GOPer Cory Gardner put his party before the country — and now his career is 'toast': Conservative

On Saturday, writing for The Bulwark, conservative columnist Jonathan Last excoriated Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) for advancing the Republican Party over the interests of the country — and outlining how it will cost him his job in November.

"There’s new polling out today which suggests that Gardner isn’t just toast: The toast is on fire, the fire has turned the toast to charred carbon, and the remains of the toast have been shot into the sun and reduced to their component atoms," wrote Last. According to the latest Morning Consult survey, Gardner is pulling only 39 percent of likely voters, and even doing worse than President Donald Trump — ironically, since, as Last noted, Gardner has staked his whole career on his loyalty to the president.

The fact that Gardner knows he's going to lose, but cannot distance himself from Trump, says as much about the "toxic" culture in the GOP as it does about Gardner himself, wrote Last.

"There are many Republicans who genuinely think Donald Trump is great. There are some Republicans who have been so repulsed by Trump that they’ve become Democrats. There are a handful of Republicans who hate Trump and have been willing to oppose him, but have remained nominally within the movement," wrote Last. "And then there is a legion of Republicans who find Trump dangerous and despicable, but support him anyway because he’s a Republican and they believe that all Republicans must be supported, always" — Republicans like Gardner.

"When a political party sees itself not as a vehicle for reaching certain ends, but as an end in itself, it ceases to be useful a useful tool for society. It becomes more like a toxin," concluded Last. "The reason the current version of the Republican party is so dangerous isn’t just because it was hijacked by a demagogic, aspiring authoritarian. It’s because the party was lead by people such as Cory Gardner."

You can read more here.