{"id":106592,"date":"2016-02-22T15:59:32","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T22:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/27-year-old-plans-to-challenge-u-s-rep-scott-tipton\/"},"modified":"2016-02-22T15:59:32","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T22:59:32","slug":"27-year-old-plans-to-challenge-u-s-rep-scott-tipton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/27-year-old-plans-to-challenge-u-s-rep-scott-tipton\/","title":{"rendered":"27-year-old plans to challenge U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Beinstein\"
Beinstein<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A 27-year-old recent law school graduate hopes he has what it takes to transition from a bedroom in his parents\u2019 Carbondale home to a seat in Congress.<\/p>\n

Alex Beinstein is targeting Republican Rep. Scott Tipton of Cortez, looking to force a primary contest in the sprawling 3rd Congressional District.<\/p>\n

Beinstein believes he is even further right of the conservative Tipton.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral months ago, I was speaking to my father, and I was saying, \u2018what do you think it would be like if Thomas Jefferson were alive today?\u2019 And he instinctively said, \u2018if he saw what was going on today, he would go right back in his coffin,\u2019\u201d Beinstein quipped. \u201cThey (the Founding Fathers) wanted a much, much more limited federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his less than three decades on this planet, Beinstein has built an impressive resume. He generated some national attention for his University of Chicago community radio show, \u201cTomorrow with Alex Beinstein.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his second week of classes as a first-year undergraduate student in October 2006, Beinstein held his first show. He went on to interview former United Nations ambassador John Bolton, National Security Advisor Susan Rice and Supreme Court historian Jeff Shesol, to name a few.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe show helped me better think on my feet, and it really helped inspire me to aggressively read the news,\u201d Beinstein said.<\/p>\n

After graduating from the University of Chicago, Beinstein attended law school at the University of Maine, where he graduated last summer before moving back to Colorado.<\/p>\n

His father is acting as Beinstein\u2019s \u201cquasi campaign manager,\u201d and helping to fund living and campaign expenses. So far, Beinstein hasn\u2019t raised enough money to qualify for campaign-finance disclosures.<\/p>\n

But that hasn\u2019t stopped him from lobbing attacks at Tipton. He criticized the representative for supporting the Every Student Succeeds Act last year, which replaced the No Child Left Behind Act.<\/p>\n

Beinstein also took issue with Tipton\u2019s vote in 2013 for the \u201cRyan-Murray\u201d federal budget, which was viewed as a spending compromise. Some House conservatives at the time opposed the deal.<\/p>\n

A Tipton spokesman, Michael Fortney, didn\u2019t appear too concerned with Beinstein\u2019s run, responding: \u201cIt\u2019s an open process. Anyone can throw their hat in the ring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beinstein said he expects to go the caucus route, in which he would need 30 percent of the Republican delegate vote at the district assembly on April 8 \u2013 a day before the state assembly in Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n

Beinstein could also collect signatures, in which he would need 1,000 valid signatures from within the district by April 4.<\/p>\n

The primary election is June 28.<\/p>\n

The young, politically inexperienced candidate has an uphill battle in trying to unseat Tipton, who has widespread recognition in the district, having first been elected in 2010.<\/p>\n

The task is complicated by the vast size of the district, which includes most of the Western Slope and southern portions of the Eastern Plains. It is one of the geographically largest congressional districts in the nation.<\/p>\n

In addition to his message on limited government, Beinstein plans to continue hitting talking points around fighting Islamic terrorism.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, as we\u2019re becoming increasingly more energy dependent, I don\u2019t think we have to be hostage to oil \u2026\u201d Beinstein said. \u201cI would love to get the juices flowing about Saudi Arabia and really have people re-evaluate our relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

In regard to his young age, Beinstein said: \u201cPeople are very open to it, in fact, that\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019m running. A lot of people think we need young people \u2026 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a hindrance, in fact, I think it could help quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carbondale man mounts primary campaign against Republican<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[266,13,265,2972,23],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-106592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-election","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-politics","tag-primary","tag-u-s-rep-scott-tipton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106592"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=106592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}