It’s not that he doesn’t have better things to do. Bob Beauprez has a field full of bison roaming his range in Jackson County, high up in the spotty-cell service country.

I was glad, then, to catch up with him recently to get his take on current affairs, especially since Jan. 6, and whether his Humpty Dumpty GOP could be put itself back together again.

Bob convinced me, though it didn’t take much: Partisan politics has to reconnect to governing and not entertaining. Issues that mattered before our discourse turned into a circus have only gotten worse from neglect: national debt, the U.S. standing on the international stage, the need for an equitable and just economic system that doesn’t regulate small businesses out of a competitive marketplace.

I assume if you’re reading this column, you know who Bob is. He’s the former congressman, the former chair of the Boulder County GOP and two-time nominee for governor. If the Colorado GOP had a Mount Rushmore, Bob would hold the Teddy Roosevelt spot.

Given the times, Bob’s book, “A Return to Values: A Conservative Looks at His Party” is worth revisiting. He wrote it after the 2006 elections while GOP stumbles were helping put Barack Obama in the White House and Sarah Palin on the national stage. His book debuted a month after the election.

“I remain convinced that a significant majority of Americans align on the conservative side of the spectrum,” he wrote 13 years ago. “They are pro-American, for strong national defense, want less expensive and less intrusive government, believe in God and family, and want to be left alone.

“Why then does the Republican Party find itself in such disarray and out of favor with so much of the electorate?”

Bob also is a very good writer. I’m surprised he hasn’t penned a cowboy novel from his porch beside the windmill atop the hill where his house sits. (I’ve been there.)

“I can’t divorce myself from politics,” he told me recently.

He believes living in a democratic republic demands active, informed citizen participation. That’s why he’s not on the bandwagon of those souring on politics, especially conservative politics.

He believes living in a democratic republic demands engaged and accurately informed participation.

“Politics touches just about everything in our lives. If you’re concerned at all about the direction of your life and what impacts your life and how it can get better or worse, and you’re not going to pay attention to politics? Those dots don’t connect for me. “

The principles Republicans hold can and will endure.

Bob admits to being frustrated the last few years: the exploding federal debt hasn’t seemed to matter on either side, and President Trump kept entitlement reform was off the table. To Bob, those two things don’t add up, either.

“There’s going to be a day of reckoning. There has to be,” he said, his deep voice sounding like a doctor with bad news.. It’s likely to get very painful, and [our leaders] don’t even want to talk about it.”

The former bank owner explained, “You don’t have to be a conservative or a Republican. You just have to have gotten through sixth-grade math.”

Bob, though, made a Faustian bargain with his political values.

He liked many of Trump’s policies – tax cuts, judicial appointments, trade agreements, religious liberty, pro-life positions – but it was a chore to see past the tweeting and off-handed remarks to demean others, particularly when the president seemed to be punching down to anyone who got his way.

“A lot of people admired his willingness to fight. Many explained, ‘That’s why I voted for him. I want a fighter,'” Bob said. “OK, I get that. I tried to focus on the things he did that I agreed with, and let the other things pass.”

Since Election Day, though, “He certainly hasn’t been helpful to the conservative cause,” Bob said.

Outsiders, and not just me, are asking for Bob’s Rx for the GOP again. 

He penned an essay for a report put out by FixUS called “Why is Governing No Longer Good Politics: Reflections from a Thousand Years of Public Service.” The report’s aim is to steer the country back onto solid ground, as one nation under God, indivisible.

In his writeup, Bob offered an upbeat point I particularly liked:

“While partisan political differences have at times gravely strained the fabric of America, there have also been times when the nation came together in patriotic unison, such as following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001. Searching for a return to a more productive, united, civil public discourse again, perhaps we can take some comfort in Winston Churchill’s observation, “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.” It seems time for us to again do the right thing.”

Maybe this time Republicans will listen.

Addendum: Political gadfly Andrew Hudson like I do, likes the quote widely attributed to Churchill, but he points out it’s not a Churchill quote. Apparently My Brainy Quotes ain’t that brainy.