View From a Height

Good grief:

An intern for the Holtzman campaign, Laura Mendenhall, tried to block a Beauprez staffer, Jory Taylor, from videotaping the event. That outraged the Beauprez campaign, which says it routinely tapes such forums.

"They were shoving him out of the way," said John Marshall, a spokesman for Beauprez. "They totally accosted him. This is just junior high school stuff. It's disappointing and juvenile and not befitting a campaign for the highest office in Colorado."

A spokesman for Holtzman said Mendenhall had made "a rookie mistake" and gotten carried away. "She's very protective of Marc," said Jesse Mallory.

...

Mallory said the Holtzman campaign apologized for the incident.

"We're sorry the girls in our campaign beat up the boys in their campaign," he said.

That's a very funny line, although there's probably some group out there representing roller derby participants asking for an apology because, after all, why shouldn't girls beat up boys?

Still, it seems that the Holtzman campaign has lost its cool - collectively or individually - before, and that they're making a lot of these rookie mistakes. The press is a little forgiving because, well, it's Republicans beating up other Republicans, and while that may make for good copy, there's no point in taking sides in the other guys' fight. The nominee isn't going to get the same breaks when it's Bill Ritter up there bloviating about photographers.

And notice something else. The debate was supposed to be about returning Ref C dollars that the Ref C campaign said it didn't need but has now discovered that if the state doesn't keep, we're all going to find ourselves leaving for a better life in northern Mexico.

The only substantive ink on the proposal went to Ritter.

So while the Beauprez campaign is helping the Holtzman campaign make headlines with tactics, the Democrats get to make their case. Sure, the reporter could have demoted the scuffle to a line or two, and written a story about the issue, but this was so much more fun, and why give him the excuse?

Nice going, guys.