A recent Colorado Politics story noted former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens has endorsed an opponent of one of our national embarrassments, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s. Owens is backing Republican Jeff Hurd, who has gathered quite a bit of attention from what one might call the “rational” wing of the Republican Party.

I’ve made no secret of my admiration, while largely disagreeing on policy, for Owens. He kindly calls me “Colonel” when we have run into each other, and I call him “Sir.” Owens is one of the increasingly hard-to-find Republicans who is still fact-based. Back in 2015, he objected to a certain former president’s campaign after the “Access Hollywood” tape came out, stating the GOP had been “temporarily captured by a narcissist who will throw us aside after doing his best to destroy us.” Pretty spot on, eh? And in 2020, Owens called on that same fellow to accept the true and accurate results of the election and that Joe Biden had won.

Owens is reality-based, and it is not entirely clear that in 2023 that point of view is useful when it comes to GOP politics. And yet, if you think back over the past 50 years and try to name all the Republicans elected to the governor’s chair in that time, you may find yourself stumped. That’s because Owens is the only Republican governor during that time, serving two terms. Perhaps he knows something about how Colorado thinks?

But will Owens’ backing of a Boebert opponent mean much?

I am sure there are some GOP voters in CD-3 that will be swayed, due to the respect they have for Owens. But I’m guessing Boebert will still win her primary, and, frankly, I hope she does, as I think she will be far easier to defeat come Election Day than would a, well, rational candidate, as Jeff Hurd appears to be.

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I know in my own life I’ve been influenced by endorsements from time to time, but that usually is for things happening at a local or state level. I might not have done much research on, say, candidates for the water board, but if a Democrat that I know and respect has done the work to figure out which candidate to support, I’ll be swayed by that person’s opinion.

Heck, back when I was teaching the national government class at the Air Force Academy, I taught one of the three reasons we use party IDs, like Dem or GOPer, is to give voters a clue about the general point of view of candidates (although, admittedly, that utility has decreased in the last seven years or so, given a certain former president isn’t really – and has never really been – a Republican. Oh, and because I know you are wondering, the other two traditional uses of party ID are to structure and organize government (like the U.S. House, although that once-noble institution has been a laughing stock since the Republicans tried to govern), and the third traditional use of party ID has been recruitment and selection of candidates, which ties in nicely with my ongoing rambling about Owens endorsing a Republican who would likely be a much stronger candidate than a certain sitting member with odd theater habits.

One area endorsements from people like Bill Owens can help is with donations. Colorado’s third district is a massive beast, covering about half the state, from Wyoming up top to Utah in the west, and to New Mexico down below. I remember speaking with then-Rep. John Salazar during my own 2008 congressional campaign, and he took up flying and got his pilot’s license in large part due to the challenges of visiting such a huge district effectively. If the Owens endorsement brings in more bucks for Hurd, that will help him be on TV and radio and on the internet more and with a greater variety of advertisements.  The first task of any candidate in a primary is to get the voters to know that that challenger exists. Boebert did a remarkable job of that when she upset Scott Tipton in the GOP primary, and Hurd hopes to do the same in 2024.

I suspect the MAGA types that got Boebert elected in the first place have little interest in the opinions of Bill Owens. As he failed to fall in line with the big lie and then demanded a GOP candidate with actual moral fiber, anything Owens says will be dismissed by the Trumpers due to his “disloyalty” to Trump.

The question then is how many GOP voters in CD-3 are ready for something new and, well, less embarrassing, in a representative. I believe Hurd would be a much stronger candidate than Boebert, but only in the general election. In the primary, MAGA fever runs deep, and it is not clear if a rational Owens matters to those folks.

Getting past the MAGA crowd out on the other side of the Continental Divide during the primary will prove very difficult. There may come a time when rational Republicans again rule the roost, but that day is not today, or likely anytime soon.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.