Aspen
Think of it as some local newspaper letter writers do – a drunkard versus a pervert.
Think of it as some out-of-town reporters propose – a referendum on the drug war.
Think of it as the mayor suggests – “performance art” starring the late Hunter S. Thompson’s protégé who had to dry out in alcohol rehab before standing for re-election and co-starring a play cop who last year made a movie of himself masturbating in the Mojave Desert.
However you couch the 2006 Pitkin County sheriff’s election, it couldn’t be playing in a better venue than Aspen, the county seat. Once called the cocaine capital of the world, this town of the filthy rich and outrageously indulgent is the perfect – and maybe the only – stage for the theatrics of 20-year incumbent Bob Braudis and challenger Rick Magnuson.
“Aspen will accept certain things that would not be acceptable in other places,” Mayor Helen Klanderud admitted.
She mentioned the weird town in the old David Lynch TV series “Twin Peaks.”
How about Twin Freaks?
As a blogger on the Aspen Daily News website recently noted of the race: “Our town loves a freak.” Or maybe two.
Try a law enforcement candidate who brags he doesn’t focus on law enforcement, a sheriff whose department told a local paper he went to a “wellness center” when he really went to kick booze.
Try a challenger who publicized Braudis’ problem by leaving a message at a rehab center for the sheriff to call an Aspen newspaper editor, and the sheriff did.
“The fact that I didn’t hide, and the fact that (Magnuson) used deceptive practices really hurt him more,” Braudis said of his drinking problem.
Magnuson says he’s sorry about the rehab episode. But the unsworn “community safety officer” with the Aspen Police Department has no regrets about making a movie of his desert “performance.”
Typical of Pitkin County, this isn’t going to cost Magnuson the election, any more than Braudis’ battle with booze or his soft-on-drugs reputation will cost him a post he has held without opposition since 1986.
“I think Bob’s a little soft on drug issues, but not when it means something,” said painter Corey Thomas.
The movie “doesn’t show that (Magnuson) can’t be a good sheriff,” said Aspen resident Marilyn Harper. “It’s just in poor taste.”
“I’m no connoisseur of art,” joked 48-year-old Pitkin County resident John Dresser. Like Thomas and Harper, Dresser will vote for Braudis’ low-key approach, not against any perceived perversion by his opponent.
That Braudis seems likely to win in a landslide says plenty. While Magnuson has artistic baggage and little experience, he brings outrageous numbers to candidate forums like the one held Wednesday night at the Aspen Institute.
He introduced himself as a potential sheriff as you would only hear in Pitkin County – “I’m a card-carrying member of the ACLU.” Then, he claimed that he cannot find a single conviction of a drug dealer led by Braudis.
Only two of 29 reported rapes have led to arrests, Magnuson claimed. He pointed to drunken-driving deaths and fatal drug overdoses that are multiples of state and national rates.
Substance abuse demands “education, treatment and enforcement,” Magnuson said. “There is no enforcement here.”
Braudis, who bills himself as the “peace” candidate (“peace in the ‘hood, peace in the schools, peace in this whole valley”), countered that the things Magnuson cites are a police responsibility, not his. Yet other law enforcement agencies did not tell Braudis about a drug raid at two Aspen restaurants in December.
“There was one point of view that if the information had been passed on to the sheriff that the information would leak,” Mayor Klanderud acknowledged.
That doesn’t seem to matter to the majority of Pitkin County.
So from Bob Braudis they will get a sixth term of no-harm, no-foul drug policy. And from Rick Magnuson they will get a warning: “It’s not the ’70s anymore.”
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-954-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
