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July 30, 2007 06:43 PM UTC

But, But, But...We Issued Policy Papers!

  • 39 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols


Former gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez, he of the worst statewide campaign Colorado has seen in decades, was back in the Rocky Mountain News today talking about future plans and his failed 2006 bid. The story talks about Beauprez getting back into politics at some point, but from the sound of it, he still hasn’t faced the reality that his campaign just flat-out sucked:

“It was the weirdest campaign I’ve ever been involved in – never could quite get traction,” Beauprez said. “We issued policy statement after policy statement on what we would do when I became governor, on transportation, on education, on health care, on water, on the environment, on and on and on, and none of it ever seemed to matter.”

Why in the hell would issuing a bunch of policy papers make any difference whatsoever? Frankly, issuing policy papers was one of his problems – remember his ingenious plan to train elk to migrate around oil and gas drilling sites?

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39 thoughts on “But, But, But…We Issued Policy Papers!”

  1. Bob sells out the family homestead to build a bunch of sprawl, but somehow he’s rediscovering his roots by moving back after being a carpetbagger congressman? What a phony!

  3. he didn’t need any! he had a mile-long lead and blew it by picking a running mate who equated homosexuality with bestiality, by suggesting that an inordinate of african-american pregnancies end in abortion, and by illegally obtaining info about Ritter’s record as DA!

    worst-run campaign I’ve ever seen. and he acted like he didn’t care.

    1. The picking of Rowland wasn’t the beginning of the end.  The problems started way before that with his stand on Ref C and his voting record in relation to W.  John, you’ve kind of picked up the disaster 3/4 of the way thru…

      1. gaffes to remember them all, I suppose. The whole campaign was a train wreck, and just as amazingly horrible to watch.

        But yeah, Ref C- and how he tried to pawn off his opposition to it as disagreeing with the method of the fix, not as a disagreement over the problem. Like an elephant, blundering around…

          1. Beauprez was balancing on the fence, supporting state expenditures to appease the construction and business groups, and opposing Ref C to appease the COCFG crowd. He needed to be on that fence for the general.

            The balancing act came to an end around the time of the convention when he and Holtzman competed for who was most supportive of Initiative 88, Caldera’s ref c refund plan.

            Between initiative 88, Martinez’s appearance of bias, and BWB’s armtwisting troops, Beauprez emerged from the state convention mortally wounded.

            Over the next few months he worked to insure that he was 20 feet under rather than six.

            1. That 2006 was toxic for Republicans in general, and even worse for Republican members of congress.

              But the bit about Martinez being biased is such bull.  Martinez bent over backwards to accomodate Holtzman, and the result was a convention that ran for hours-and when Holtzman lost he cried “unfair”.  Holtzman is a baby, and that’s why he hasn’t been floated around for anything since his self-destructing run for governor.  With all due respect, I don’t see how Martinez did anything other than help foster the preception that the Republican party didn’t know how to put on a convention.

              And arm twisting?  How the hell do you figure that that happened?  Were you there?  Because I was, and oddly enough, I never saw any arm twisting.  But if you have some first hand experience, I would love to hear about it.

              The convention didn’t do BB in.  It was a lot of factors, but the convention wasn’t one of them

              1. I supported Beauprez. I didn’t think Martinez was overtly biased. I considered Beauprez’s convention day team very organized. I only get one vote.

                The convention typified the campaign. Everything Beauprez did had bad spin: his organization, the backlash of Holtzman supporters, Beauprez’s presentation. His ref c position was delicate and his support for initiative 88 pissed off a lot of Rs that I know. I think that Holtzman forced his hand. Beauprez barely kept Holtzman off the ballot.

                Soapbox alert
                This is the problem of the two party system within the republican party. Moderates can get along w/ the social conservatives and vice versa. It’s hard enough to please both segment running unopposed. If Holtzman wasn’t going to win he was going to play the spoiler. That came to a head at the convention.

                1. I’m not following you-BB’s team was organized but somehow suffered from bad spin?  I can kind of see backlash from Holtzman supporters, just like there was backlash towards Holtzman supporters.  I also don’t follow in regards to his presentation.

