Smackdown #3: Ritter vs. Beauprez on Channel 7
Both Ways Bob Beauprez's bombshell never materialized. But the GOP gubernatorial nominee did debate better than he had in two previous appearances. (Which I covered here and here.) Was his performance enough to fool the citizens of Colorado into voting for him? No way.
Part One: We get off to a shaky start.
George Stephanopoulos' first question was about how a governor could take action to prevent tragedies like the one in Bailey. Ritter spoke from experience and gave a thorough response, but seemed to be rambling. Of course, Beauprez didn't have a good answer either. But he did seem more confident and clearer than he had in past forums.
I began to worry. As it turns out, I shouldn't have.
Part Two: The immigration debate.
Beauprez's strategy was to make the entire debate about immigration. And one of the earliest questions played into his hands. But Beauprez didn't say anything new. Instead, he trotted out the same old distortions. And he even parroted one of his own podcasts verbatim when he said, "Illegal immigration is illegal, isn't it?"
Ritter was ready, and he fired back with specific examples of how he dealt with illegal immigration as Denver's district attorney. Ritter's best line was, "Colorado's next governor needs to have more than a cocktail party familiarity with the criminal justice system."
Unfortunately, while Ritter made some references to Beauprez's vote to allow banks to accept matricula consular, he never explicitly pointed out that Both Ways Bob talks a hard line on illegal immigration here in Colorado, but has consistently voted in his own best interests in Washington DC.
Part Three: Beauprez shows his true stripes.
In the middle of attempting to tar Ritter's record of prosecuting illegal immigrants, Beauprez slid the tragedy in Bailey back into the conversation:
"Tell the people in Bailey that that was just an isolated incident."
It was an unconscionable and baffling moment. I have no idea why Beauprez thought it'd be a good idea to make political hay out of this tragedy. Or why it belonged in a discussion about Ritter's prosecution of immigrants. But I was so mad I just about went through my TV.
Beauprez also repeated the lie that he has spent his whole life in business, while Ritter has never worked in the private sector. I debunked this myth here.
Part Four: Turn out the lights on Both Ways Bob.
Beauprez made his biggest blunder at the very end of the debate. He attempted to launch an attack on Ritter's qualifications, lying that The Denver Post had questioned Ritter's judgement. Ritter pounced, pointing out that the Post was merely reporting Beauprez's comments. And then Ritter brought up the fact that the Post, far from questioning his judgement, has endorsed him for governor.
Beauprez has so few folks on his side, he's been reduced to quoting Ritter's supporters and hoping no one notices. Game over. Lights out. Ritter, 54% to 46%. Write it down.
Don't want to take my word for it? Watch the debate here.
Part One: We get off to a shaky start.
George Stephanopoulos' first question was about how a governor could take action to prevent tragedies like the one in Bailey. Ritter spoke from experience and gave a thorough response, but seemed to be rambling. Of course, Beauprez didn't have a good answer either. But he did seem more confident and clearer than he had in past forums.
I began to worry. As it turns out, I shouldn't have.
Part Two: The immigration debate.
Beauprez's strategy was to make the entire debate about immigration. And one of the earliest questions played into his hands. But Beauprez didn't say anything new. Instead, he trotted out the same old distortions. And he even parroted one of his own podcasts verbatim when he said, "Illegal immigration is illegal, isn't it?"
Ritter was ready, and he fired back with specific examples of how he dealt with illegal immigration as Denver's district attorney. Ritter's best line was, "Colorado's next governor needs to have more than a cocktail party familiarity with the criminal justice system."
Unfortunately, while Ritter made some references to Beauprez's vote to allow banks to accept matricula consular, he never explicitly pointed out that Both Ways Bob talks a hard line on illegal immigration here in Colorado, but has consistently voted in his own best interests in Washington DC.
Part Three: Beauprez shows his true stripes.
In the middle of attempting to tar Ritter's record of prosecuting illegal immigrants, Beauprez slid the tragedy in Bailey back into the conversation:
"Tell the people in Bailey that that was just an isolated incident."
It was an unconscionable and baffling moment. I have no idea why Beauprez thought it'd be a good idea to make political hay out of this tragedy. Or why it belonged in a discussion about Ritter's prosecution of immigrants. But I was so mad I just about went through my TV.
Beauprez also repeated the lie that he has spent his whole life in business, while Ritter has never worked in the private sector. I debunked this myth here.
Part Four: Turn out the lights on Both Ways Bob.
Beauprez made his biggest blunder at the very end of the debate. He attempted to launch an attack on Ritter's qualifications, lying that The Denver Post had questioned Ritter's judgement. Ritter pounced, pointing out that the Post was merely reporting Beauprez's comments. And then Ritter brought up the fact that the Post, far from questioning his judgement, has endorsed him for governor.
Beauprez has so few folks on his side, he's been reduced to quoting Ritter's supporters and hoping no one notices. Game over. Lights out. Ritter, 54% to 46%. Write it down.
Don't want to take my word for it? Watch the debate here.
3 Comments:
Bob Beauprez sounded like Foghorn Leghorn - trying to be folksy.
My notes:
Bob Beauprez said "Nobody is above the law" with respect to the Foley debate, which made me laugh. What in the hell does Bush do? I also liked when he said Bush is publicly appearing with him. George said, it is a private party, then BB said, No, I guess not.
My main complaint was that Beauprez's posed question was straight out of a Lieberman-Lamont debate, and he did respond to it in the way I would of.
He easily could have said at the end his spiel is that electing a congressman who has never passed a balanced budget and raises debt ceilings doesn't qualify him for a state that requires balanced budgets.
Yeah peterco, I agree that there are some easy lines of attack against Beauprez that Ritter hasn't taken advantage of.
So I read your review and thought, oh yeah, Both Ways Bob was bad...
But then I watched it. He was not bad! He was HORRIFIC.
Stuttering, slouching, not making sense. He reminded me of Bush, but not the well groomed Rovized bush.
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