It was on this date one year ago thatl “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled the current U.S. House Representative from Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, Denver Riggleman, who followed in the footsteps of white nationalist loon Tom Garrett, who retiried after one embarrassing term. While Riggleman, a local distillery owner, was chosen to be the nominee for what the Virginia GOP felt was their best chance to keep this seat from flipping blue in 2018, perhaps they should have done their due diligence while researching the candidate… Denver Riggleman was revealed to have penned several online stories that are, for a lack of a better term… sasquatch erotica.
Riggleman’s opponent, Leslie Cockburn, was simply doing some research into her opponent, who likes to campaign with fellow CSGOPOTD and Neo-Confederate loon Corey Stewart, and has campaigned with Isaac Smith, the co-founder of the group that put on the “Unite the Right” hate rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer. Cockburn was doing some online research to see if she could find comments that would show Riggleman was as dedicated to white nationalism as Stewart, when she unearthed the treasure trove of Bigfoot porn, including drawings Riggleman had on his social media account of a Bigfoot standing with prolific genitalia. (In our opinion, the white nationalism is still the worse offense, but would be more typical.)
At first, Riggleman was insisting that the posts have nothing to do with erotica but were rather “a joke his military friends layed on him”. Riggleman did set his old social media accounts to private, so it was no longer possible to fully investigate the context in which the posts arose… HOWEVER… he did have a Facebook author page that listed a planned book to be titled The Mating Habits of Bigfoot and Why Women Want Him, which sounds a bit less like his interest was Jack Links Jerky or Harry and the Hendersons, you know?
Anyway, by and large, Riggleman’s entire election strategy after being selected for the nomination by the Virginia GOP has mostly been to keep his mouth shut, hope no one realizes how closely he can be linked to Charlottesville, to pretend he never wrote anything about the missing link’s wang, and hope that Virginia’s 5th Congressional District is simply gerrymandered to be a sure-win for anyone with an “R” next to his name to win office. The less he said to the press, the better for his chances. Unfortunately for him, he did have to debate Cockburn before the election, and the event was scheduled right around the time of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. When a question was asked what could be done to deter the high number of sexual assaults on college campuses, and he came up with a solution to prevent it… he put the onus on the women to educate themselves better on how to not be raped.
“I think a lot of it comes to educating females, right, specifically in the fraternities and sororities that they’re a part of.”
Regrettably, Virginia’s 5th Congressional District has a +6 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and that partisan lean was enough for Denver Riggleman to win office with 53% of the vote in 2018 over Leslie Cockburn. He thus has gone to Washington, D.C., and established the sort of voting record you might expect:
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Riggleman voted against HR 648, because he was gleeully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
- February 28th, 2019: Riggleman votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
- March 14th, 2019: Rep. Riggleman votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
- April 4th, 2019: Denver Riggleman is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
- May 17th, 2019: Riggleman votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
- June 4th, 2019: Rep. Riggleman votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
- July 16th, 2019: Denver Riggleman votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
Now, here’s wher things might get interesting in 2020… Denver Riggleman’s fascination with human-on-sasquatch action wasn’t anything to concern the GOP in 2018… but in July of this year, he did something they couldn’t allow… he officiated a same sex wedding that took place for two of his former campaign staffers. And that act of acceptance of LGBTQ rights is enough that he’s got Republican groups back in Virginia demanding he be censured, and we’re almost certain he’ll face a primary challenge from someone less tolerant in 2020… and just like that… here comes Bob Good, an Associate Athletic Director from what school? Why, of course it’s Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.
Virginia’s 5th District could get interesting over the next year.
One Year Ago, November 3rd, 2018: Denver Riggleman (VA)… Original Profile
Two Years Ago, November 3rd, 2017: Chris Christie (NJ)… 2017 Update
Three Years Ago, November 3rd, 2016: Chris Christie (NJ)… 2016 Update
Four Years Ago, November 3rd, 2015: Chris Christie (NJ)… 2016 Update
Five Years Ago, November 3rd, 2014: Chris Christie (NJ)… Original Profile