Trailhead denies Beauprez collaboration in attack ads

Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News

Saturday, September 23, 2006

The gloves came off in the governor's race Friday, as Bill Ritter fired off a TV ad claiming that Bob Beauprez had "distorted" and "twisted" his Denver district attorney record and Beauprez responded that Ritter's spot was "sleazy, dishonest."

The dust-up comes a day after the Republican Trailhead Group unleashed a gripping ad in which a tearful mother accuses Ritter of lying about issuing a "slap on the wrist" plea bargain to the hit-and-run driver who killed her 4-year-old daughter.

Democrat Ritter's response was a TV ad that begins with a narrator saying: "Newspapers call attacks on Bill Ritter's record as district attorney 'misleading,' 'distorted,' 'twisted.' So who should be held accountable for these negative attacks on Bill Ritter?"

It cuts to Beauprez's own campaign ad, showing him standing in a barn saying: "I'm Bob Beauprez. I want you to hold me accountable."

"The facts," the ad concludes, is that Ritter had a 95 percent conviction rate and locked up over 12,000 criminals during his 12 years as district attorney, keeping the community safe and helping victims "put their lives back together."

While the ad about the girl killed in the hit-and-run was produced by Trailhead's offshoot, Coloradans for Justice, Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer accused the Beauprez campaign of illegally working in concert with the so-called 527 groups. The independent political groups are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money but prohibited from coordinating efforts with a candidate's campaign.

Dreyer pointed out that Beauprez's campaign issued a bulletin Monday, vowing to release Ritter "cold case" files Tuesday. "A day later they completely reversed course, saying they received 'new information' and were going to stay positive in their campaigning," he added.

"We believe that that new information was that Trailhead and this new 527, which is essentially the same people as Trailhead, were going to launch a new round of attacks," said Dreyer.

Trailhead Executive Director Alan Philp said the Ritter campaign was dead wrong and that no collaboration with the Beauprez campaign had occurred.

"The Ritter campaign can't deal with the message and so they attack the messenger. We've been working on this (hit- and-run ad) for months," Philp added.

The Beauprez campaign called Ritter's response ad false and demanded that TV stations pull it.

"Instead of taking responsibility for letting a perpetrator get off easy . . . Bill Ritter has launched a sleazy, dishonest new attack ad," Beauprez campaign manager John Marshall said in a statement. "We have nothing to do with the attack ads being run by 527 groups against Bill Ritter, and he knows there are no facts to back up his claim."

Meanwhile, a review of database records Friday shows that the woman in the Trailhead ad was convicted of a string of minor criminal offenses in Denver, some handled by Ritter's district attorney office, after her daughter's 2000 death.

September Dixon, 27, was convicted of seven offenses between 2001 and 2003, including reckless driving, making threats and using a phone to disturb the peace. She has a history of 21 arrests ranging from making a false statement to police to failure to report an auto accident where there was personal or property damage, according to a state crime database.

Asked if her prosecution left her biased against Ritter, Dixon said her legal history had nothing to do with her daughter's death. She then hung up.

Trailhead's Philp said he knew Dixon had a criminal record involving Ritter's office, but "that is not particularly relevant."

"She was upset because she was the mother of a 4-year-old who died," Philp said, and Ritter's plea bargain allowed the convicted driver to serve about 15 months of a two-year sentence. "This is about trying to seek justice and how Bill Ritter handled the case."

gathrighta@RockyMountainNews.com