Republican gubernatorial candidate Marc Holtzman on Wednesday threatened to spurn his own party’s convention, saying he doesn’t trust the candidate-selection process.
For weeks, Holtzman has accused party leaders of backing his primary opponent, Bob Beauprez. On Wednesday, he sent GOP party chair Bob Martinez a letter citing “grave concerns” over the “potential for widespread fraud and manipulation” at the state convention next month.
If a list of 10 election process requirements included in the letter are not met, Holtzman’s spokesman Dick Leggitt said, the campaign might go around the party process and petition the secretary of state’s office to get on the ballot.
“By law it is our option to petition on,” Leggitt said. “And if we don’t get a process that is fair to Marc Holtzman and fair to all the people that support us across the state, we are prepared to do that.”
But Holtzman’s assertion that there is disagreement about how to hold elections at the May 20 convention confounded officials with both the state Republican Party and Beauprez’s campaign.
State Republican Party spokeswoman Rachael Sunbarger said, “Thus far there have not been any disagreements” during meetings with the campaigns.
Beauprez’s campaign called the letter posturing.
“We have agreed to everything they have asked for,” Beauprez spokesman John Marshall said. And if Holtzman has any new demands, they will agree to those, he said.
“We’ll meet in the street at high noon,” Marshall said.
To underscore the point, Marshall sent his own letter to the state GOP on Wednesday agreeing to Holtzman’s demands.
“The Beauprez campaign is happy to accept the 10 specific requests enumerated in the letter circulated by the Holtzman campaign this morning as we have agreed to these requests all along.”
The discrepancy left some speculating if Holtzman’s campaign was setting up a complaint on the election process in case he is unable to garner enough votes to make it on to the ballot.
Leggitt dismissed that charge. And he said Marshall’s claims of agreement on the election process were untrue.
“John Marshall spends a lot of his time out in the sun without a hat,” Leggitt said.
The Holtzman camp based its concerns on the troublesome party election at the convention in 2004. At the time, Republican Senate candidates Pete Coors and Bob Schaffer had to negotiate a ballot after voting troubles led to more votes counted than delegates present.
Holtzman focused on those problems in his letter.
“It is ironic that even Iraq, Venezuela and Nicaragua have held better elections than the Colorado Republican Party of 2004,” he wrote.
Sunbarger said a new state party administration has worked to improve the voting system.
“The party is just as concerned as the Holtzman campaign, and as I’m sure the Beauprez campaign is, about making sure the voting goes dramatically different than it did in 2004,” she said.
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 303-820-1657 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
