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Rivals agree Nov. 7 to be watershed

Ritter, Beauprez make parting shots in final TV debate

Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News

Published November 4, 2006 at midnight

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Bob Beauprez and Bill Ritter went at it for the 27th time Friday night - one last debate to argue who should be Colorado's 41st governor.

Republican Beauprez cited his proven leadership as a suburban Denver congressman, dairy farmer, developer and banker, saying he wouldn't need "on the job training" to be the state's chief executive.

Former Denver District attorney Bill Ritter said that he's the kind of pragmatic problem-solver that voters will want to solve problems in education, transportation and more affordable health care.

"The Colorado promise is a promise that should be available to everybody," Ritter said in the hourlong debate sponsored by the Rocky Mountain News and its election news partners, CBS 4 and KBDI 12. "It's all about what kind of state that we leave to our kids and our grandkids."

One thing both candidates agree on - Tuesday will be a watershed election for Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region.

If Ritter, who is leading in the polls, wins Tuesday's election, it would give the Democrats control of the governor's office and quite possibly both chambers of the state legislature for the first time in nearly a half-century.

Beauprez has warned that without a Republican governor to balance a Democrat-controlled statehouse, Ritter might approve a raft of anti-business legislation that could harm the economy.

"I've become absolutely convinced that while Bill talks about his 'Colorado Promise,' it's a plan-less promise," Beauprez said. "He keeps talking about invest, invest, invest, and I wonder where all the money is going to come from to accomplish the mission at hand."

But Ritter fired back at Beauprez for opposing Referendum C, the measure approved by voters last year that allows the state to temporarily escape a funding crisis that threatened to shut down community colleges, highway projects and other programs.

Ritter vowed to push through a plan to provide health insurance to everyone in Colorado, where 770,000 residents are uninsured - and to do so without raising taxes.

When Beauprez expressed doubt, Ritter pointed out that Massachusetts' Republican Gov. Mitt Romney had create such a privately funded health plan without a tax hike.

Sparks flew over illegal immigration, when CBS 4 ran a controversial Beauprez ad attacking Ritter for allowing 151 immigrant criminals to avoid deportation by pleading to the reduced charge of farmland trespass. The FBI is investigating whether a federal immigration agent illegally leaked information from an FBI database to the Beauprez campaign.

Beauprez called the agent a heroic whistleblower who exposed Ritter's "little bag of secrets." But when asked if he defended law-breaking, the congressman said: "If it's proven that anybody broke the law, somebody will have to stand in front of the law."

Ritter countered: "Well, congressmen, I don't think you, your campaign or a federal agent get to play by a separate set of rules." He urged voters to hold Beauprez accountable for saying the agent "did the right thing."

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