Ages ago, when we looked at the 2018 race for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, Diane Mitsch Bush, the Democrat from Steamboat Springs, was challenging Scott Tipton, the Republican incumbent from Cortez. Tipton’s campaign portrayed Mitsch Bush as a leftist monster. We found she was thoughtfully moderate. Tipton went on to win a fifth term, with nearly 52 percent of the vote to Mitsch Bush’s roughly 44 percent.
Now Mitsch Bush wants a rematch, announcing recently that she will seek her party’s 2020 nomination for the seat.
“We need a representative who works to fix our broken health care system, protects family agriculture, believes that women’s rights are human rights, and addresses climate change head-on,” she said in an email to supporters.
The response from the Tipton camp? Basically, “You want another piece of this? Bring it, commie.” Michael Fortney, a consultant for Tipton, told Colorado Politics, “Luckily, Diane ran so far to the left in 2018 that she has positioned herself well for a Democrat primary that will be a race to the far left.”
“Voters rejected Diane Mitsch Bush and her socialist agenda once, and they’ll do it again if the socialist Democrats are foolish enough to nominate her in 2020,” national GOP Congressional Committee spokesman Bob Salera told the news site.
“No, I’m not a socialist, for the record,” Mitsch Bush said. “I’m a Democrat.”
We are sorry it has come to this. It is also true that some of the rising stars in her party are socialists. We look forward to her explaining the difference.