{"id":90941,"date":"2020-01-03T18:10:44","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T18:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/tipton-challenger-incumbent-too-media-shy\/"},"modified":"2020-01-03T18:10:44","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T18:10:44","slug":"tipton-challenger-incumbent-too-media-shy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/tipton-challenger-incumbent-too-media-shy\/","title":{"rendered":"Tipton challenger: Incumbent too media shy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Lauren
Lauren Boebert, owner of Shooters Grill in Rifle, says she\u2019d be a stronger media presence objecting to the \u201cprogressive, socialist narrative\u201d of liberal members of the U.S. House Representatives than incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez. Boebert is trying to unseat Tipton. She is seen with her husband, Jayson.<\/span>Courtesy of Lauren Boebert for Congress<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Lauren Boebert, the pistol-packing owner of Shooters Grill in Rifle, is moving full-speed ahead with her primary challenge to unseat U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez \u2013 unperturbed by President Donald Trump\u2019s endorsement of the incumbent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t looked too much into Tipton\u2019s record of supporting Donald Trump, but I do know, for myself, I have been a President Trump fan from the day he announced. I loved Ted Cruz, until President Trump announced, and I said, \u2018Sorry buddy, you have to go,\u2019\u201d she said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

Tipton has been a loyal Trump supporter. The website FiveThirtyEight<\/a> lists Tipton\u2019s support of the Trump agenda on congressional votes at 94.2%. For Boebert, that\u2019s not good enough.<\/p>\n

Before Trump\u2019s endorsement of Tipton via Twitter on Dec. 20 for Colorado\u2019s 3rd Congressional District, Boebert said she doubted the president knew she was running or had even been informed of Tipton\u2019s voting record, which she finds dangerously to the left of the average Republican member of the House.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a huge supporter of President Trump, and honestly, I cannot wait for him to find out I\u2019m running and he gets to meet me because I\u2019m working really hard with him to make America great and to keep it that way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Boebert said her main rational for running is because of Tipton\u2019s low media profile, which she says allows left wing House members like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and three other first-term Democratic women in the House, collectively known as \u201cThe Squad,\u201d to monopolize the media megaphone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just saying there needs to be a response to her (Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s) narrative. And our representatives can no longer sit back utterly silent while this progressive, socialist narrative directs our country. And so we need someone who is equally loud to redirect the conversation in America. Absolutely, conservatives know this progressive, socialist narrative needs to be silenced,\u201d she said of Tipton\u2019s reticence or inability to find the media spotlight.<\/p>\n

Boebert\u2019s confrontation of Beto O\u2019Rourke during a September rally in Aurora over his promise to take away assault rifles from citizens, she said, is indicative of her proficiency in catching the media\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard he was going to have a rally in Aurora, which is three hours from here, and so I drove three hours to Aurora with my Glock on my hip, and I grabbed the microphone and I looked him in the eye, and I said, \u2018Hell no, you\u2019re not.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know with that, it was certainly intimidating. Who does this? Who challenges a presidential candidate, but I didn\u2019t really feel like this is an issue to be silent on, and I didn\u2019t see anyone else stepping up to silence him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boebert\u2019s ownership of Shooters Grill, where servers wear unconcealed firearms, helps her gain publicity for her campaign and also exemplifies how she\u2019d differ from the spotlight-shy Tipton.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy business has been a platform to advocate for freedom from the very beginning. And that\u2019s not how we intended the business structure to be, but that\u2019s what we stumbled upon, and I\u2019m OK with that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Boebert also criticized Tipton\u2019s voting record, specifically the Dec. 11 vote to support the Farm Workforce Modernization Act as an example of the congressman\u2019s more liberal politics than the average GOP House member.<\/p>\n

She characterized the vote as Tipton joining \u201cDemocrats to hand amnesty to 1 million illegal immigrants.\u201d The bill, however, does not provide a path to legal U.S. citizenship for farmworkers in the country illegally. It does provide a path for them to gain legal residency.<\/p>\n

Tipton was one of 34 Republicans who voted for the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. The bill passed the full House 260-165.<\/p>\n

Tipton\u2019s staff issued a statement about his support for the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, but efforts to reach Tipton for this story were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

\"Tipton\"
Tipton<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

About the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, Tipton\u2019s statement read: \u201cThe House took a step toward improving how farmers retain seasonal, law-abiding migrant workers who meet specific and stringent requirements when it passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. The agricultural community overwhelmingly relies on a predictable flow of low-skilled employees each year who work hard to put food on our tables.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWhat the bill does not do is grant citizenship to these seasonal workers, regardless of what some misleading reports are saying. This bill is NOT an amnesty bill. Instead, this legislation modernizes the process which migrant workers use to enter the U.S. legally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tipton said the main reason for his support of the act is because it addresses \u201ca critical problem\u201d of inconsistent labor supplies for farmers across the country, including the 3rd Congressional District.<\/p>\n

The main obstacle for Boebert, she said, is the problem cited by many a challenger to a congressional incumbent: money.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, we will be out-spent. We are going against an incumbent with millions of dollars, and so we will be out-spent. So, every dollar that we get into our campaign helps tremendously. It helps get us on the radio, and ads, and just all of these things. We are always looking for more funding.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Federal Election Commission, as of the latest reporting period in September 2019, Tipton\u2019s campaign has so far spent $174,673 and had $412,520 on hand. Boebert had not declared her candidacy as of September, and the campaign had not filed an FEC campaign-finance report.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boebert undaunted by Trump\u2019s endorsement of Cortez resident<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1137,266,28,29,265,23],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-90941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-donald-trump","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-politics","tag-u-s-rep-scott-tipton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90941","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=90941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90941"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=90941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}