GOP Senate candidates pepper one another with questions at Tuesday debate
Beleaguered U.S. Senate candidate Jon Keyser took the offensive Tuesday night in a debate hosted by The Denver Post, blaming the media for how it has handled evidence that a petition circulator forged signatures to put him on the June primary ballot.
“There’s a big problem here in the media,” Keyser said. “I don’t know anybody jumping out of the bushes to ask Michael Bennet about his votes on Iran.”
Keyser is in a five-way GOP showdown to face Sen. Michael Bennet in November.
But the first hurdle was getting on the ballot, a step that made all but two candidates stumble, including Keyser.
7News reporter Marshall Zelinger uncovered 10 registered voters who said their names had been forged on a petition Keyser submitted to get on the ballot, and went to Keyser’s house in Golden to ask questions about the alleged forgeries.
The Denver District Attorney is investigating the petition gatherer who is accused of forging the signatures.
“That employee apparently broke the law, and that is a very serious thing,” Keyser said. “But we have got to make sure that we are talking about the issues that Republicans care about.”
The issue might have died there, but the only candidate who can cast stones on this issue – Darryl Glenn, the sole candidate who didn’t have to petition his way onto the ballot – drew Keyser’s name out of a hat and got to ask a question of Keyser toward the end of the 90-minute debate.
“John, we are both Air Force Academy grads and we live by an honor code, and if there is an independent audit of every signature on your petitions and there are enough illegal signatures so that you no longer qualify for the ballot … will you withdraw from this race,” Glenn, an El Paso County commissioner, asked.
Keyser said he didn’t know what was going on with the circulator or the signatures but that it’s important the truth comes out.
“I will not drop out of this race. I’m sure that Michael Bennet wishes I would,” Keyser said.
Glenn quipped: “I’m sure the academy will be glad to hear that answer.”
The candidates asked each other tough questions.
Robert Blaha, a Colorado Springs businessman and banker, asked Jack Graham about getting fired from his position as athletic director at Colorado State University.
“I read your performance review,” Blaha said. “You were classified as a lousy leader and you were not trustworthy. That was from your peers.”
Graham said he would challenge Blaha to produce a true performance review, saying the one printed in newspapers was fabricated.
“Once I had completed the job of raising $60 million for a stadium, of hiring and firing nine new coaches, of extending 14 coaches contracts … once I got all that work done the decision was made to move me out and move me on for a variety of political decisions,” Graham said.
Keyser went after Graham for his political positions, accusing Graham of not being a true Republican because he supported a woman’s right to chose an abortion, gay marriage and amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Graham said Keyser was adopting a “Harry Reid style of politics” where he’d say anything regardless if it were true.
Graham said illegal immigrants should be allowed to get in line for legal status if they meet certain criteria, including being able to prove they have health insurance. He said he believes in the sanctity of life, but also that government should be “involved as minimially as possible” and that he would not support the overturn of the Supreme Court decision striking down state bans on abortion.
The only candidate who didn’t criticize his opponents was Ryan Frazier, a former Aurora city councilman who helped found and run a charter school.
Frazier, is waiting for the Colorado Supreme Court to decide whether he is a candidate in the race. He fell several hundred signatures short of making the ballot because of signatures that were invalidated by the secretary of state.
Frazier called those “clerical or technical errors.”
“This is usually the part of the program where the media and Michael Bennet, quite frankly expect us to beat up on each other,” Frazier said before asking a softball question of Glenn that actually targeted Bennet. “I’m not going to do that. I think we are better than that and this isn’t about any one of us. This is about our country.”
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Colorado U.S. Senate candidates, Robert Blaha, from left, Ryan Frazier, Darryl Glenn, Jack Graham and Jon Keyser, participate in a Republican Senate debate hosted by The Denver Post in Denver, Tuesday, May 17, 2016. (John Leyba/The Denver Post via AP)
DENVER, CO – January 09: Colorado Rep. Jon Keyser, R-Jefferson County at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum January 09, 2015. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Darryl Glenn
Robert Blaha
Jack Graham speaks at a press conference after his hiring as the athletic director at Colorado State University in 2011. Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post
U.S. Congressional candidate, Republican Ryan Frazier discusses the issues during a debate at KBDI television in Denver on Thursday Oct. 14, 2010. (AP Photo&fras1; Matt McClain)