Don't blame me. I was willing to let sleeping horses lie.

Blame Bob Beauprez. I mean, nobody asked Beauprez - apparently tan, rested and ready - to announce his political comeback at a Republican caucus Monday.

He's the one who said, unsolicited, that we shouldn't rule him out for the 2008 U.S. Senate race. The funny thing is, he wasn't kidding.

Is there anyone - anywhere - who thinks Beauprez should possibly run for anything in 2008?

If so, please get in touch with me. Or with a counselor. Or with someone who sells black cowboy hats.

I wouldn't be picking on Beauprez - who's obviously having trouble dealing with his monumental loss to Bill Ritter - except that he suddenly seems representative of the Republican party, circa 2007. I'm not sure if the condition is worse at the state level or the national level. (This just in from the Pew Center: Nationally, Democratic-leaning voters have taken a 50-35 lead over Republican leaners. In other words, buy your blue paint now.)

In Colorado, Republicans are still stunned by their 2004 losses, which they blamed on rich Democrats. And then came the even more stunning 2006 losses - and everyone conceded there just couldn't be that many rich Democrats.

So what do the poor Republicans do for 2008? It's early, but they've already pushed out Scott McInnis, a moderate with a lobbyist problem, and left themselves with Bob Schaffer as the apparent leader in the clubhouse.

Schaffer is a conservative's conservative, who lost the 2004 Senate primary. If Republicans nominate Schaffer, the thinking must be that Republicans are losing because they're suddenly just not Republican enough.

You think I'm kidding. But the concept has become, in fact, a major Republican talking point. I was just with John McCain in New Hampshire, and that's exactly the point he made. He blamed the loss of Congress to Republican corruption and Republican overspending. (He didn't mention the social agenda. I guess he was leaving that for Schaffer. Or James Dobson.)

When I asked -- three times - about Iraq, McCain insisted each time that it didn't explain Republican losses. But if you want an idea of the weight of Iraq, look at congressional Democrats, who have suddenly become so courageous in passing a timetable for withdrawal.

Why so courageous? They can read a poll. Americans think the war in Iraq is a disaster. They don't trust the post-Katrina Bush to get things right. And most voters want the troops to come home. Soon.

And when Bush calls the Senate bill "disastrous," saying he will not negotiate on timetables, he must wonder himself about the timing.

It was the same day that the great American ally in the region, Saudi King Abdullah, called the U.S. presence in Iraq an "illegal foreign occupation." (The king had already canceled a state dinner at the White House. Apparently, he's booked for the season.)

It was the same day that Shiite police officers were being accused of revenge killings in Sunni neighborhoods in Tal Afar - hours after massive suicide bombings in Shiite neighborhoods.

But as the 2008 election nears, the question is less about Bush and more about who will succeed him. McCain was supposed to be the Republican front-runner, but polls keep pointing in the direction of Rudy Giuliani, the 9/11 mayor who's pro-choice and pro-gay rights and also invokes an America before everything bogged down in Iraq.

McCain called the Senate vote "a date certain for surrender." It's a good line, and there's a legitimate argument, I guess, to be made. There's an argument, too, that a strong congressional vote will force the Iraqi government's hand. And there's this most compelling argument from Chuck Hagel, a Republican who voted with the Democrats: "There will not be a military solution to Iraq."

But McCain didn't stop with his surrender argument. On the Straight Talk Express, he made one point very clear - that though he saw signs of success with the Bush surge, he didn't want to "hype" them. Well, my friends - as McCain likes to say - this is what we call hype:

McCain goes on radio with Bill Bennett to say there were parts of Baghdad "where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today."

Not satisfied, he tells Wolf Blitzer on CNN that Gen. Petraeus goes out in an "unarmed" Humvee, but that you'd be unlikely to hear about that through the "filter of some of the media."

You wouldn't hear about it because it's, uh, not actually true. No American walks down a Baghdad street unprotected. No commanding general goes out without a fully armed complement.

Blitzer went to CNN correspondent Michael Ware, who is stationed in Iraq, for an unhyped, on-site report.

"Well, I'd certainly like to bring Sen. McCain up to speed if he ever gives me the opportunity. And if I have any difficulty hearing you right now Wolf, that's because of the helicopters circling overhead and the gun battle that is blazing away just a few blocks down the road."

The lesson is clear: Wishing for success doesn't make it so.

Just ask Gov. Bob Beauprez.

littwinm@rockymountainnews.com.

Back to Top