Colorado legislature’s Democrats’ bad faith during redistricting “negotiations” was, many of us thought, due to their primary interest being on furthering the political aspirations of State Senate President Brandon Shaffer.

Shaffer, who on Monday announced that he will run for Congress, seeking the 4th Congressional District seat currently held by Cory Gardner (R-Yuma), faces a few major hurdles to victory:

First, his own record as a big-spending, tax-hiking Democrat isn’t exactly the flavor of the month during these days when the public is coming to realize that government spending is the problem, not the solution. Republican organizations are already bringing out the long knives for Shaffer, such as with this statement from the NRCC: “Brandon Shaffer has led Colorado down a path to economic ruin by championing steep tax hikes, reckless spending, and punitive regulations on small businesses. After being heavily recruited by Nancy Pelosi’s top lieutenant, there is no question Brandon Shaffer will be a puppet for her big-spending and job-killing agenda.”

Second, the 4th CD has a substantial Republican leaning, with that seat having been in Republican hands for all but two years since 1973. Data for the end of June show about 43,000 registered Republicans versus about 41,000 registered Democrats, and an enormous 74,000 unaffiliated voters. In the Democratic tsunami of 2008, Republicans received only about 39% support among independent voters, leading to the mercifully brief congressional career of Betsy “Against Obamacare before she was for it” Markey. By 2010, that had jumped to 55%, leading to the equally dramatic (though not including the presidency) reversal of fortune in that year’s election and Markey’s 52%-41% thrashing at the hands of Cory Gardner. There is little reason to think that the tide will switch back again, even if the eventual Republican nominee for president has weak coattails.

Third, there is no reason to think that Gardner is particularly vulnerable or less than popular in the district.

Fourth, Shaffer has said that he will remain President of the State Senate while campaigning against Gardner, always a difficult sell with voters.

Fifth, Shaffer says that his motivation to run is, among other things, to create a “more congenial” tone in Washington, D.C. It’s hard to imagine that that’s really what voters what right now, given that politicians scratching each others’ backs at the expense of taxpayers is what has gotten us where we are now.

In the current situation, Shaffer’s hopes of winning election, short of unexpected bad news for Rep. Gardner, has about the same chances of success as Japanese kamikaze pilots during WWII. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so think of Shaffer thus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5slCTLrFHI

Shaffer’s political raison d’être is, I repeat, a very hard sell in today’s environment and in a Republican district. There’s nothing he can do about his record or about the current political environment, so the one thing he and his friends in state government can try to manipulate is the composition of the 4th CD.

In short, the only chance Shaffer has of winning election is if left-leaning Colorado courts split the 4th in a way which many residents, especially those on the Eastern Plains find highly objectionable, and which an objective observer would find irrational. Given what happened when redistricting went to the courts in 2000 (and which wasn’t settled until four years later), Shaffer’s hopes are not totally irrational, though one would have to hope that this most-political of state Supreme Court has seen the change in direction of political winds and would behave in a way that’s less transparently partisan. That may be a naive hope, of course, but nevertheless this path explains why Democrats were never honest during the redistricting faux-negotiations earlier this year and refused Republicans’ request to negotiate new congressional district maps in public.

It’s not all roses for Shaffer in redistricting because certain proposed redistricting maps would draw his Longmont home out of the district; Shaffer says he’ll still run for that seat even if he doesn’t live in the 4th. That would be a very difficult hurdle to cross, as you can imagine.

To be candid, a realize that just as an insect has a life cycle from egg to caterpillar to pupa to butterfly, so politicians have life cycles from state reps to state senators to members of Congress. At the same time, however, knowing that Shaffer’s only shred of a chance to win election would require splitting the Eastern Plains into two different congressional districts strikes me as beneath what even a politician – even a Democrat politician – should be willing to scheme to further his own career.

Indeed, his interesting in support just such a redistricting in order to give him a lift up to the next rung on his political ladder may be the best argument against Brandon Shaffer’s ever holding higher office. In the meantime, unless the courts draw a hyper-partisan map when they take up the redistricting process, Brandon Shaffer is little more than a political kamikaze about to incinerate himself on the solidity of the excellent job that Cory Gardner is doing for his constituents and for the nation.