In July 1945, shortly after Germany surrendered and about a month before Japan did the same, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s Conservative Party suffered a stunning defeat in the UK general election, resulting in Churchill’s resignation. To his credit, Labour leader Clement Atlee, who would be assigned Churchill’s successor as PM, did little gloating, perhaps recognizing the accomplished stature of the man whose place he was poised to fill. This prompted U.S. President Truman to remark to Churchill a few months later that Atlee “struck me as a modest man.” “Indeed,” Churchill replied, “he has much to be modest about.”

Most U.S. senators do not rise to the level of Churchill (though many can easily surpass that of Atlee), but some do excel to the point of rising above the already august demands of the office, which makes the pain of their electoral defeats something more than just the normal sting of a political loss.

Cory Gardner is one of those. His defeat is one of those political anomalies that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in anything approaching empirical terms. He was caught up in a riptide of suburban detestation of Donald Trump, and an undiscriminating electorate which could not produce sufficient numbers of voters willing to make the requisite distinctions. Such are the vagaries of democracy.

But in by-catching Gardner in the net of anti-Trump furor, Coloradans cost themselves a statesman and senator of the first rate. A rundown of just his topline accomplishments is impressive:

? Gardner played an out-sized role in promoting and passing the US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) free-trade deal, modernizing the existing NAFTA accord. Something on the order of 250,000 jobs in Colorado depend on trade with either Canada or Mexico, and those two countries account for about $2.7 billion a year in state exports.

? He was also instrumental, along with Congressman Scott Tipton and Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese, in bringing the Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction – possibly the greatest single example of moving government closer to the governed that this nation has seen since it decided representation in Westminster wasn’t cutting it.

? The passage of his Great American Outdoors Act is an understated achievement. He may have raised some eyebrows among conservatives for what some of the more ideologically distracted ones felt was a diversion into apostacy, but it is worth remembering, as Gardner does, that conservatives (as the name implies) are not opposed to conserving, just to the fanaticization of it. Even Adam Smith, whose conservative credentials are rather well established, recognized the preservation of monuments as a proper function of government.

? And he recognized his duty to balance interests. While making sure the federal government was statutorily bound to look after its national parks, he wasn’t inclined to lock down every productive acre in the west. He was also a key figure, alongside the aforementioned congressional and county partners Tipton and Pugliese, in working to secure an LNG terminal on the west coast, the Jordan Cove facility, that would serve as an economic lifeline for western Colorado. His Chairmanship of the Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy (he had some great committee assignments) afforded him the opportunity to connect West Slope leaders and operators with prominent east Asian officials.

? Probably his most important signature accomplishment would be the permanent establishment of U.S. Space Command at Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs. It is difficult to overstate what that means economically for Colorado. Unhappily, that signal success could be undone now with Gardner’s departure.

Remember I mentioned he had some good committees? How does the Energy & Natural Resources Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, the Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee grab you? But it was in his role as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy that he had what I personally consider his shining moment.

That position allowed him to become intimately and painfully aware of the threat and depth of wretchedness of communist North Korea. You may recall that back in 2017 he was the leading voice pushing back on Trump’s foolish courting of Kim Jong Un, whom Gardner accurately, if charitably, labelled a “whack job”. Gardner’s uncompromising stance against the evil that is the North Korean regime prompted that regime to cry that Gardner had “perpetrated wicked blasphemy” against Kim Jung Un, adding, “For a psychopath like the [expletive] Gardner, to hurl evil accusations at our highest dignity, is a serious problem…That a man mixed in with human dirt like Gardner, who has lost basic judgment and body hair, could only spell misfortune for the United States.”

Few single endorsements, to my mind, could speak higher of a man’s character.

I do not know what kind of Senator John Hickenlooper will be. One gets the sense that it is a waiting room of sorts for him, while he holds out for a better position, a cabinet post or ambassadorship perhaps. Whatever you think of Gardner’s politics, you could not make that observation about him. Agree or disagree with him on individual issues, one was never in doubt as to his commitment to the job, the office, and the state he represented.

Cory Gardner is still a young man, and one hopes that he is not yet finished with public service. His continuation in the arena, in whatever form, would be as much a blessing to the public he would serve, as his temporary departure from it is its misfortune.