Douglas Bruce and John Newsome espouse conservative GOP ideologies, but that wasn’t enough to keep them in office.Voters in Tuesday’s primary election handed both incumbents bad conduct discharges based on behavior that went too far, political observers say.Bruce was ousted from state House District 15 and Newsome as 4th Judicial District attorney.”The personal behavior problems were the direct cause of their defeat,” said Bob Loevy, Colorado College political science professor. “I don’t think philosophy, party loyalty or anything of that nature came into this. Both elections were based completely on personal character as revealed through behavior.”Even El Paso County Republicans leader Nathan Fisk admitted credibility trumped credentials.”It comes down to personalities,” he said. “While substance is incredibly important, style is important, too, and you can’t separate the two.”Bruce, appointed to the seat in December, kicked or nudged a photographer who was taking pictures of him during a prayer at the Legislature’s opening session.He later refused to vote for a ceremonial resolution honoring service members and called immigrant farmworkers “illiterate peasants,” a move that got him canned from the State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.Newsome was caught on tape last spring drinking 130 ounces of beer in five hours and then driving a county vehicle. He also drew criticism for using taxpayer money for a business trip to Chicago during which he attended a football game. He repaid some expenses only after reporters sought travel records, and a state investigation is pending.Eric Sondermann, a political analyst in Denver, said Bruce’s defiance and Newsome’s apparent weak grasp of the serious nature of his infractions might have compounded their problems.”How an incumbent responds to a troubling situation is as revealing as the situation itself,” Sondermann said. “For Bruce and Newsome, the response served to underscore the underlying behavior as opposed to mitigating it.”Newsome disagreed he wasn’t contrite enough.”I consistently apologized for that circumstance,” he said of the drinking episode, “and vowed that it would never take place again. I disagreed with a lot of what was reported, but I did not make that the centerpiece of what I was running on.”Rather, he said, his campaign stressed his work on sentencing, convictions and new programs. His campaign trumpeted a 160 percent increase in prosecutions of economic crimes in 2005, and another 20 percent increase in 2007. Newsome said on his campaign Web site he “created the first true Special Victim’s Unit staffed by a dedicated group of seasoned attorneys.”Newsome chalked up his loss to voters wanting a change. “I trust the voters. I believe in the voters. The voters made their decision. They put me in office, and now they want to give someone else a chance,” he said.He wouldn’t say if he’ll run for office again and said he wants to spend more time with his family.Because his opponent, Dan May, doesn’t take office until January, Newsome said he will work closely with him to draft a budget this fall and help achieve a smooth transition.Bruce’s defeat at the hands of political newcomer Mark Waller, who says he agrees with Bruce on just about every issue, demonstrates the conflict in House District 15 wasn’t about ideology, said Bob Gardner, a state representative and former El Paso County Republican Party chairman.”It’s about choosing candidates who can carry the message,” he said.Bruce didn’t reply to a call seeking comment Tuesday. In the past, he’s blamed Democrats, Republicans and the news media for unfairly portraying him as a bully. That reputation contributed to Bruce’s loss, supporter Rita Pifer-Thieszen said.”The negative reporting caused a lot of it,” she said. “I think that he brought a lot onto himself, but I think that it was overemphasized in the press. He had a reputation of being disruptive, and it was hard to live down because he got tagged with that regardless of whether things were all his fault or not. There’s always two sides to the story.”Tuesday’s primaries also hint that the caucus system is fading. In the caucuses, party members pick delegates to attend conventions, and the delegates choose who gets a place on the primary election ballot.Two major races were won by candidates who sidestepped the caucus process: Rep. Doug Lamborn, in the 5th Congressional District, and May.”The caucus system is certainly not dead,” Sondermann said. “But it’s dying.” That’s because primary election voters are looking for different attributes than the extreme positions endorsed by party activists who control the caucuses, he said.Loevy said a move toward petitioning one’s way onto the ballot is a simple result of mathematics stemming from a state legislative change years ago that increased the number of delegates a candidate needs to reach the primary ballot from 20 percent to 30 percent. While the goal was to protect incumbents, the unintended outcome is that petitioning is predictable, he said.Fisk, the party leader, dismissed such talk, noting caucuses drew record numbers this year: “The caucus system is anything but dead.”

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