Littwin: It’s finally official. Colorado’s 4th CD voters have canned the carpetbagging canoodler.

Now that Lauren Boebert, the carpetbagging canoodler, has officially lost her seat in Congress to retired Rear Admiral Eileen Laubacher, I have a confession to make.

I’m going to miss her.

As we’ve waited these last few weeks for the Associated Press to confirm what we already knew — that Boebert has finally embarrassed her way out of government — I’ve realized just how much.

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She was my go-to. She was always there when I needed her — and when I didn’t — to help me figure out my next column. It’s bad enough that Jared Polis is term-limited, that Tina Peters is mostly off the radar and that Pete Hegseth — as Ted Cruz has predicted, and the valiant Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Sentinel has foretold — will have to either quit or be fired before he’s inevitably impeached. He might have been impeached last Tuesday, of course, if 11 Democrats — including Colorado’s Brittany Pettersen — had managed to show up in time to vote.

Thankfully, I still have Trump for the next two years. And Stephen Miller at the helm. Jim Jordan as House minority leader. You can bet that as bad as Trump’s second term has been, the second half of his second term, even with a Democratic Congress, will be exponentially worse.

But this is how hard Boebert is making it on me as she exits Congress. So far — I’m still waiting — she hasn’t called the election rigged, although she has blamed the defeat on nearly everyone and everything but herself. She hasn’t said anything about a recount, even though her lawyer, Scott Gessler, had promised one, noting “unusual voting patterns,” which can happen when you lose a district that Trump won by 18 points — and she won by 11 — in 2024. 

According to a Colorado Sun analysis, Boebert’s defeat made her “one of the worst performing (GOP) incumbents” in the Democratic landslide. That’s in the election itself.  How do you think she rated for her three terms in Congress? Definitely top five.

But this was the hardest blow for me: She has apparently promised that she won’t run in 2028 to try to win back her seat. I do hope they’ve got that wrong. As I write this on Friday, all the quotes are not in yet, so that may not be final.

I mean, what do I say now that I haven’t said before about the Glock-packing Boebert, other than that she officially lost the race on Friday the 13th, which I guess was not bad luck for the nearly 188,000 who voted against her. 

What will I do without being able to call Boebert, as I do in each post “Beetlejuice” column mentioning her, a carpetbagging canoodler?

(Note to my editor: I think the headline for this column, in respect to Boebert, should be: “Carpetbagging Canoodler Canned.” That’s how the New York Post would do it anyway.)

When I say I’ll miss Boebert, I don’t mean miss her exactly. I don’t mean her unseemly behavior, her crudeness, her belief that her role in Congress was to be performative and not actually to do her job.

I mean, as a professional, I’ll miss the absurdity of her presence in Congress, the soap opera that is her personal life, the ups and downs of her relationships, particularly the one with Donald Trump, who calls her “dumb” and “weak-minded” one day and then a “MAGA Warrior” the next. (Actually, after doing the math, I think Boebert can be all three at once.)

On 9News the other night, Kyle Clark semi-jokingly explained why Boebert’s departure from the political scene would be bad for Democrats since she presents a nationwide fundraising windfall for Dems every time she runs and every time she runs her mouth. 

What are the chances, he asked, that without Boebert in the race, Laubacher — who outraised Boebert 13 to 1 and won by a little more than 3,000 votes — can hold her seat in the reddest district in Colorado against a normal Republican (assuming they can find one)?

I wouldn’t count out Laubacher quite yet. She was a Republican before she ran as a Democrat against Boebert. Maybe she’s the normal Republican, who recognizes just how repulsive MAGA Republicans have become, that we’ve been waiting for.

OK, maybe it is a little bad for Colorado Democrats, although I’m pretty sure each and every one is thrilled about the Dem landslide and how they flipped three out of four U.S. House seats, giving Colorado now a 7-1 Democratic delegation. It’s not exactly ironic, but it is funny, that Jeff Hurd, the last Republican standing in Colorado, represents the 3rd CD, which Boebert abandoned after barely scraping by in 2022.

But however bad it is for anyone else, it’s certainly worse for Colorado columnists (and Clark, by the way) who can only watch as Boebert slinks from view  — OK, whatever happens, she won’t slink —unloading several tons of baggage along the way.

I want the baggage back. I want the Beetlejuice jokes back. (The cleanest one from the Daily Show’s Desi Lydic: “Much like the security guard at ‘Beetlejuice, the Musical,’ voters are making Lauren Boebert leave her seat.” For the handy jokes, click here.)

So what will Boebert do next? I saw one blogger advise her on which Broadway shows she might want to take in now that she’s got the time. “Wicked,” for sure. I’d add “Fangirls.” “Hadestown.” I know, maybe if they bring back “Annie Get Your Gun.”

But she may not have the money. For those who think the three-term congresswoman is going to walk away with a fat pension and be able to provide, say, childcare for her grandson, think again. She can’t actually get the pension until she’s 62 — when I may no longer be writing — and it will amount to something like $800 a month in today’s money.

I guess she needs a job. I’ve suggested she could land a gig on Fox News, but that she’d probably have to dye her hair blonde, which might be a deal killer. But even Trump and Fox News have had a falling out.

Maybe she could be Trump’s next press secretary. There’s an opening, and Boebert certainly has the combativeness for the job, if not exactly the policy chops. I’d bet she’d last longer than a Katie Zacharia (which, you’ll remember, is half a Scaramucci, or five days).

But if she’s really stuck in her job search, where could an experienced carpetbagger like Boebert turn?

There’s always Wyoming.

Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.

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