And from today’s “no-limits” political saga, a shot rang out across the Colorado Twitterverse when GOP state Sen. Tim “Dead Eye” Neville tweeted a picture of himself, gun in hand — safety off his sense of judgment — looking like an NRA poster boy for everything that scares the crap out of middle and left America.
Today’s controversy is part of the Republican drive to push Democratic incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet out the door on Election Day this fall. Neville is part of a large pack of Republicans running to be the one to take on Bennet after a June primary election.
In the picture, Neville is sporting a sporting grin, a jacket emblazoned with Rocky Mountain Gun Owners — a group so unnerving even the NRA disavows them — a Trump-like hat that says, “American Patriot,” and he’s holding what looks to be an AR-15 with what a good friend calls “some sexy tactical furniture.”
The picture appears to be taken at a firing range, or possibly the family Tin Foil Hat Hotel and Bunker in his Jeffco basement. He looks to have fired a couple dozen rounds into a copy of an editorial by the Colorado Springs Gazette he didn’t like. Mind you, the legal limit for newly purchased magazines in Colorado is 15 rounds, but who’s counting? Not TimmyBadger.
The Sunday editorial is a warning to Republicans to vote for just about any GOP U.S. Senate hopeful other than Neville, because of his politically dangerous stance on guns and association with Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.
Unlike Neville, who had a few shots wander way off to the right, and who knows how many out into the parking lot, the Gazette didn’t miss their target. Saying that Bennet is extremely vulnerable and that just about any of the more popular GOP candidates should be able to take him out, so to speak.
“Neville’s potential nomination poses Bennet’s best hope,” The Gazette wrote.
Ouch and ouch. The editorial pretty much says the paper was inspired and obligated to take aim at Neville because he’s a straw-poll favorite to make the ballot at a statewide confab this weekend. They clearly had no idea that Neville would lock, load and fire back.
Painful to Neville is a famously conservative newspaper saying he’s just too extreme for their tastes. Mind you, this is a town that has happily produced the likes of Douglas Bruce, Doug Lamborn and Colorado’s infamous bible-thumping, gay-hating, liberal-lashing YouTube preacher-cum-lawmaker Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt.
According to the op-ed deciders at the Gazette, Neville doesn’t fit the bill.
So aiming for the editorial but apparently hitting his own foot, Neville fired away with the camera snapping, thinking this was as good or better an idea than all of the gun giveaways he’s been doing as part of his election campaign.
I would say, no. The tweet plays like a political ad paid for the committees to elect Michael Bennet and erstwhile GOP establishment favorite, Jon Keyser.
A few months ago, we were all cautioning the country’s political hopefuls to “stay classy.” Now, we’re hoping that they stay sane, or something close to it.
Shooting at unflattering newspaper editorials while dressed like the Ducks of Hazzard and showing folks what a marginal shooter he is does not inspire confidence in his judgment nor his prowess. No need to write a letter to the editor, make him or her realize bad things can happen when you take on the TimmyBadger.
Think pathetically creepy yet comically menacing. The only disappointment was that he didn’t take the shot as a selfie, making me worry that someone else also thought this was a good idea.
Pretty easy to see for yourself, it was not.
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