                  BB’s presentation (if we’re talking speeches) seemed safe, but was good.  Holtzman tried to play the Ronald Reagan card too much and the people that were around me (one of which was a Holtzy supporter, one other was a BB supporter and the other two overtly for one or the other) seemed annoyed by it.

                  Question for you…how strong do you think holtzy was?  Or was BB just weak?

                  1. was super weak.  His goofy appearance with the president of poland, the photo cropping, the campaign manager admitting he lied, calling Denver the “rougue city”,Nancy Reagan dissing him, etc.  Beauprez’s campaign was bad but Holtzy’s was REALLY BAD.

                  2. Beauprez’s team at the convention was very organized. Lower level recruits for each county tallying votes in their aisle, reporting to area coordination points, who reported to campaign central. If someone was found to be on the fence the word would go up the chain and a known and respected party celebrity would be dispatched to try to capture the vote. Again, very organized… and smart. I heard a lot of comments later that it was too organized/heavy-handed. Those comments may have come from Holtzman supporters.

                    I don’t think Holtzman had a prayer of winning the general. He  knew his only way to even play in the primary was to be right of Beauprez. It almost worked but served to force BB further out of the mainstream and left a lot of bad blood. I can’t blame him for running. Everyone has that right. I just think his candidacy hurt Beauprez all the way to the finish.

                    I too think the Reagan comparison is overused. Everyone claims to be a “Reagan republican” The same way that “big tent” is professed as they shout epithets across the great republican divide. 

                    1. Was my first contested state convention.  I was there in 2002 (as a non-delegate), but that was just a big “rah-rah” session, so I don’t have any other examples of a ground organization at the convention.  If Holtzy had a plan, I never saw it which could have made BB’s look all the more “strong arm” like.  I don’t think it was, but I was wearing a BB shirt.  The closest I saw to strong arming was Larry Liston was standing close by during Holtzman’s speech making comments, and a Holtzman supporter told him to shut up.

                      How long did you have to wait to cast your ballot?

                    2. I was a supporter also. Hard to recall but I believe it was around 2 hrs. Quite an inconvenience. Although there were cries of foulplay I think it was probably incompetence. Makes me wonder what would’ve happened if there were a primary. Could it have been a worse bloodbath in the general?

                    3.   And talking about bad blood, Mike Norton maintaining that petty lawsuit against the “Little Fella” for reimbursement of court costs up until the eve of the election probably wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to do! 
                        Didn’t do much for fence-mending at that stage in the game!

              2. Ahh, good to see Haners dust off the old Beauprez “bad year for republican’s” accountability dodge.

                I really liked it when John Marshall whined in the newspaper about the bad national mood set by an unpopular congress and president. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he had just helped run a campaign for a member of that unpopular congress who supported the unpopular president 98% of the time. Both Ways does the same thing here – references the “bad year” as though it was something that just happened and never acknowledging the role he had in effing up this country and creating the “bad year”

                  1. … it may help.

                    I never said or implied any of the above. I merely noted that you dusted off the bad year dodge and then talked about BWB and Marshall using it.

                    lighten up Francis

                    1. Why was ’06 a toxic year for Republicans?  Could it have been Iraq and those phantom WMDs, the hunt of OBL going on without success, Katrina, gas prices, Duke Cunningham, Tom Delay, Terry Schiavo, Mark Foley, or some combination of those factors?

                    2. Republicans may refuse to answer that question on the basis that the answer to that question may incriminate them.

                    4. How is it a dodge?  I’m sure you wouldn’t say that 2006 was a favorable year for Republicans, would you?

    2.   And let’s not forget that memorable campaign commercial where B.W.B. is standing next to that horse’s ass.  That was priceless!

  4. Well, if he thinks that Ritter hit him with a case of whup-ass, I think the thumpin’ that Perlmutter or Fitz-Gerald/Polis (if he could decide where he lives) would give him would make him long for the good old days of his Governor’s race…

    Maybe his best bet would be to pack up and move (he has proven that he is mobile) to Greeley and run against Musgrave or to Colorado Springs and take on Lamborn…

    1. I would be interested to know if he, or his folks, initiated the RMN story or if it was initiated by the RMN?  My bet is that the idea originated top down at the News after a contact or two by the Beauprez folks.

