Nearly four years ago, Democrat Jamaal Bowman and Republican Lauren Boebert scored upset victories in their party's respective congressional primaries in New York and Colorado.
At the time, I wrote, "From where I sit both Bowman and Boebert represent two sides of the same coin. They personify the clowns on the left, jokers to the right mentality which has besieged American politics."
The intervening four years has done nothing to change my assessment of either Bowman or Boebert.
Tonight, both Bowman and Boebert faced their respective voters in their party's primary with very different results.
Democratic voters in New York's 16th Congressional District have ousted Bowman in favor of Westchester County Executive George Latimer.
Meanwhile, Boebert's gambit of switching congressional districts (from 3rd to 4th) following Ken Buck's sudden retirement has paid off as she handily won her new district GOP primary despite her boorish behavior and accusations of being a carpetbagger. Boebert switched districts after narrowly beating Adam Frisch by scarcely 500 votes in 2022 and a 2024 rematch would not have boded well for her.
Well, voters batted .500 tonight.
I am delighted that Bowman will soon be gone from the halls of Congress. He is a vicious anti-Semite who claimed Israel was lying when it said Hamas had raped women. His "apology" a few days ago was not act of contrition, but rather an act of desperation as it was becoming evident that he would going to lose his re-election bid. Bowman took a not so thinly veiled shot at Jews when he declared at a rally over the weekend it was "the many vs. the money". Of course, that was among the cleaner things Bowman uttered during an appearance filled with an excess of expletives.
Even if one set aside his prejudice towards Jews, Bowman's conduct in Congress was far from exemplary as was the case when he pulled a fire alarm on Capitol Hill. Republican members have done much worse or have looked a blind eye at worse, but that doesn't excuse Bowman's behavior. In any case, Democratic voters in New York's 16th decided they had enough of Bowman's antics.
I wish I could say the same of Republican voters in Colorado's 4th. But when you consider that Donald Trump is the Republican standard bearer then one can expect an absence of standards where it concerns public behavior. Of course, it did no harm that Trump endorsed Boebert back in March.
All of which means we can expect more of Boebert's pro-QAnon, January 6th boosterism and confrontations with Orthodox Jews while heckling President Biden as he speaks of his deceased son with a touch of groping and vaping.
We might have one fewer clown on the left, but we still have to put up with the joker on the right.
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