'Hooligans' nail O'Donnell's HQ

Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 4, 2006 at midnight

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Vandals hit Republican Rick O’Donnell’s campaign headquarters sometime Tuesday night, defacing a sign and littering the parking lot with nails.

An unpaid intern in O’Donnell’s congressional campaign was among those who ended up with a damaged tire, said spokesman Jonathan Tee.

"This is Vandalism 101," Tee said. "This is a despicable display fueled by anger, hate, ugly partisanship and utter disrespect for personal property."

A 4-by-8-foot sign about 20 yards from O’Donnell’s headquarters also was spraypainted. The sign had a capital "W" with a line through it, an apparent reference to President Bush’s visit to Colorado today for gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez.

Tee blamed supporters of O’Donnell’s Democratic rival, Ed Perlmutter.

"Clearly this is the work of pro-Perlmutter hooligans," Tee said.

But Perlmutter’s campaign said it knows nothing about the damage and condemned the vandalism.

"This is sad," Perlmutter spokesman Scott Chase said. "Politics is nasty enough.

"We’ll disagree on the issues and on public policy, but that type of behavior would never be condoned. Our supporters would never be responsible for doing that and Rick knows that."

O’Donnell and Perlmutter are two of four candidates running in the 7th Congressional District.

Tee said the vandals impacted not only O’Donnell’s campaign headquarters but a number of small businesses in the same Wheat Ridge strip mall near Interstate 70 and West 38th Avenue.

Intern Kevin Leary had the passenger-side front tire of his Jeep Wrangler punctured. Tee said the campaign is picking up the estimated $175 repair bill.

In addition, a tire on O’Donnell’s GMC Envoy had two nail punctures and will need to be replaced.

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