Ten Year Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … The race for the Republican nomination for governor was steaming up. John Marshall, campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez, demanded that GOP rival Marc Holtzman immediately fire his campaign manager, Dick Leggitt, and submit his campaign to a formal investigation for “the flagrant and admitted violation of Colorado Revised Statute 1-13-109(1a).” Marshall charged that Leggitt admitted in open court to telling “straight-out lies,” a clear infraction. “Colorado law states that no person may knowingly make … any false statement designed to affect the vote … relating to any candidate for election to public office,” Marshall pointed out. “The Holtzman campaign has crossed all ethical boundaries and permanently breeched the trust of Colorado voters by admitting under oath that they knowingly lied to the media,” Marshall stated. He accused the Holtzman campaign of habitually “knowingly making false statements — lying — and passing it off as ‘spin,’ like this is some sort of game. It’s not.” Among the particulars cited by Marshall: Leggitt told the media that poll numbers showed Holtzman’s name identification and favorable ratings among Republicans had improved dramatically since the past autumn but then admitted under oath he had simply made up the numbers. What’s more, Marshall claimed, Holtzman had alleged a few months earlier that his campaign email list had been stolen but, when pressed by the Denver DA, was unable to provide a shred of evidence to substantiate the claim. The diminutive Holtzman had even “doctored photos of himself with President Ronald Reagan and President George Bush to try and pass himself off as taller to the voters of Colorado.” Marshall was not amused. “Torturing the truth is irrefutably a pattern in Marc Holtzman’s life. But the law is very clear about this type of behavior — it’s illegal.” The Holtzman campaign was having none of it. “Unfortunately, Marc’s opponents have launched a series of personal character assaults,” the campaign retorted. “They’ve hurled everything they have at Marc, including a frivolous lawsuit brought by the same lobbyist, a Beauprez friend and supporter, who filed a similar headline-seeking lawsuit against Bob Beauprez’s primary opponent in 2002,” the Holtzman campaign said, referring to lobbyist Steve Durham. “They’ve attacked Marc’s financial success and conservative credentials. … Talk about knowingly false statements!” The Holtzman campaign all but shook its collective head in disappointment. “Friends, we’ve seen this kind of scorched-earth, ‘bring a howitzer to a knife fight’ kind of campaign before. It’s the kind of campaign that divides us and brings our party down. It takes the oxygen out of the air and makes us forget the reasons we do this — the reasons why we walk precincts and gather signatures in support of our Party.” …

… Meanwhile, Republican gubernatorial candidate Marc Holtzman announced that he would be tying the knot with longtime girlfriend Kristen Hubbell on July 8, just a month before the Aug. 8 primary election, at a luxury beach hotel in the Los Angeles area. The couple had considering eloping on Valentine’s Day a year earlier but their families weren’t impressed with that notion. If they didn’t elope, Holtzman confided, there were only a couple options: throw a huge wedding in Colorado and risk offending everyone who wasn’t invited or have an intimate affair. Opting for the latter, the two planned to invite around 50 friends apiece, along with family members.

… Jeff Crank, one of seven Republican candidates for the 5th Congressional District, defended the integrity of his campaign against charges that numerous policy positions on his website appeared to have been lifted whole cloth from the websites of prominent congressional conservatives, including retiring U.S. Rep. Joel Hefley, whose seat Crank was seeking. The allegations came to light when Rob Fairbank, a former state legislator and Denver-based political consultant, sent emails comparing lines from Crank’s website with lines from four congressional sites belonging to Hefley, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Califormia Rep. Richard Pombo and Utah Sen. Bob Bennett. Fairbank said he discovered the similarities because he had a habit of “just randomly taking a look at different campaigns to see what they’re doing.” He said he was Googling large chunks of text from various sites and kept being pointed to Crank’s site. Jim Banks, Crank’s campaign manager, pulled the sections from his candidate’s site as soon as the allegations emerged and blamed the text on a “volunteer platform writer,” Sarah Sheldon, who had previously worked as a press secretary for Hefley. Sheldon took responsibility and said she was so used to composing issue statements that she used pretty much the same language for Crank as she had for Hefley. But Banks also swung at the congressional primary’s other presumed frontrunner, state Sen. Doug Lamborn, accusing his campaign of being behind the charges. “We’re becoming more and more familiar with the Lamborn campaign and their tactics,” Banks said. “We’re not going to let them bring Jeff’s integrity into question.” Fairbank denied he acted at anyone’s behest or in support of any candidate. “The real story is that they plagiarized,” Fairbank said. Jon Hotaling, Lamborn’s campaign manager, also denied Fairbank had anything to do with the Lamborn operation. “That is hilarious spin from a desperate and flailing campaign,” Hotaling said. “My advice to young Mr. Crank is to not plagiarize real leaders, take responsibility for his failings, and to stop blaming others for his problems.” Among the similar sections fingered by Fairbank: “The role of government is not to create wealth, but to foster an environment where America’s entrepreneurial spirit can thrive and achieve great things,” read Cornyn’s website. “Jeff believes the role of government is not to create wealth, but to foster an environment in which America’s entrepreneurial spirit can thrive and achieve great things,” maintained Crank’s site.

— ernest@coloradostatesman.com