Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces independent run for president, ending Democratic primary challenge to Biden

@CNN.com, Oct. 9, updated 5:42 pm

[....] Boebert is not the only member of Congress Frisch identifies as a purveyor of what the Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips – a high-school friend of Frisch – calls “angertainment”: lucrative playing of the partisan angles in Congress, on social media and on network TV.

“When I looked at the data a couple of years ago,” Frisch says, “I saw that Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs are all kind of a part of that Republican chaos crowd, and I would put [Ilhan] Omar and [Rashida] Tlaib [leftwing Democrats from Minnesota and Michigan] on the other side.

“They all have safe seats. A billion dollars against them is not going to change the outcome. But I noticed that in 2020, Boebert only won by five points … and so we realised that of all these ‘brand name’ representatives, Lauren Boebert is probably the only person that has any chance and a good chance now of losing.

“I thought, ‘This could turn into a big deal.’ And obviously, it’s turned into a big deal.”

Frisch has attracted national attention. But the same pre-Beetlejuice poll that put him up 50-48 also said 40% of district voters felt they did not “know” him.

Therefore, while Boebert plays to the cameras in Washington – Frisch hits her for having a “mini television studio in her office, where there are supposed to be benches for constituents to sit before they actually have a chance to talk to the congresswoman” – her opponent continues to tour the battleground.

“The issues that we face here are a lot more in common with rural Florida, rural Pennsylvania, than with Denver and Boulder and Colorado Springs,” he says. “And I’m just very focused on how small-town America and rural America and working-class America, especially like in Pueblo, which is a very blue-collar working-class town in the district, how that whole group has kind of been left behind. And I know it’s pretty easy to call it a rural-urban divide, but it’s there. I feel it.

“I went in to this race eyes wide open. But the one true surprise was, regardless of political affiliation, regardless of political views, left, right or center, everyone in CD3 is frustrated with kind of the urban-centric conversation that is happening at the state level and a little bit at the national level … there is this resentment about how urban-centric the Democratic party has become.”

Colorado district three tilts conservative but Frisch sees a “very libertarian” conservatism which he, an aspirant “Blue Dog” or “Problem Solvers” moderate in Congress, can work with.

“It’s more of a ‘you be you’ party. They don’t want to really get involved with who you want to love, who you want to marry. They don’t want to get involved in who should be in a hospital room talking about reproductive rights, abortion. You know, ranchers and farmers are incredibly pragmatic. I’ve yet to meet a rancher or a farmer that’s un-pragmatic, because they won’t be in business for longer than eight days if they are.”

Boebert has been called many things but pragmatic is rarely one. Frisch attributes her previous wins to opportunism and a libertarianism increasingly not enough for voters turned off by her antics. He also hopes his second attempt to eject Boebert from Congress will capture national attention not just for the drama it might provide.

“I want to spend a lot more time trying to figure out how a lot more districts can have competitive races,” Frisch says, “because monopolies are bad in business and they’re bad in politics. I think 85% or 80% of the districts, they’re basically cooked in the primary. And to me, our primary system is ground zero for the dysfunctionality, the yelling and the screaming that’s going on around our country.” [....]