As my regular reader (Hi, Jeff!) surely recalls, especially since he was a kindly donor, my campaign for the U.S House back in 2008 was unsuccessful, though many, many positive things came from that remarkable experience. Back then, I was a 50-year-old widower running in a heavily-GOP district as a moderate Democrat. I ended a defeated candidate, but one who had met his future wife when she got hired to my staff. So, in a very important way, I won the election.

When one runs for office, and is serious about it, you spend most of your time on the phone, doing what is called “dialing for dollars.” It is, well, hell, as you call person after person asking them to support your campaign. A 5% positive response rate would be wonderful, with normal — at least back then — response rates being more in the 2% to 3% range. Oh, and you learn what the popular voicemail messages are, and I swear, if I had to listen to too many more “mommy and daddy are not home” messages recorded by little kids, I was going to become ill.

So, what do you do with the money you raise? The answer to that question has evolved over time. In 2008, I didn’t spend anything on social media advertising, though a kindly family member did set up campaign websites on Facebook and Myspace (remember Myspace? Not so much? It’s still there, type in the URL and you’ll see).

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Your top expense is usually labor costs (I had a paid staff of five) but then the second biggest is usually TV. I spent tens of thousands of dollars on commercials (here’s one of my ads) and I was able to be on TV for roughly four days. That’s how expensive it is.

Oh, and I also spent a couple grand on yard signs. I don’t think a single voter has ever had their mind changed simply because they read a yard sign, but donors love to get a souvenir of their donation, so I bought a couple boxes of yard signs. And if anyone still wants a yard sign, I might have a couple left.

But TV was then, and I suspect still is now, the most important and by far the most expensive expenditure of a campaign. And in the race for the U.S. House in CD4, there is a new and powerful advertisement set to run on TV and social media. The ad, from Democrat Trisha Calvarese, is powerful, as it talks about the passing of her military husband at only 39 from a rare cancer associated with the toxic fumes from burn pits in Iraq, around which Sgt First Class Heath Robinson often found himself. His military service ended up killing him, not on the battlefield but in a hospital bed from being accidentally poisoned by toxic smoke from fires lit by his own side. There was no malice, and the smoke dangers were not fully known, but that really doesn’t matter if you are sick from that exposure.

In the ad, the widow, Danielle Robinson, talks about losing her husband and then about the outrageous behavior of our nationally embarrassing carpetbagger, U.S. Rep. Lauren Bobert, for her heckling of President Joe Biden during the State of the Union, specifically when addressing at bill named after the late First Sgt, a bill that would care for victims of toxic burn pit smoke. Oh, and Rep. Boebert, along with a small handful of ultra-right, government-hating MAGA GOPers, voted against the bill that funded the medical care for those hurt by the smoke.

Now, perhaps it is just in Boebert’s character, or lack thereof, to heckle a president, a rude and unprofessional behavior. After all, we’ve seen her behave even more boorishly in a Denver theater. But she voted against the bill. That bill, which ultimately passed both houses on a hugely bipartisan margin, has, so far, helped more than a million veterans file successful claims for support. A bill that helped more than a million vets should be praised, but Rep. Boebert can’t get past her childish and uninformed view of the world.

It’s a true pity today’s CD-4 is quite similar in political make up to CD-5, where I ran back in 2008. The district is overwhelmingly Republican, and frankly, if Boebert does almost nothing campaign-wise (as U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn did to me), she won’t make any big mistakes that could cost her the election. I won’t say “re-election,” as she ran away from CD-3 due to a strong challenger, and somehow managed to overwhelm the GOPers who were actually from CD-4 to get the nomination. But she is the CD-4 nominee from the GOP, which tells us a great deal about her and the current Colorado Republican {arty.

If the district was competitive, like, say, CD-8, a powerful advertisement like the one Calvarese is running might swing a few votes, perhaps even enough to decide a close election. But in CD-4, if she keeps her embarrassing comments to a minimum, Boebert will very likely win, carpetbag in hand, a term representing eastern Colorado.

And that’s a pity.

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.