Sixty Years Ago This Week: When Republican U.S. Rep. Peter Dominick, CD-2, and Colorado Republican Party Chair Jean Tool cast shade on the voting record of Democratic U. S. Rep. Wayne Aspinall, CD-4, going so far as to insinuate that he was a “communist” sympathizer, the reactions were strong and immediate.

But newspaper publishers from across the state were quick to come to Aspinall’s defense.

In response to one of Dominick’s attacks on Aspinall’s “poor” record on the Rifle oil shale plant, Aurora Star Publisher Ken Bundy said, “ Dominick has made a wild swing at a bad ball that won’t do him any good in his senatorial race.”

Bundy added in an interview with The Colorado Democrat that much of the Western Slope had been “thrilled” with Aspinall’s work.

“We believe that he has done the best job of any Colorado congressman in consistently representing the needs of the area that is greatest with the widest possible diversity of needs.”

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Publisher Preston Walker wrote that “every two years about this time, local Republicans open up full blast with their campaign to defeat Wayne Aspinall … It certainly isn’t the sort of campaign that makes sense.”

Walker argued that it had taken Aspinall years of long, hard work to earn the position and respect he held in Congress.

“It takes integrity and dedication to public services to hold it with the respect of all official Washington — and our congressman has done that,” Walker said.

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Fred M. Betz said that Tool was only following a line he had developed over the preceding moths in accusing Aspinall of supporting the admission of China into the U.N.

“This is a deliberate falsification designed to smear the record of one of the most distinguished members of the U.S. Congress,” Betz said. “I have received personal assurance from Mr. Aspinall that he has never voted in Congress on the admission of China into the U.N. … and that his views are the same as the Kennedy administration, which the nation knows is, at this time, opposed to any such action.”

Twenty-Five Years Ago: In the midst of trying to balance the socially conservative and moderate factions of the GOP, Republican National Committeeman Jim Nicholson was also battling accusations of both violating fundraising laws and not being “moral enough.”

Leslie Hanks, a former pro-life Republican turned pro-life Constitution Party activist, took Nicholson to task for “his party’s weakness in upholding the pro-life party platform.”

“RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson reportedly receives numerous unhappy responses to his incessant fundraising pleas,” Hanks said. “When recipients are asked to rate their priorities on the tough issues facing our nation, restoring the constitutional right to life to the unborn is never listed among the [options].”

Hanks told The Colorado Statesman that she’d been compelled to act after seeing a report from a fellow right-to-life supporter and had called Nicholson’s office to vent about his “wimpy” response on the pro-life issue.

Nicholson wrote to Hanks that “ … I am pro-life, but I recognize that not all Republicans share my view. As chairman … I am committed to working on behalf of a great many issues that unite our party — a balanced budget, lower taxes, a smaller, less intrusive government …”

Hanks said that if Gov. Roy Romer, the Democratic Party National Committee chairman, were to write a similar “sell-out” letter to pro-abortion supporters, he would be removed in short order.

Tim Leonard, state chairman of the Colorado Constitution Party, argued that Jim Nicholson might have been pro-life “at one time. But he is selling out unborn babies now. Is this what Republican leadership is all about?”

Rachael Wright is the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Gazette.