Here’s a surprise, and a disappointment: Diggs Brown is dropping his bid for the House of Representatives in Colorado.

Colorado’s 4th congressional district was a spot where the GOP had more good candidates than slots on the ballot. Diggs Brown appealed to me as a veteran of the war on terror; as his campaign noted, “While serving in Afghanistan, the Taliban had a $10,000 bounty on Diggs Brown’s life.” How many other House candidates can say that?

There are still two good candidates in this race; state legislator Cory Gardner of Yuma, one of the rising stars of the GOP in state government, and Tom Lucero, a member of the Colorado Board of Regents, who led the charge on that looney-tunes professor Ward Churchill.

The winner of the GOP primary takes on Democrat Betsy Markey of Fort Collins, in a district McCain narrowly carried and that Bush won, 58 percent to 41 percent.