Republicans in Colorado make it all too easy.

The antics of Lauren Boebert, Dave Williams and such retrograde types practically write themselves as headline stories. These colorful characters provide no end of spectacle. Or of spectacularly bad judgment.

These folks are the best friend a reporter or commentator ever had. They offer unlimited fodder. Their mischief is journalistic catnip.

They are the headliners, but they have plenty of company in the top ranks of the local GOP. When gubernatorial nominee Heidi Ganahl played footsie with Jan. 6th deniers or apologists, of course the press ran with it.

When Ganahl decided it was somehow a wise move to engage in open warfare with TV anchor Kyle Clark, a battle no politician is going to win, naturally 9News made her the butt of their coverage night after night.

I am as guilty as the next guy with a keyboard or microphone. When Ron Hanks shot up a decrepit, old copier that he labeled a Dominion voting machine, far be it from me to let is pass. Ditto for Boebert’s juvenile night at the theater. Or Williams’s blatant self-dealing and disregard of norms.

The problem is that this is all sideshow. Republicans have made themselves an afterthought in Colorado politics. They control no real levers of power, save for a local government here and there.

Democrats own the governor’s chair and all other statewide executive offices to go along with their super-majorities in both legislative chambers. Both U.S. Senate seats are securely in Democratic hands along with five of eight congressional seats.

The highest-profile Republicans can be counted on for cringeworthy entertainment. Though in any real analysis, their pranks and capers, however despicable, are of rather limited consequence.

Beyond the sustained damage to the GOP brand, the real downside of this endless succession of inanities is that it consumes copious amounts of political oxygen. In so doing, these misadventures take focus and news coverage away from the travails and dissension among the ranks of Democrats who run the show.

Lest there be any doubt, there is plenty on the Democratic side of the aisle that merits greater scrutiny and public discussion.

First up, there is the story of the dissension and outright animosity within Democratic ranks. Republicans gain plenty of attention for the split between Trumpers and so-called moderates, a diminishing breed. On the Democratic side, the fissure is between ardent progressives and more moderate types, even as those latter ones have been pulled notably left.

The likes of Elisabeth Epps and Tim Hernandez, replete with Palestinian flags and no end of incendiary rhetoric, garner the headlines. They may be the flamethrowers but in pure ideological terms, they are not outliers. Depending on the day, a good quarter or third of the huge Democratic caucus in both houses qualify as super-progressives.

The Democratic Socialists of America, known simply as the DSA, represent the party’s far left pole. Look at the numbers. The roster of Democrats either affiliated with or largely sympathetic to the DSA is not that much smaller than the total count of Republicans in both chambers.

In the words of one keen observer who follows Capitol happenings from a business perspective, “I can deal with Epps and Hernandez because they defeat themselves. But when I see Jennifer Bacon coming, I watch out as she is just as wacky but can sometimes get bills passed.”

We will see what the next three months bring. But the degree of internal animus during the 2023 session was remarkably high.

Not just one, but two freshman Democratic legislators, Ruby Dickson and Said Sharbini, had enough after a single year and simply quit. Sharbini may have had multiple reasons for his resignation including financial pressures. In Dickson’s case, it seems her decision was far more straight-forward. She simply could not stomach it after a single session.

In her resignation statement, Dickson referenced “the sensationalist and vitriolic nature of the current political environment.” Sharbini cited the “vitriol” as well. Given that their party runs the joint, this was, first and foremost, a commentary about their own Democratic colleagues.

A second, equally compelling story involves the tension between the Democratic legislative caucuses and Gov. Polis. A certain degree of institutional stress between the first and second floor of the Capitol is par for the course.

But the triple combination of Polis’s operating manner, the overwhelming size of the Democratic majorities and the power of the ultra-progressive flank have dialed the heat up a number of degrees.

By an ideological measure, Polis is clearly to the left of previous Democratic governors with names of Hickenlooper, Ritter, Romer and Lamm. In light of that, when Polis feels compelled with increasing frequency to apply the brakes to legislative excesses, it is more than a little telling.

Were leading Republicans able to put a muzzle on it, perhaps the media and the voting public could pay more heed to housing policy where it is at least an open question whether Polis and much of his party are out of step with Colorado’s long, closely guarded tradition of local control.

Ditto for the continuance of scary crime statistics juxtaposed with the reflexive Democratic move to pare back criminal penalties. Closer inspection is certainly due to the Polis administration’s headlong, headstrong introduction of wolves to the dismay of many in western Colorado. A similar close-up is in order for the notable growth of the regulatory state over recent years.

On and on it goes. Feeling their oats, Democrats seem determined to scratch every itch ordered up by every constituency group.

How else to explain the volume of gender bills introduced this session? Does allowing felons to change their name to match their new gender identity really top the list of Colorado’s pressing issues?

Another bill allows students to earn a “seal of climate literacy.” That is lovely signal of virtue, but imagine the squawk were some conservative legislator to propose a test of “financial literacy.”

The Republican task here really should be not all that difficult: Just get out of the way.

If Republicans could repress themselves and keep a lid on it, even temporarily, attention could be paid to Democratic excesses and divides. Given which party actually dictates policy, it might be fitting and instructive to put them under the microscope for a change.

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. He writes regularly for ColoradoPolitics and the Gazette newspapers. Reach him at EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann