Holtzman fails to make governor ballot

GOP hopeful will fight ruling on signatures

Jody Berger And Stuart Steers, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 2, 2006 at midnight

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Top Colorado Republicans have tried for weeks to push Marc Holtzman out of the race for governor. On Thursday, Holtzman learned he may have derailed his own campaign.

Holtzman fell 743 signatures short of the number required to gain a spot on the August primary ballot, according to Colorado Secretary of State Gigi Dennis.

Locked in a bitter fight with Congressman Bob Beauprez for the Republican nomination, Holtzman failed two weeks ago to win enough support at the state party assembly to secure a spot on the ballot. Holtzman's backup plan was to gather 10,500 signatures from Republican voters to guarantee him a place on the ballot.

Thursday night, Dennis sent Holtzman a letter saying that plan had failed.

True to form, Holtzman vowed to continue the fight.

"We will challenge this all the way up to the Supreme Court of Colorado," Holtzman said. "We believe we've dotted every 'i' and crossed every 't.' We produced more than double the number of signatures statewide."

Many political experts were shocked by what they saw as the incompetence of Holtzman's signature-gathering operation.

"Good grief, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to read the law and figure out how many signatures you need," said John Straayer, a professor of political science at Colorado State University.

Straayer said that Holtzman had neglected the fundamentals of building a campaign organization and gotten too caught up in his own image-making.

"This whole enterprise has been way too much Marc Holtzman and not a solid campaign organizational base," he said.

Denver political analyst Eric Sondermann was also stunned by the turn of events.

"Wow. Unbelievable," Sondermann said upon hearing the news. "Of all the ways for Marc Holtzman to exit. He could have exited in a statesmanlike manner. He could have exited with maybe people owing him chits. And to exit due to a sort of a base-level campaign incompetence is a tough way to go out."

Holtzman has angered much of the state's Republican Party leadership with his campaign. Many Republicans feared a nasty primary battle would hurt the party's chances in November against Democrat Bill Ritter.

Bob Gould, who began as Holtzman's campaign manager last week, said the lack of signatures was not the fault of the Holtzman campaign. Gould said the problem could be errors made by the people validating the signatures, including many temporary workers hired by the secretary of state.

Gould also said valid signatures could have been thrown out because the person who circulated the petitions had only recently registered as a Republican - another requirement on a candidate's petitions.

Like his boss, Gould vowed to fight.

"I can tell you our approach is going to be a scorched-earth policy," Gould said.

The campaign has five days to request a protest hearing.

Holtzman needed 1,500 Republican voters from each of the state's seven congressional districts to sign his petition. He fell short in two - the 1st and 7th.

The 7th District, home to Beauprez, includes Denver's northern suburbs and is evenly split between Democratic and Republican voters.

In her letter to Holtzman, Dennis said that Holtzman only turned in 1,614 signatures from the 7th. Of those, Dennis rejected 524 of them.

In the 1st District, which includes the heavily Democratic city of Denver, Dennis said only 1,872 signatures were filed and she tossed out 705.

Gould disputed her numbers, saying they turned in more signatures in both those districts.

Dennis has endorsed Beauprez, and her name has been floated as a potential running mate if Beauprez wins the nomination.

In a statement, Beauprez called on Holtzman to unite with him to ensure a Republican victory in November.

"Marc has run a spirited campaign and I have appreciated his contribution to the debate," Beauprez said. "I look forward to working with Marc to ensure a united Republican Party and a victory this fall. I'm gratified and excited to be the Republican nominee, and we're looking forward to a positive, issue-based campaign with our Democrat opponent in this race."

Ritter said he was ready for a two-man race.

"For us, this means the general election starts now," he said in a statement. "Whether the race starts in June or August, we are absolutely ready."

Holtzman started campaigning for governor last year.

At the Republican Party state assembly on May 20, Holtzman won only 28 percent of the delegates' votes. If he had won 30 percent, he would have been assured of a spot on the primary ballot.

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