Colorado: GOP Nightmare

Fred Barnes called Colorado "a Republican Nightmare" at the close of "Beltway Boys" on FOXNews several weeks ago. The normally Red state lost both state houses to Ds in 2004 and is poised to lose at least one house seat and a Governorship in 2006.

Brendan Minter at OpinionJournal Political Diary may have the coffin nail:

Scoop

Trailing far behind in the polls, Colorado Republican Bob Beauprez was almost certainly not going to win the governor's mansion on Nov. 7. Now, after launching an attack ad earlier this week against his opponent, Democrat Bill Ritter, Mr. Beauprez may have no political future at all.

The ad lights into Mr. Ritter, a former Denver district attorney, for cutting a plea bargain with an illegal alien in 2001 who was arrested for allegedly trafficking in heroin. By avoiding jail time, the illegal alien was also able to avoid deportation and was reportedly later arrested in California on suspicion of molesting a minor.

The problem for Mr. Beauprez is that the information contained in the ad is not publicly available and the Ritter campaign has called for a federal investigation to determine if it was illegally obtained from the National Crime Information Center, a federal database available only to law enforcement officials. The FBI announced on Tuesday that it will look into the matter.

The only hope Republicans have of resolving the scandal quickly is for the Beauprez campaign to release its source. But so far it has refused. Campaign spokesman John Marshall told the Associated Press that the FBI's investigation "doesn't change anything for us. We're going to cooperate with whomever we need to cooperate with." Meanwhile, Mr. Beauprez is sticking to the facts outlined in the ad: "I think, in fact I know, that the information we've got is absolutely, indisputably true." Unfortunately, that may now be beside the point.

Mandatory recycling is assured.

Politics Posted by jk at October 19, 2006 2:13 PM