Harsh Words From Beauprez Camp

Name calling and naysaying. The Colorado governor’s race may be in full swing, but if previous rhetoric is any indication, the next few months could get ugly.

It started last Monday, when Republican candidate Bob Beauprez announced that his running mate was Janet Rowland, a Mesa County Commissioner. Word quickly got out about Rowland, and some choice comments she made comparing gay marriage to bestiality.“Do we allow a man to marry a sheep?” she asked on a public television show taped last March. “I mean at some point, you have to draw the line.”

After the comment’s discovery, ProgressNow, a liberal advocacy group in Denver, called for replacing Rowland and asked supporters to sign a on-line petition. This in turn netted a fiery response from Beauprez campaign manager John Marshall, who said the group consisted of “bed-wetting, pampered liberals.”

“Attacks on Progress Now are just the latest indicator on how completely disorganized and unprofessional Beauprez campaign is,” said Michael Huttner, the group’s Executive Director.

Last year, Beauprez himself tasted controversy when he told the press that he knew what “Mexican time” was, when it came to the extradition of an alleged cop-killer.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.