Rossputin.com Rational Thinking About Our World

As my regular readers know, I took an active interest in the Republican primary in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District (the area around Colorado Springs) in 2006 despite not living there. (After all, there’s not much point in my trying to help Republicans in the People’s Republic of Boulder, where I live.)

Doug Lamborn, whom I think is best described as the 5th’s home-grown embarrassment will be challenged in next year’s primary by Jeff Crank (whom I supported last time) and possibly by retired Air Force General Bentley Rayburn (despite his pledge to drop out of the race if it seems likely he won’t win). Neither of these guys wants to be responsible for splitting the vote enough to let Lamborn win again, as happened in 2006.

As I was doing a little research on General Rayburn, whom I know very little about except that he made the rather stupid comment that he wanted to “open up hope within (Iraq) for the gospel of Jesus Christ”, I learned that General Rayburn had just moved to the 5th CD shortly before the last election. In other words, he’s a carpet-bagger.

At least the ultimate modern carpet-bagger, Hillary Clinton, had the sense to make a commitment to her new place of residence by buying a home. It appears that Rayburn has done no such thing.

Rayburn’s home address is publicly available, so I did a search on the El Paso County Assessor’s web site to see when he bought his home, and it appears that he is renting as the owner has an Indian name.

A Denver Post report last year noted that Rayburn lived in Teller County, but a search of Teller County records show only a piece of land owned by one Robert Rayburn, whom I believe is Bentley’s brother. Even if Bentley Rayburn had lived there, he did not own it.

And just for good measure, I checked the assessors’ records for the other counties which are covered by CO-5, namely Lake, Park, Chaffee, and Fremont, and found no record of Bentley Rayburn owning property in any of them.

So, General Rayburn, what exactly is your commitment to your district? What is your motivation here besides the laughable idea that we “need more Christian influence in Congress” (as a friend of Rayburn’s said in an email that appeared to violate military regulations for campaign involvement)? We need more support for the Constitution in Congress, not people who want to use positions of political power to evangelize the world. If your goal in life is to spread your religion, there are far better and more appropriate places than government.

My guess? Rayburn will not honor his pledge to drop out of the race if he’s unlikely to win (which he made because he sensibly claims not to want to be responsible for Lamborn winning again). He’ll lose to either Crank or Lamborn, and then he’ll leave Colorado…if he causes Lamborn to win again, he should have the courtesy to apologize, leave, and not return. The wiser decision by Rayburn, who doesn’t have any apparent commitment to the district, but just to his ego, would be not to run, especially if he truly believes that the 5th CD must be rid of the ridiculous Doug Lamborn.

For those of you who wish to try the property searches yourself to verify no record of Bentley Rayburn owning property anywhere in CD5, here are the links:

El Paso: http://land.elpasoco.com/
Teller: http://data.co.teller.co.us/AsrData/wc.dll?AsrDataProc~OwnerNameSearch
Fremont: http://www.qpublic.net/fremont/name.html
Park: http://www.parkco.org/search2.asp
Lake: http://64.234.218.210/cgi-bin/colorado_links.cgi?county=lake&search=owner
Chaffee: http://annex.chaffeecounty.org/assessorsearch/SearchByOwnerName.aspx