Lauren Boebert is her own best asset — and worst enemy — as she fights to stay in Congress

LOVELAND, Colo. — 

Lauren Boebert was preaching to the faithful, prowling the stage of a megachurch and delivering a sermon — filled with Scripture and references to Christ and Satan — taken straight from the Book of Grievance.

She spit fire.

At President Biden and denizens of the Beltway swamp. At those criminally prosecuting former President Trump. At politicians presuming to substitute their judgment for God’s. And, not least, at the “sellouts” within her own Republican Party.

“Every time that dirty four-letter word called ‘compromise’ comes up,” Boebert fumed, “it’s always Republicans stepping away from their principles, their platform, your priorities and siding with socialists, communists and Marxists.”

The darkened sanctuary of the Rez Church filled with claps, whoops and cries of “yes!”

With her swaggering persona, distinctly non-Washington wardrobe and gleeful trampling of protocols — heckling Biden during his State of the Union speech, toting a pistol in defiance of the capital’s tough gun laws — Boebert made herself into one of the most prominent faces of a feral breed of conservatives attacking Congress from within.

It didn’t play so well back home.

Despite her district’s solidly Republican leaning, Boebert very nearly lost her seat after a single term, to a Democrat who assailed her headline-hunting and “angertainment” approach to office. Facing a tough rematch, she abruptly decamped this year to a district clear on the other side of Colorado, where the Republican faces five opponents in a June 25 primary — many with deep roots in the region.

“This is where I grew up,” conservative activist Deborah Flora pointedly stated as Boebert scribbled notes alongside her at a breakfast forum in Castle Rock, a fast-growing exurb on the far edge of Denver’s sprawling metropolitan area. “This is where I raised my children.”

“I promise not to embarrass you,” another opponent, Logan County Commissioner Jerry Sonnenberg, chimed in. “I promise not to humiliate you.”

Sonnenberg wasn’t any more specific. He didn’t have to be.

In September, Boebert was tossed out of a Denver showing of the musical “Beetlejuice” after vaping, carrying on and getting handsy with her date. The scene was captured on camera and the PG-13 clip went viral, turning the 37-year-old lawmaker into a national punchline.

Worse, from a political standpoint, the off-color episode raised doubts about Boebert’s judgment and impetuous nature, and badly undermined her image as a family-minded conservative and devout Christian.

She has apologized repeatedly, though at times Boebert seems less than contrite.

Rallying a few hundred supporters at the Rez Church in Loveland, she assailed the $95-billion military aid package Biden just signed into law, calling the emergency relief for Ukraine and others a shameful product of Republican treachery and Democratic deceit.

“More political theater in Washington, D.C.,” she sniped. “If there’s any theater to criticize, I think it’s that one.”

The response was knowing laughter and a smattering of applause.

“Praise the Lord for his mercy,” Boebert added after a beat.

“And yours.”

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Boeber