      He now lives in CD2 and no one sees a viable R candidate in the CD2 08 race.  This story puts everyone on notice he is interested.  Next will be polls to test his viability and Bob will start making the rounds of business, social and political organizations. 

      Don’t write him off just because he ran a bad race for Gov or because CD2 is seen as a safe D seat.  I think he would be crazy to run in an up hill race.  However, politics is defined by the crazy.

  5. Oh yeah, it was me.

    That article gave me a good laugh this morning. Unlike his lovely wife, I think Citizen Bob has pretty much been regulated to the GOP’s dustbin. Oh he’ll be around for a while, like Considine and Benson, but I don’t see the party faithful trusting him with another “key race”.

    However, I hope that article signals that he is thinking about carrying the flag up in CD-2. I know, I know, he’ll get crushed and all, but forcing the DEM that wins the nomination to sweat a little will be proper penance for the royal screw-up he foisted on us last year. But then again, I think the former GOV Bill should consider doing his C&D penance by running giving at run at CD-1… So what do I know.

    Made for some fun reading though.

    2. Bill Ritter won one of the greatest statewide victories in the history of Colorado politics.  Before Mr. Beuaprez jumps back into the political fray, he needs to take stock of what happened last year.  He just didn’t loose by a respectable margin, he was blown out-of-the-water.  Gov. Ritter won by 262,100 votes.  If you subtract his margin of victory in the four largest Democratic counties(Denver, Boulder, Adams and Pueblo counties), Gov. Ritter still wins by 78,199.  What I did for each of those counties is subtract the votes for Beauprez from Gov. Ritter’s which gave me Gov. Ritter’s margin of victory in each county, and then subtracted the margin of victory for each county from Gov. Ritter’s statewide margin of 262,100 votes.  Thus, in those four counties I treated Mr. Beauprez and Gov. Ritter as receiving an equal number of votes.

      This also means you can subtract Gov. Ritter’s margin of victory in Larimer County (17,597 votes) and his margin in Arapahoe (31,296 votes), and he still wins by 29,306 votes.  Only when you subtract his margin in Jefferson County (31,106 votes) does Mr. Beauprez win by a mere 1,800 votes. 

      Bill Ritter’s victory was historic.  Even without blow-out victories in the four largest Democratic counties, he still wins.  I would have to research past elections to make sure, but I don’t think any Democrat has won an open statewide race by this much in recent memory, including Gov. Lamm and Gov. Romer.  In the past, Democrats won statewide elections by winning big in the four main Democratic counties and then breaking even in Arapahoe, Jefferson and Larimer and sometimes in Mesa and Weld counties.  Gov. Ritter didn’t follow that scenario.  Instead, he won big in the four large Democratic counties and he won by huge margins in three of the largest Republican counties – 58% in Arapahoe, Jefferson and Larimer.  In Weld he won by four-tenths of a percent and in Mesa he lost 3 or 4% (break even counties).  Of course, El Paso and Douglas never vote Democrat but even in those two counties Gov. Ritter did better by 4 or 5% than past statwide Democratic candidates.

      Looking at last year from a different angle, if one begins with the original statewide margin of victory (262,100 votes), you can zero out the votes Gov. Ritter received in Denver (121,494 votes), Boulder (84,235 votes) and Adams (55,930 votes) counties but allow Mr. Beauprez to retain the votes he garnered in those same counties and Gov. Ritter still wins by 441 votes.  In other words, subtract ALL of Gov. Ritter’s votes from the three largest Democratic counties in the state, not just his margin of victory, and he still wins.  On Gov. Ritter’s part a truly great achievment.  Mr. Beauprez just didn’t loose, he was shellacked.

