Blake: Holtzman hedging bets

Published April 26, 2006 at midnight

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If Marc Holtzman is more conservative than Bob Beauprez, as he claims to be, he shouldn't need to petition onto the Republican primary ballot.

After all, conservatives are disproportionately strong at GOP state assemblies just as liberals are at Democratic ones. In 2004, for instance, Bob Schaffer easily topped Pete Coors in the Republican Senate race with 61 percent of the delegate vote, while Mike Miles edged Ken Salazar on the Democratic side with 52 percent. Both top-liners lost their primaries.

But Holtzman will start collecting signatures this week, and although he claims to be keeping the assembly as an option, many believe he'll stick to petitions.

That's because he needs at least 30 percent of the state delegate vote May 20 to get on the Aug. 8 ballot, and he could fall short. If he doesn't get at least 10 percent, then it doesn't matter how many signatures he turns in by the May 25 deadline. They won't count.

He should easily get the 10 percent, but why look weak if you don't have to?

Dick Leggitt, Holtzman's campaign manager, said the conservative edge that should go to Holtzman at the assembly isn't operative because it's "run by the establishment and we're positioned more as the anti-establishment outsider."

Perhaps. But Coors owned the GOP establishment in 2004 and still did badly at the assembly, where true believers usually rule.

Leggitt claims delegate support of 30 percent to 40 percent now, but fears "erosion" at the assembly in Colorado Springs.

Beauprez's allies, - other GOP congressman, Gov. Bill Owens, Sen. Wayne Allard - all have floor passes and will work the delegates, Leggitt said. "They'll tell them, 'Remember when I got your mama a passport? I need you to vote for Bob.' "

Collecting signatures, by the way, will be no picnic in the park. The rules have changed since 1994, when Republican Bruce Benson became the first (and last) major gubernatorial candidate to petition onto the ballot.

In those days, he had to collect signatures equaling 2 percent of the Republican vote for governor in each of the state's six congressional districts in the previous election, 1990. That amounted to 7,169 signatures in all. But at least he had to get a lot fewer signatures in the Democratic 1st District than in the Republican 5th.

It's different now. Holtzman will have to get 1,500 signatures in each of the seven districts, or 10,500 in all. Getting 1,500 Republican signatures in Denver will be a challenge.

Leggitt said he's relying on a combination of volunteer collectors (each volunteer is asked to get 10 signatures) and a professional signature-gathering firm from Nevada.

He won't be getting any help from the people who ran Benson's 1994 signature-gathering effort. Political consultants Shari Williams and Katy Atkinson and congressional aide Sean Murphy all work for or support Beauprez.

Williams doubts Holtzman has ever had any intention of going to the assembly. "You petition only when you're not sure you can get the right number of people at the convention," she said. She based her conclusion on the fact that Holtzman's people haven't yet agreed to the vote-counting rules at the state assembly, despite a half dozen meetings and the willingness of Beauprez and the state party to concede to virtually every Holtzman demand.

The state party maintains the tentative rules, which are posted on its Web site, have been agreed to by both sides. Leggitt conceded the party has been "very cooperative" and that his candidate has agreed to the basic "bullet points" in the rules. But "inside of each bullet point there are a lot of details that have to be worked out," he maintained, which gives the campaign an out.

Leggitt hopes to gather 30,000 signatures to make sure Holtzman has a "cushion." He can be certain that Beauprez will challenge them. Atkinson, who managed Benson's campaign, recalls she was grateful that the Democratic protest was filed a few hours late in 1994. Otherwise, she said, Benson might have been kept off the ballot not for lack of signatures but because the notary stamps were improperly worded.

Leggitt said the campaign will probably decide by week's end whether to stick to petitions, commit entirely to the assembly process or go to the assembly with petitions as a backup.

If Holtzman chooses to go with petitions only, there's one more chore he'll have to look after: Making sure no one - friend or, more likely, an enemy - nominates Holtzman at the assembly. That would put the 10 percent rule in play and put the signatures at risk.

blakep@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5119.

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