quite viable options. I’m thinking the paperwork is ready to file for her to form a PAC to promote conservative cause and she’ll have a nice gig as it’s Director. In addition she’s probably got a pundit gig with Fox New worked out too. With all that and family money she’ll be fine. AND she’ll likely be a player in the rebuilding of the GOP once Trump is gone. With her still in the news and raising money to help other GOPers she’ll maintain her profile and enrich her bank account yet still have the option of running for office again. Raphael Warnock is probably already preparing for that possibility.
So, in the battle for battle with Bobo to be MAGA queen Greene won and is set up for bigger and better things than being in the House MTG won the fight with Bobo. As for Boebert, she got plenty of attention but pretty much for all the wrong reasons. Her first term (she and MTG entered Congress at the same time) was enough of a disaster than in 2022 she barely won re-election. Like her then sometimes pal/ally and sometimes competitor MTG Bobo wasn’t taken seriously by either Party and quickly marginalized so she too engaged in mostly performance jackassery. Hence a re-election by less than six hundred votes after the recount. Had some questionable changes at a key polling place not happened she probably would have lost by an equally slim margin in what should have been a comfortable GOP district.
Bobo’s second term featured a national airing of her trailer trash family personal life and more performance jackassery. It was enough Bobo decided to move to a hugely safe GOP district who’s Congress Critter was retiring. It was a gamble as she had credible GOP challengers in the primary but Trump still liked her enough that she prevailed. That meant that unlike MTG who wasn’t rich but well off due to family money she too would reach the five years to qualify for that awesome, cushy Congress Critter lifetime allowance. I’m glad I learned at an early age life isn’t fair because this sure as hell isn’t.
Despite being in as safe a GOP district as one can find in Colorado it seems to have dawned on Bobo that tending to constituent concerns, actually doing her job mattered. Not doing so would expose her to a primary challenge. So when a so-called ‘water project’ came up she went to work on getting it passed. (When I was growing up Kenny Gray from back home in southern Illinois was famous for bringing home such “bacon.”) As you can see in this article from Alternet Boebert put in actual work to get something a batch of her rural constituents needed done – a water project that would provide good drinking water.
Alas, Trump went and killed it when he issued his first veto of his second term. Specifically, Trump’s veto killed a bill to fund a pipeline project to bring clean drinking water to communities on the Eastern Plains between Colorado’s Pueblo and Lamar cities. Trump’s veto letter blathered about ‘expensive and unreliable policies’ and the need to end ‘the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the Nation.’
So Boebert spoke up. It wasn’t exactly pointed, harsh criticism but it’s enough that Trumpty who skin is thinner than tissue paper will feel like he got stabbed. Yes, merely questioning his judgement and worse, suggesting it might be related to her supporting release of the Epstein files is something he’d notice:
“… Trump decided to veto … a bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate unanimously. Why? Because nothing says ‘America First’ like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in Southeast Colorado, many of whom enthusiastically voted for him in all three elections,” Boebert said, according to Colorado news reporter Kyle Clark. “… I sincerely hope this veto has nothing to do with political retaliation for calling out corruption and demanding accountability. Americans deserve leadership that puts people over politics.”
“I thought the [Trump] campaign was about lowering costs and cutting red tape,” Boebert added.
Colorado Democrats including Sen. Hickenlooper found themselves in the curious position of supporting Bobo as she decided to be Representative Boebert and do something positive, accusing Trump of vetoing the project over petty grievance and vengeance. Hickenlooper virtually assured Trump would take notice of Boebert by accusing the president of “playing partisan games and punishing Colorado by making rural communities suffer without clean drinking water.” To make that point Clark also reported U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) saying “This is payback because Colorado won’t bend to his corruption. It’s weak, it’s dangerous, and it’s un-American.” Social media has taken notice too:
Social media on X blasted Boebert for not seeing the alleged betrayal coming, with one X user writing: “Another person who blindly supported the face-eating leopard is ranting now that the leopard’s eaten her face.”
“That feeling when you realize you were dating a bully,” posted another commenter on X.
Keep an eye on this because it IS actually about petty, vindictive retaliation by Trump over the Epstein vote which only a single GOP Representative prevented being a unanimous vote in both chambers of Congress. How many others, worried about their own re-elections and just as importantly keeping control of Congress (even the Senate is worried) will start looking out for themselves and decide to override the veto?
I’d be the last person to suggest Bobo the Congress Clown is capable of strategic thinking but like MTG she craves attention. It would be easy to think she might wind up triggering an embarrassing override of a Trump veto, albeit inadvertently. However she might also have looked at rival MTG’s sustained and increasing criticism of Trump and started thinking life (attention) without Trump’s support was possible. This could I think be her way of testing the waters for her own ‘break from Trump.”
Hell, as long as I’m tossing out weird thoughts (grab some Brain Bleach first) of the powers that be at Fox envisioning an actual new show, if only a once a week gig. Boebert and Greene hosting a ‘moving on from Trump’ show to continue promoting the MAGA crap in a post Trump political world! I know. EEEWWWW! But if it happens remember you saw it here first. Frankly, I don’t see MTG wanting, much less needing Bobo to partner up with her in her future plans. But a hefty contract from Fox might cause exactly that to come about.
For now, sit back and marvel that Bobo has chosen to in a half-assed way call out Trump. That she of all people would do so suggests to me at least there’s more brewing out there than Trump knows. Or Mike Johnson and John Thune for that matter. J.D. Vance (the current heir apparent for MAGA) too. Don’t touch that dial!
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I don’t know that it’s actually an imitation or more of a coincidence. Marj did something good for a change (stood up for survivors. This resulted in backlash from the Orange Oligarch (as just about anyone could have predicted) Marj’s feelings were hurt and she reacted. Boebert did something good for a change (sponsored a bill to spend a little money in Colorado to get clean water from the mountains to the eastern part of Colorado – the part on the prairie where agriculture is their the main (almost the only) source of income (if you have never tasted sweet corn from Colorado, you might want to try it.) Boebert claims the bill passed both houses unanimously. Knowing her, I don’t believe a word that comes our of her mouth, but there’s a good chance it passed veto-proof. The Orange Oligarch vetoed it. So they’re going to have to vote on it again. The Oligarch did this because he is pissed off at the entire state, because we won’t accept his fake pardon of Tina Peters (and I’m proud of my governor that he won’t.) Boebert may very well agree with the Oligarch’s expressed wish that every official on Colorado rot in hell – at least the Democrats – but his veto undermines her in front of her constituents. I think they are just reacting the same way to the same stimulus. When Marj stood up for the Epstein survivors, I doubt if anyone except maybe Boebert herself (even with help, it must have taken some time to write it) knew this bill was coming or that the Orange Oligarch would be trying to break Peters out of the prison sentence she so richly deserves.