Here's a background piece about U.S. Representative Bob Beauprez from the Rocky Mountain News. They write, "...Bob Beauprez, 58, believes that same knack, the same entrepreneurial, team-building, straight-ahead savvy that has brought success in his businesses, makes him the right man to be Colorado's next governor. Conservative backers see him as the near-perfect Republican: a businessman with a distaste for regulation and a pro-life Catholic with a political past as a congressman that has seen him hew hyper-closely to party-line votes and President Bush's agenda. On the campaign trail, Beauprez is almost always accompanied by his wife, Claudia, his sweetheart dating back to high school graduation, to whom he still brings flowers every week. It's Claudia, he jokes, who really pushes up the turnout on the stump...
"An analysis by the newspaper Congressional Quarterly found that Beauprez voted with the Republican majority 96 percent of the time in 2005. That's drawn heat from critics who say Beauprez is part of a Republican Party that hasn't exercised sufficient oversight of Bush administration policies that even some conservatives complain have resulted in out-of-control spending and a poor outlook in Iraq. He's also been in lockstep with conservatives on social issues, including what proved to be an unpopular push by Republicans in Congress to intervene in the case of Terry Schiavo, a Florida hospice patience whose feeding tube was removed under a judge's order. Nor has Beauprez, according to a recent Rocky Mountain News analysis of his voting history, recorded any maverick votes that challenge the Republican Party on major issues, while other conservatives in Colorado's delegation - Joel Hefley on budget spending and ethics reforms, Tom Tancredo on spending, immigration and trades issues - have at times gone against Bush...
"When Beauprez formally announced his gubernatorial run in January, he found himself already immersed in a months-long political scrum with primary foe Marc Holtzman. Holtzman had been attacking since the fall of '05 for what he deemed Beauprez's lackluster opposition to Referendum C, the tax measure designed to ramp up depleted state coffers and the kind of proposal that, as a tax-cutting Republican, Beauprez should forcefully oppose, Holtzman argued. The scrap with Holtzman, and the controversy over Referendum C, set up trouble for Beauprez. Combine that with rising national disenchantment with President Bush and a Republican Congress, and what once appeared to be a good gubernatorial bet for Beauprez became what he, in his own words, describes now as 'an uphill battle.' After a series of polls showing Beauprez trailing Ritter, some by double-digit margins, Beauprez's campaign went on the attack. Beauprez has spent as much time deriding Ritter's record as a district attorney, and the threat posed by a Democratic governor, as he has talking about his own vision. But Beauprez can set aside the political attacks and break out an easy laugh on the campaign trail. In one case, a reporter asked if he would sign a pair of 'Both Ways Bob' sandals - a derisive campaign prop created by Democratic activists. Beauprez laughed, broke out a pen and affixed his signature, making sure he signed the 'right' foot."
Meanwhile Bill Johnson blasts the congressman in today's Rocky, writing, "Illegal immigration is a real issue, too, but we have allowed politicians with zero power to truly solve it to turn the issue on its head, to equate those sneaking into the country in search of a decent wage and living conditions with suicide-bombing terrorists. Bob Beauprez and his people were so intent on tarring Bill Ritter as an illegal-lover they apparently fumbled the brush so badly it landed atop their own heads. Now the FBI is investigating how the Beauprez campaign came into possession of records on an illegal immigrant that it was not legally allowed to have. It seems as if jail time is one possibility for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who provided the campaign with the information. And rather than accept responsibility for the actions of his campaign and the alleged law-breaker, Bob Beauprez on Friday stood at a news conference and flatly blamed it all on his opponent. Bill Ritter, he said in all seriousness, is seeking to 'destroy the life and career of a good man who blew the whistle.' Please. Clearly, politics these days must mean never having to say you're sorry. It is this type of dissembling and fear-based nonsense that today masquerades as serious political discourse. Is this really the best Colorado has to offer?"
Mike Littwin also lays into Beuprez. He writes, "There are those who will accuse me of hypocrisy for hammering Beauprez. It's the press after all that loves to print leaked material and then insist on the right to protect sources. I would protect a source. And like reporters I know, I might even go to jail to protect a source, although it's not, I admit, my first choice. I prefer accommodations with 24-hour room service. I had to laugh, though, to hear Beauprez actually comparing himself to Judy Miller, who spent nearly three months in jail. Beauprez, by the way, has never mentioned the possibility of him actually doing any time. Beauprez did, however, say the source might have to face the music. He also heroically put responsibility for meeting with the source onto his 28-year-old campaign manager, John Marshall, who may not see the humor two to five years from now.[ed. our emphasis] I'm not sure how exactly you get to be heroic for disingenuously attacking plea bargains. Or for charging a 12-year DA with being soft on crime when everyone knows you become a prosecutor to put bad guys away. It's like accusing a firefighter of not wanting to put out fires. It's a feeble attack, but it's the best Beauprez has. And, at the news conference, he says this controversy is really about revealing Ritter's 'dirty little secret.'"
Category: Denver November 2006 Election
7:03:43 AM 
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