      I know 2006 was a bad year for Republicans due to Iraq and Bush but here in Colorado, Mr. Beauprez won’t take responsibility, but he deserves a great deal of the blame for what can at best be characterized as a misguided and silly campaign on his part.  He waged the worst major campaign I have ever witnessed, while Gov. Ritter waged one of the best the state has even seen.  Mr. Beauprez nees to find a line of work outside politics.

      1. ….then you have to look at the crappy product that the state GOP was trying to peddle. 
          If the environment was so toxic for those poor fragile Republican candidates running in Colorado (a decidely Red State according to some), how is that Arnold Schwartznegger, Tim Pawlenty, and Jodi Rell won re-election in CA, MI, and CT (three very Blue States), without any of them breaking a sweat?

        1. And the numbers I cited tell the same story.  There was more than Iraq and Bush affecting 2006 election in Colorado. Mr. Beuaprez’s positions or maybe I should say non-positions on the budget and fiscal policy really hurt him.  He never attempted to study the facts concerning the state’s budget or how the various amendments like TABOR, Amend. 23 etc. impacted the state.

          Further, his statement that he was against Ref. “C” and for the “C” rollback because “C” did not solve the “systemic budget and fiscal problems” of the state was utter nonsense.  During the campaign he never told us and, for that matter, still hasn’t told us how he would fix the “systemic” budget and fiscal problems” but, in the meantime, if he had his way and “C” failed or was rolled back, we would be closing 10 out of 13 community colleges and in-state tuition at our public colleges and univesities would increase in five years to the level of private universities like Notre Dame, Harvard and Stanford; and, under those circumstances, many of our children couldn’t afford a college education which is one of the cornerstones of economic development and well being.  Apparently Mr. Beauprez’s solution is to either greatly diminish or destroy public institutions while simultaneously undermining our present and future economic well being.  That is not policy – its insanity.

          As late as last week Mr. Beauprez continued to write and speak about the “systemic” problems without defining what he considers the problem or how he would fix it.  All of this defines the problem the Republican Party has in Colorado.  Controlled by right-wing religious zealots and ideologues it has lost its ability to face facts and then respond in a responsible way.  The basic philosophy seems to be that almost all public institution are evil and must be destroyed.  The present leadership of the Colorado Republican Party only sees the square peg and it is going through that round hole even if it is four times the diameter of the hole – reality be damned.

          We used to value education and a good transportation system.  Now the Party lives in a fantasy land that education doesn’t need funding or, as in the case of higher education, it doesn’t matter that the cost rises to a point where the majority can’t afford one; and that we don’t need to funds for roads.

          Also, and probably most importantly, the Colorado Republican Party no longer trusts the citizens of Colorado to know what is in their best interests.  TABOR is the greatest example of this.  TABOR is not just about budget and fiscal policy.  At bottom, it repesents a belief by its supporters that the electorate cannot be trusted to elect legislators and governors who will tow to the right-wing line.  In order to insure that government must do so, TABOR’s supporters designed a constitutional amendment to restrict the legislature, the people we choose to represent us, from being able to deal with the practical problems government has always faced.  This creates a never ending tension between the facts and TABOR; and means we will have a never ending series of Ref “C’s.”  This was one of the primary underpinnings of those who fought Ref. “C.” 

          I believe the public sensed that is where Mr. Beauprez was leading us (off a cliff) and they also sensed that Gov. Ritter was going in a different, altogether more reasonable and responsible direction.  That’s why he won with such a large majority.

          Many Republican voters are being forced out of the Party for these reasons.  At the moment, Gov. Ritter and the Democrats offer common sense policies and a real belief in our ability to build a great future through both the private sector and the public sector. 

  6. My favorite part of the article was BWB saying that he had to get back to the land – it wasn’t the golf that he was craving after the defeat, he just had to get back to the land.  But of course that did involve playing a round of golf, in order to get back to the land.  And it wasn’t even until the third hole that wifey said:  lets move back home.

    The tears continue to well up in my eyes.

    Visions of the old homestead, and the two pioneer spirits just getting back to the simple life on the old homestead.

    I am guessing the BWB will resurrect that phony ‘aw-shucks’ dialect he used in his commercials.

    As I said, I am moved to tears.

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