What do Tina Peters, big, hypocritical Democratic money and Kansas have in common?

I’m not sure either. But that is the subject of this week’s column. In three parts. Let’s get started.

First up, amid Colorado’s summer heat, the idea of snowflakes is appealing. Those flakes from the sky will be here soon enough, inevitably in time for Halloween and sooner in the high country.

But even in scorching temperatures, we have been visited by snowflakes of a different kind, ironically in the person of some ultra-maga types more often known for decrying the softening of America and the preciousness of college students and others who resist all views at odds with their chosen reality.

Though they will chafe at the comparison, Peters and her merry band of fellow election deniers share many traits with that unshaven college kid with the long earring, a rainbow sticker on his laptop and mom and dad’s tuition check in his pocket.

That is the stereotype of the exquisitely sensitive, overly indulged young person who questions the First Amendment, expects his curriculum to be cleansed of objectionable material and demands the disinvitation of speakers who might challenge his narrow thinking.

Tina Peters, Ron Hanks and assorted other deniers, meet your young compatriots: scraggly Ethan, stoned Kaitlyn, woke Mia, self-righteous Ryan, radical Nicholas, whining Hailey, blinkered Brayden.

Indeed, my contention is that evidence-free election deniers are kindred spirits with those of a very different political outlook who cannot handle hard truths or rejection and find refuge in their sanctimonious “safe space.”

In Peters’ case, she just fleeced fellow travelers, a gullible lot, out of over $500,000 to fund a recount of a primary she lost overwhelmingly. At the end of that laborious retally, Peters still trailed her opponent, nominee Pam Anderson, by the exact same margin of 88,579 votes as at the start. Talk about an exercise in self-delusion.

The image of a safe space on a college campus is that of pillows and blankies along with milk and cookies.

Perhaps one of the lead deniers, My Pillow guy Mike Lindell, can so outfit lounges for Peters and her reality-defying ilk. Though will the authorities allow Peters to bring such cushy, wall-offthe-world comfort into her jail cell?

Shifting gears to topic two, my scorn and condemnation is quite limitless for those monied Democratic Party groups who somehow thought it wise to interfere in Republican primaries in Colorado and many other states.

Credit to Colorado Republicans, with an assist from a heavy number of unaffiliated voters, who refused to fall for the ploy. Republican primary voters elsewhere were not always so discerning.

For several years, but with emphatic, added urgency in the aftermath of the attempted insurrection of Jan. 6, Democrats have preached that Donald Trump constitutes a unique menace and that our very republic is in unprecedented peril.

In many quarters, including mine, that contention has resonance. No matter how amateurish the execution, we witnessed a coordinated attempt to overturn the results of a not-that-close presidential election and upend our hallmark peaceful transfer of power.

Yet, for many Democrats, that full-throated alarm was just so much blather when they saw an opportunity to pick up a senate or congressional seat here and there.

What an astoundingly hypocritical failure to distinguish between a bit of shortterm political advantage and the nation’s existential long-term interest.

Look to western Michigan for one such example. In a seat once held by Gerald Ford, GOP Rep. Peter Meijer exhibited the political courage that most Democrats professed to respect. He voted to certify Joe Biden’s victory, unlike two-thirds of his Republican colleagues, and then was one of only 10 Republican congresspeople to vote for Trump’s second impeachment.

What was Meijer’s reward for such political fortitude and valor? A boatload of Democratic money to fund a bevy of ads boosting Meijer’s Republican challenger, John Gibbs, running with Trump’s endorsement and insisting that the 2020 election has been stolen. Gibbs ended up winning a narrow primary race.

All this because a few supposedly “smart” Democratic operatives assessed that their candidate might be able to defeat Gibbs in November but would have little chance against the moderate, less-partisan Meijer.

That is an awfully big bet. In what still looks to be a Republican year, what if Gibbs prevails? Democrats, supposedly overwrought by the significance of Jan. 6, will have managed to replace a responsible, like-minded Republican with but one more Taylor Greene, Gaetz, Boebert-type nut.

If Democrats were more of a force in Wyoming and had even a remote chance there, we would have been treated to the same spectacle of them funding Liz Cheney’s Trump-backed challenger.

It is all shameful, abhorrent and devoid of the slightest bit of principle or sincerity.

Which brings us to Kansas and my final topic. It has been a couple of weeks since voters there gave an unmistakably cold shoulder to a ballot measure to remove abortion protections from the state constitution.

This was the first chance for voters of any state to weigh in after the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

The essence of Dobbs was to take this most divisive issue out of the judicial sphere and return it to the political realm in the form of elected legislators or, in this case, via direct democracy.

Above all, this was a warning shot to Republicans and pro-life activists that they need to play within some lines of political feasibility.

Even in deeply red Kansas, voters had little appetite for the possibility of near-total restrictions. Across the country, there is widespread support for a woman’s right to choose in the early months of pregnancy. That support falls notably in subsequent months and withers in the final months as the fetus gains viability and some presumptive rights attendant to that.

True believers on both sides should tread cautiously. But especially among the pro-life community, the clear message from Kansas is that all-or-nothing formulations will lead to political defeat, whether sooner or later. Their leaders in Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and elsewhere might wish to take note.