May 28, 2014 10:31 AM UTC

Draft-Dodging Bob Beauprez Scores Big Name Veteran Support

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

FOX 31's Eli Stokols reports, the Bob Beauprez endorsement train continues to pick up improbable speed:

A former Veterans Administration Secretary heads a list of Colorado veterans who are supporting GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez, the candidate’s campaign plans to announce Wednesday morning.

Jim Nicholson, a Vietnam veteran and former RNC Chairman who served as V.A. Secretary under President George W. Bush, tops a list of nearly 50 former servicemen and women making up what Beauprez’s campaign is calling its “Veterans Team.”

…Unlike two of his primary opponents, Beauprez did not serve in the military, but he was a member of the House Committee for Veterans’ Affairs while in Congress.

On the campaign trail in 2006, Beauprez was stung by controversy over his service record, in which he apparently claimed a medical exemption to avoid the draft after majoring in physical education in college. Beauprez also took heat from veterans for appearing in a flight suit (photos right, below) at several occasions, including the Rocky Mountain EAA Regional Fly-In and–somewhat more defensibly–during a joyride at Buckley Air Force Base in an F-16. As the Rocky Mountain News reported at the time:

​

“On the one hand, Bob Beauprez was healthy enough to letter in two sports in high school and major in physical education in college,” says Jim Hudson, who served in Vietnam and currently is active in Colorado Veterans for America. 

“On the other hand,” Hudson continues, “Bob Beauprez says he wasn’t healthy enough to serve our country when his draft number came up after college because of an ulcer he had shortly before this picture was taken.”

The photo, from Boulder’s Fairview High yearbook, shows the congressman in a three-point stance with the caption, “2 yr. letterman.”

The return of Beauprez to Colorado's political scene as a gubernatorial candidate seemed like a joke at first (okay, it's still kind of funny), but as his list of high-profile endorsements grows, and with his principal opponents' campaigns failing to ignite, it's increasingly possible that Beauprez will again win the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Once that happens, we think there is enough material, some we've already discussed in this space and lots more, to absolutely slaughter Beauprez in a general-election matchup against incumbent Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.

In fact, there seems to be a real disconnect between the Republicans flocking to Beauprez today…and reality.