June 30, 2014 11:56 AM UTC

It's Official: Bob Beauprez Thinks You're Stupid

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: 9NEWS' Kyle Clark follows up, as this story finally stretches its legs:

Republican Bob Beauprez, who will face Governor John Hickenlooper in November, distinguished between the civil war he said Obama is risking and a peaceful civil war through the ballot box that Beauprez championed…

On Focus Today, Beauprez went on to distinguish between the threat of revolution he claimed is being caused by President Obama's actions and a peaceful electoral shakeup he called for in his 2009 book A Return To Values.

"I did call for a revolution," Beauprez told Focus Today [in 2012], "But one at the ballot box where people take back this great republic, a government of by and for the people."

9NEWS posted the whole original 2012 interview, and Bob Beauprez does say that he himself was calling for a "revolution at the ballot box"–instead of the actual revolution that Obama is pushing the nation to. If we're reading this right, Beauprez undid his clumsy attempt at clarification from this weekend's interview, and made sure we all know this was no metaphorical "civil war" Obama is pushing us to. Clark's Tweet summarizes better:

.@BobBeauprez said he feared Obama is pushing America to a civil war and not the civil war at the ballot box Beauprez supports #copolitics

— Kyle Clark (@KyleClark) July 1, 2014

Note to Bob Beauprez: your "clarification" isn't helping.

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​One of the more troubling clips of video that has emerged from Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob Beauprez's "time in the wilderness," that is the period since his last electoral defeat and the present day, is a 2012 interview on the Christian television network theDove TV in which Beauprez claims that the Obama administration is "pushing the boundaries" toward "civil war." After we posted the video clip of Beauprez making these comments, the story was picked up and circulated "monster of the week" style on national progressive blogs.

And then last week, Bob Beauprez won the GOP gubernatorial primary. And suddenly, not just some washed up crackpot ex-Congressman making these nutty comments, it's the GOP gubernatorial nominee for Colorado.

Since that time, we've been waiting eagerly for the media to get around to asking Beauprez what he meant when he said that President Barack Obama is "pushing the boundaries" toward "civil war," maybe to offset the daily drumbeat of Denver Post hit pieces adding absolutely nothing new to their two-week-old rehash of Governor John Hickenlooper's remarks to the county sheriffs. And this weekend, 9NEWS' Kyle Clark did manage to ask Beauprez what he meant by that whole civil war thing. At 08:35 in Clark's interview with Beauprez on Balance of Power, here is what Beauprez says:

CLARK: When you said two years ago that you hope and pray that we don't see another civil war in this country, but the Obama administration is, quote "pushing the boundaries like none I think we've ever seen." What did you mean by that? Do you really think that the President is pushing American to civil war?

BEAUPREZ: Yeah, uh, well, civil war at the ballot box. [Pols emphasis] I think I wrote about this in my 2009 book, A Return to Values…

CLARK: Well, you used "revolution" in the same sentence. Were you talking about the ballot box when you said "revolution?"

BEAUPREZ: There are, there are a great…let me finish what I said. In my 2009 book, I called for a revolution at the ballot box. A peaceful revolution. That people needed to rise up and, and defend this republic. As Ben Franklin told the us, "we gave you a republic if you can keep it." There's a lot of people very concerned about this republic right now. Some of them are concerned enough that I do worry they may step over that line. I'm not calling for that…

For everyone's reference, here is the transcript of the original video of Beauprez's comments:

ATKINSON: You know Congressman, this, this, I don't even like going down this road, but if this saw the light of day, and God forbid that it would, but if this saw the light of day, wouldn't this be a modern-day civil war in this country?

BEAUPREZ: Well, some are wondering what will be the, the line that gets crossed eventually, where, where people actually rise up and say enough. I mean, our founding documents refer to it, that people have every right, a free people have every right, that when government becomes too obtrusive, too obsessive, too overwhelming, and infringes on their individual liberty and freedom, free people have the right to overthrow that government and establish a new one.

I hope and pray that, that we don't see another revolution in this country. I hope and pray we don't see another civil war, but this administration is pushing the boundaries like none I think we've ever, ever seen. [Pols emphasis]

What's remarkable about this is not that Beauprez is backpedaling from his very clear implication that a civil war could be the reasonable and appropriate result of the Obama's administration's "pushing the boundaries," which of course contains no disclaimer whatsoever that he is referring to "the ballot box." Obviously, he has to say something, because a gubernatorial nominee speaking sympathetically about starting a civil war is not electable–at least not yet in modern American history. The problem with Beauprez is this: it's going to happen over and over. There are so many nutty statements lurking out there in the record that Beauprez hasn't been made to answer for, just like this one–and all of them were known before Republicans made the decision to nominate him.

What's remarkable today is that Republicans didn't understand how bad this was going to get.