It happens every even-numbered year: Candidates go to Lincoln Day or Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners, feeling comfortable among the party faithful, and let loose with their partisan bile.

We have our first contestant for Froth of the Year in GOP lieutenant governor and reliably venomous Michael Roberson, who jokingly (I think) referred to Democrats as “lesser humans, frankly” (yuk yuk) during his speech Friday to the Eureka County Lincoln Day dinner.

He quickly added a Trumpian clarification, “They're good people, they just, they're misguided.” (And some, I assume, are good people.)

Roberson’s bravura performance, according to a recording made at the event by someone who provided it to The Nevada Independent, also included him declaring, “In the past we've been able to work with Democrats trying to find common ground. 2017 was different.”

Why, yes, it was: In 2017, Roberson, then a minority leader who spent the session throwing partisan bombs, did NOT work to find common ground with Democrats as he had two years earlier as majority leader to….pass the largest tax increase in history. Strange he did not mention that.

Roberson also asserted that 2017 “was the first time the Legislature became nationalized. And you had a national progressive, radical progressive Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren/Hillary Clinton campaign agenda.” He has tossed out all of this overcooked red meat before, again adding his signature, nonsensical line: “And they pushed through the most anti-business, pro-felon agenda in the history of this state.”

Well, it’s true: Not every session can have a GOP leader who pushes through a pro-business agenda with a $1.5 billion tax increase as the centerpiece.

“If not for 41 vetoes by the governor, the session would have been a disaster,” Roberson also asserted. Well: Sandoval did set a record for vetoes, but he also acknowledged at our inaugural IndyTalks event that many of those bills were simply Democrats sending over measures to mollify their base that they knew would be rejected.

There are many more Lincoln Day and Jefferson-Jackson Day events to come. But right now, Roberson is the leader in the partisan froth clubhouse.