Littwin: Beauprez's mouth is getting used to foot

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 31, 2006 at midnight

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The Bob Beauprez campaign is in the news again. And, as careful observers know by now, that can't be a good thing for Bob Beauprez.

In fact, it's downright appalling.

And you don't have to quote me on that. You can quote Beauprez himself. It's all there in the latest Beauprez apology, which we'll get to in a moment.

First, though, we should reminisce about the good old days. I remember a time - gee, I think it was sometime after Mexican Time - when Beauprez's worst problem was being called Both Ways Bob.

Now, people are starting to whisper - and I mean, even Republican people - that Beauprez is on the verge of becoming No Way Bob.

It may be too soon to say his campaign is imploding. It's not to soon for volunteers to wear a hard hat when visiting headquarters.

How could this happen?

How could a political pro like Beauprez let his campaign get so far off track?

And is it any wonder that people are starting to ask if Bill Ritter is the luckiest man since Ringo? (Do you think that some of the Democrats who didn't get in the race are having their own Beauprez regrets now?)

For answers, we go to the studios of KCFR radio, where Beauprez was on the Colorado Matters news-interview show Monday. He was asked about abortion, and Beauprez loves to talk talk tough on abortion.

Beauprez and Ritter are both anti-abortion. But Beauprez likes to point out that he is really anti-abortion, advocating exceptions only to protect the life of the mother. No exceptions in case of rape. No exceptions in case of incest. No exceptions in case of a John Mark Karr.

He was concerned, he said, that "in some of our ethnic communities we're seeing very, very high percentages of babies, children, pregnancies end in abortion."

Yes, he said "children" ending in abortion. But that wasn't the problem.

When he was asked which ethnic communities he was talking about, that's when the gaffe-o-meter nearly broke off the wall.

He actually said: "I've seen numbers as high as 70 percent, maybe even more, in the African-American community that I think is just appalling."

We're back to appalling.

Can't this guy do simple arithmetic? And remember, he was a banker. Note to Heritage Bank customers, check your deposit slips.

It's bad enough that Beauprez repeated the 70 percent number - as if 70 percent of black women might have an abortion clinic on their speed dials. But what does it say about him that he ever believed it? As state Rep. Terrance Carroll pointed out, if 70 percent of black pregnancies ended in abortion, you'd be hard pressed to actually find a black person.

Of course, Beauprez apologized. He apologized because the number is wildly inaccurate. He apologized because he "heard" the number somewhere and thought it was a good idea for a U.S. congressman who wants to be governor to just throw off numbers that he "heard" somewhere. I kept waiting to hear if Beauprez had said that 70 percent of pregnant African-American women lacked the necessities to swim.

It's true that African-Americans nationally are three times more likely than whites to have abortions.

Here are some numbers that might interest Beauprez: African-Americans account for just over 4 percent of the Colorado population, and, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control, African-Americans account for just under 5 percent of Colorado abortions.

Oops?

Well, it's not the first one. This would be, however, the first Beauprez campaign apology to black Coloradans. If you're keeping score, there's also the one to gay Coloradans, when Jane Rowland was announced as his lieutenant governor choice.

This is what is known in the political business as a freebie. This is a feel-good nomination for a job that is all but entirely meaningless. In the best case, you get a day of free publicity, which should be 100 percent positive.

And then came the worst case: the revelation that Rowland had once compared gay marriage to bestiality. She asked where you draw the line.

Her line was: "Do we allow a man to marry a sheep?"

And the answer, of course, is: No, not more than 70 percent of them anyway.

Rowland said she regretted making the remark. I'm guessing Beauprez regretted offering her the job. Was Katherine Harris unavailable?

And, then, of course, there was Beauprez's Mexican Time gaffe and an earlier apology. I'm not sure how many "ethnic" communities there are left to apologize to - how about Tongans? - but if I were running Beauprez's campaign, I'd whisper in his ear: "Ixnay on the ethnicay."

Some Republicans are saying privately they're worried about the campaign. They're worried about fund-raising. They're worried about a lackluster message.

Every day it seems there's more bad news for Beauprez. The Rocky editorial page ripped the Beauprez campaign for distorting a Ritter quote that had run - yes - on the Rocky editorial page. The Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald had a story about Beauprez criticizing the management style of Bill Owens, who is his most important supporter.

Ritter, meanwhile, pounds him on Ref C, on which Beauprez picked the losing side. And Beauprez responds by criticizing Ritter for plea-bargaining with illegal immigrants. Yes, Ritter was the Denver DA. Yes, he plea-bargained, even with illegal immigrants.

Did he plea bargain with more than 70 percent of the cases? Maybe.

But as far as we know, he hasn't had to apologize for any of them. So who would you guess that puts in the lead? You do the math.

littwinm@rockymountainnews.com.

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