Ken Buck, Wannabe
Never the most popular kid in the class, is there anything Buck won’t do or say to get into the “in” group?
Ken Buck thinks of himself as an Alpha Male. He’s known to be a follower of Ayn Rand, like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul. He probably got into her at Princeton, where the privileged scions of moneyed Republicans like Ken clanned up and told themselves they were the nation’s natural leaders, to make themselves feel better about being snubbed by the smart kids who got to Princeton on their own steam. After Princeton, Buck headed west to get his JD from the University of Wyoming, where the grade curve was less steep and the students less liberal. But Colorado, not Wyoming, would be Buck’s new home.
Reach Exceeds Grasp
After a rather fraught stint as Weld County District Attorney, Buck’s hubris led him to attempt a long leap up the political ladder by opposing Michael Bennet in the 2010 Colorado Senate race. He lost, naturally. His actions as Weld County DA, which included dismissing a rape case where the attacker admitted that he knew having sex with his intoxicated accuser was rape. Buck thought the young woman was simply experiencing “Buyer’s Remorse.” Running for Congress against a somewhat tougher woman in 2018, those words are certain to come back to haunt him yet again.
Strategic Retreat
Buck sat out the 2012 election season because he was being treated for Leukemia. But in 2013 he announced that he was in remission and began preparing to run for Congress from Colorado’s deep-red 4th District. Having earned some notoriety as a Tea Party mascot during his Senate race, Buck proceeded to thoroughly defeat his opponent Vic Meyers in 2014. Buck had, apparently, found his level. In 2016 he trounced Democratic contender Bob Seay. With CD4 written off by the National and State Democratic organizations, Buck’s opponents didn’t really stand a chance. Neither raised as much as $40,000 or garnered as much as 40% of the vote.
The Wannabe in the House
Buck isn’t a great speaker and he doesn’t have the kind of mind or influence it takes to get landmark legislation passed. Buck’s path to the greatness he feels is his due had to be a more well-trodden and gentle one. He became the Class Clown of the House and made his name as a toady to the powerful. Here is Buck with some innovative ideas on how to reduce the National Debt. Click the link to learn how much Buck is respected by his colleagues!
The Wannabe in the Swamp
Oh, the 2016 presidential election was tough on a go-along-to-get-along guy like Ken. Colorado wasn’t a very Trumpy state at first, with the Republican caucus going all-in for Ted Cruz. Buck’s on record during the primary season as calling Trump a “Fraud.”
As the election approached and Trump began to look like the nominee, Buck began to waffle. On March 13, 2016 he wouldn’t say whether he’d vote for “The Fraud” or not. But by Inauguration Day 2017 Ken Buck had wrestled with his conscience, and he was all set to start carrying water for Trump. Swamp water.
It was barely a year after Trump took office until Buck was out with a ghost-written screed named after one of the new boss’s favorite campaign rallying cries. Now that’s taking sucking up to an esoteric level! It must have been something of an embarrassment to Buck that, by the time the book hit the stands, the new administration was fraught with scandals and unforced errors. People were beginning to remember how the Obama administration was perhaps the most scandal-free in American history. Oops. But Buck was undaunted.
As the bully-in-chief faced criticism because there was no legislative progress on his agenda: no ACA repeal; no border wall; no nothing; Buck came out with an op-ed stating that Congress was letting the new president down, and not the other way ‘round. Months later, with legislative progress in sight at last, came the acid test for Buck. The “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” of 2017.
See, Buck likes to think of himself as a real fiscal conservative. He likes low taxes, sure, but he hates, hates, HATES deficit spending. See the Coffee Can Video, also linked above. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act piles zillions onto the Debt, posing something of a moral quandary for Buck. He probably agonized for all of 10 seconds before adding his Yea to King Cheeto’s first major legislative achievement.
There’s a pattern here…
When Rosalind Wiseman’s groundbreaking book Queen Bees and Wannabes was published in 2002, we learned new insights about power, aspiration, and integrity from her observations about schoolyard social interactions. For some people, those ugly dynamics persist into adulthood and form the framework of their lives. Buck, the wannabe who makes himself useful as a courier, a spokesman, even a clown in order to get closer to the powerful, may be serving his own ends to his own satisfaction. But the thing to know is this: while he’s serving his own ends, he’s not serving ours.
Totally focused on the powerful in his environment, Buck can’t afford to consider the needs of the powerless. It doesn’t matter to him that he’s our representative. We’re just not on his radar. Our only use is to be manipulated into voting for him every two years, until he can make his escape into the more prestigious Senate or a comfortable statewide office like Attorney General, where he sits at the top of the heap.
A different kind of Queen Bee
This year, we have the chance to elect ourselves a different kind of representative. Dr. Karen McCormick aspires to be a public servant, not to sidle up to power. When she speaks, she uses words like “compassion” that never, ever cross Mr. Buck’s lips. She wants to make sure everyone gets the health care they need, whereas Buck wants to score points with his bosses by making sure nobody gets anything they don’t “deserve.” Karen worked her whole life, building a business and raising a family. Buck thinks he understands the private sector, but he never worked there a day in his life. Karen wants to go to Congress to give back to the people of Colorado. Buck is in Congress for himself, to take what he can get and bask in reflected glory. It’s 2018, and we have a choice. Who would choose a wannabe?
