There were other fringe candidate. The two Liberals were boring regular people.
He would have lost with instant runoff voting. Or (likely) approval voting. Or any other voting system other than plurality voting, which performs terribly in ballots where the number of candidates is greater than 2.
38.6% in a three-way race also isn’t nearly as strong as 43.6% in a six-way race.
We know. There are efforts to change things in the future.
Yes. That was literally my exact point.
Rather than an elephant, the Party of MAGA clearly needs to be represented by a phoenix wearing a red baseball cap.
Hey, I talked to Boat Rat Matt once. He’s not a fringe candidate. He’s whatever exists out beyond the fringe.
The main claim I’ve seen is that she won primarily due to name recognition. Voters have heard of her.
I think that’s the context where people say a single consensus candidate could have won, as a consensus would also imply name recognition.
So, sure, there’d be some people who voted for other candidates who would switch to her. But she could have lost voters who just chose her because they’d heard of her.
I was thinking rat, like that expression about a shithouse rat.
It’s easy to dream up a high-profile, well-funded “consensus candidate” who could have taken on Boebert. But that’s getting close to saying “Boebert would have lost if only she faced an opponent who got more votes than her.”
The fact is there was no such candidate in the offing, and there’s no reason to think Boebert would have lost if only it was a smaller field.
And it’s hard to imagine a candidate with more, or even anywhere near as much, name recognition as Boebert. I mean, most of us here are clear across the country, and we all recognize her name.
The fact that she got more than 40% of the vote tells me you’re likely correct. I should have guessed this would have happened when several of the candidates raised their hands when asked how many of them had been arrested and the crowd thought it was amusing. The law & order party indeed.
In all sincerity, I don’t have a problem with her being elected because it sure sounds like she can represent her constituents.
I don’t have a problem in the sense that this is how the democratic process works. I have a problem with the idea that any body of constituents in the United States would choose her.
Forty-plus years ago my then college-aged brother said
What America needs is better Americans.
He was right then and it hasn’t happened. In fact it’s gotten a lot worse.
Amen to @LSLGuy 's brother.
We should pick our elected officials with the same care we’d use in choosing a beloved family member’s neurosurgeon, putting a premium on intelligence, experience, education, honesty, integrity, wisdom, prudence, judiciousness, maturity, and temperament.
We should look for somebody better than us, not somebody “non-threatening” and who seems or talks “just like us.”
We should work hard to tamp down our own intellectual insecurities and realize what it takes to do these jobs. We should stop making it so easy for politicians to demagogue and manipulate us.
They’re not auditioning to be guests on some Jerry Springer-esque TV show. This is the really real world, and This. Shit. Actually. Matters.
We can (maybe), and we should (definitely), do better.
Yeah, what I was sort of getting at is that it’s the people she represents that I have a problem with.
Oh well, it takes all kinds I guess. 
I’m assuming this comment is based on the last place finisher’s name? 
In context, I agree with your post.
But out of context, I disagree. Some of them — not just Boebert — did seem to be auditioning for reality TV:
Very true, but a large segment of the population (more on the right than the left IMHO though) HATES thinking anyone is better than they are: it’s a part of the problem.
Also agree, but, again, a large segment of the population (and again, IMHO, a much larger percentage on the right) seem to think government seems to only protect those “other” people, and not them, ignoring a huge amount of built-in entitlement. And the genius (if that’s what it is) of Trump and his ilk is to prey upon that.
And this is where we get to causes, because news, especially Fox news, has been running little but Springer-esque moments for years. Outrage sells, be it clicks or commercials, and boring, responsible news doesn’t. Many people (and I keep reminding myself and others how much the population of the SDMB are major outliers) aren’t ever going to look past the soundbites and stands on their personal hot-button issues.
And that’s leaving out a part of the problem, not directly tied to the thread, but a real one. For decades, the trope about the politician who promises a lot but does little has been true. Long before MAGA, we were conditioned to never believe a politician, because due to reasons ( whether it be lack of consensus, difficulties in implementation, or out-and-out corruption ) they almost never delivered.
So it’s been decades at least, more realistically much longer, since we felt their was any true good faith efforts by our elected class. And each time the SCOTUS has stripped away protection from corruption, from big money influencing our elections, it’s gotten worse.
Where we are now is likely where we’ve been heading a long time, just that the reactionaries got really, really scared when, say Obama was elected and managed to push through some actual damn reforms. And so they decided that they’d better pull out the stops before the average American realized they were being boiled like a frog in the pot.
TO BE CLEAR - there is corruption in both parties, recent news providing proof of that of course. The degree, and acceptance of the corruption
Sorry, apparently SDMB saved a partial but not complete draft and posted it after apparently hour-glassing for over an hour 
“TO BE CLEAR - there is corruption in both parties, recent news providing proof of that of course. The degree, and the acceptance of the corruption”, as opposed to belief that such corruption is a perk of the job and otherwise should be embraced because winning is all that matters - is not remotely comparable. (IE RWNJ are happily embracing the evil smugly)