If reports in today’s Denver Post and Colorado Springs Gazette ring true, then expect plenty more nasty attacks – notably from the Trailhead Group, Coloradans for Justice or a handful of other names that the Republican hit group may morph into between now and Nov. 7, Election Day.
In repeated polls – most recently a Rasmussen Report – GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez is trailing badly behind Democrat Bill Ritter. The Rasmussen Report shows 50 percent of likely voters are behind Ritter, with 34 percent supporting Beauprez.
“Those kind of numbers six weeks before the election put pressure on the Beauprez campaign to go negative,” Bob Loevy, a Republican political science professor from Colorado College, was quoted saying in the Gazette,.“Those polls inspire the campaign that is behind to start swinging hard and to start swinging wildly,” Loevy told the Gazette. “Negative advertising works, so if you are behind in the polls that is precisely what you do.”
But the likely scenario is Beauprez will let the 527 Trailhead Group do all the dirty work. The Denver Post quotes the 527’s director Alan Philp saying that “his group plans to run more ads about cases Ritter’s office handled.”
Last week the Trailhead Group began running a television ad involving a case that was plea bargained while Ritter was district attorney in Denver. While the ad has been described as powerful, Ritter’s campaign has also denounced it as false.
