May 08, 2014 08:10 AM UTC

Bob Beauprez, Call Your Consultants

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Leafing through GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez's expenditure report, we found this item, which–to be clear–isn't by itself unusual in the least:

At the end of March, Beauprez's campaign paid GOP-aligned consultant firm Magellan Strategies $1,000 for a voter ID phone bank–a very routine service to help candidates identify likely supporters.

The funny thing is, Beauprez hired the very same Magellan Strategies who released this poll of the Colorado gubernatorial race only two weeks later, graphed via Politico:

A poll that shows Beauprez losing by fifteen points to incumbent Gov. John Hickenlooper. We assume this poll wasn't paid for by the Beauprez campaign, because if it had been, they would have ordered all copies shredded before it ever saw the light of day.

In 2006, Beauprez lost to Democrat Bill Ritter by a seventeen-point margin, a beatdown that has established itself in Colorado political history as one of the most lopsided defeats ever dealt to a candidate at one point considered a viable competitor. Beauprez's drilling in 2006 is a big reason why so many Republicans are unhappy to see him in the 2014 race–the only caveat being the want of a viable alternative. But needless to say, starting from fifteen points in the hole isn't what you'd call "viable" either.

As for Magellan Strategies, obviously they know the score. But they still take checks.