A few days after he so decisively won the 1994 Colorado Republican gubernatorial primary, Bruce Benson responded to Roy Romer's challenge to do "30 debates" around the state. Benson said 30 was too many and proposed 11 debates instead. Benson also insisted that each debate be one-hour long, be limited to a single topic, and be conducted without open questions from the news media or the public.

Debating Bruce Benson was an integral part of the Roy Romer strategy for winning reelection as governor. According to Scott Chase, the deputy campaign manager, the Romer forces wanted to take every opportunity to allow the voters to "compare and contrast" Bruce Benson with Roy Romer. The Romer team wanted the voters to see that Roy Romer "loved people and loved talking issues." They also wanted the voters to see that Bruce Benson did not know very much about Colorado and "did not like to meet his competitors in face-to-face confrontation."

"This is where the Mike Bird and Dick Sargent campaigns really helped us," Scott Chase explained. "Bird and Sargent forced Benson into a small number of debates, and we were able to see Benson's weaknesses. We particularly noticed that Benson had no interest in the state and local issues that Roy Romer considered so important. We also saw that Bruce Benson was just plain uncomfortable when debating and preferred to do his campaigning in television ads. We decided to exploit these Benson vulnerabilities that came out so clearly in the Republican primary."

The Romer forces found negotiating with Bruce Benson over a debate schedule to be as difficult and frustrating a process as the Bird and Sargent forces had found it. When Romer campaign manager Alan Salazar went to negotiate a debate schedule with Benson campaign manager Katy Atkinson, he was stunned to find newspaper reporters invited to and present at the meeting. Salazar had to sit and listen to the Benson camp's many "restrictions" on conducting the debates with Jennifer Gavin of the Denver Post and Thaddeus Herrick of the Rocky Mountain News listening to every word and taking extensive notes. What Salazar had thought was going to be a "private negotiating session" had been turned into a "campaign event" by the Benson people.

The arguing back and forth over debates between Roy Romer and Bruce Benson left a strong impression in voters' minds. Roy Romer, similar to Mike Bird during the Republican primary, was the candidate who appeared to be most anxious to debate. As he had during the GOP primary, Bruce Benson appeared skeptical, hesitant, and almost hostile about debating. In essence, when it came to constantly challenging Benson to debate, or to debate more, Romer took over where Bird left off.

DEBATING UNDER THE INFLUENCE

On Wednesday, September 7, 1994, two days after Labor Day, Democrat Roy Romer and Republican Bruce Benson met for their first debate. The setting was the KRMA-TV Channel 6 television studio in Denver. Moderating the debate was Clifford May, an associate editor of the Rocky Mountain News and host of KRMA-TV's "Roundtable" news discussion program.

The three men sat around a circular wooden table in the television studio with Romer and Benson facing each other. Roy Romer debated in his shirtsleeves. Bruce Benson kept his suit coat on. The debate was being taped to play on the air the following Friday evening, but the Colorado political press corps, as they had done during the Republican primary, covered the debate taping as if it were a live political event.

The debate began routinely enough. Democrat Romer opened by reviewing his major campaign themes - jobs, education, the environment, and crime. But then, in a surprising move, Republican Benson responded by talking about some of the problems he had in his business career and his life.

"There are things in business that don't always work out right," Benson said. "Oil spills and water spills and things like that, but we've cleaned them up."

Before either Roy Romer or moderator Clifford May could react to Benson's comments on the environmental problems with his oil wells, Benson came out with an additional confession. "To be real honest with you," he said, "I have a rotten driving record." Benson then revealed he had been arrested twice in the early 1980s for DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol). "I think the voters of Colorado need to know that," Benson concluded.

Clearly Bruce Benson had come to the KRMA-TV Channel 6 debate intending to make this "drunk driving" confession. He brought up the subject the first time he was asked to speak, with no prompting from either Romer or the debate moderator. Benson's campaign manager, Katy Atkinson, was prepared to talk about it too, and she willingly answered reporters' questions.

Both arrests for drunk driving took place in Lakewood, an upscale suburb to the southwest of Denver. One was in the spring of 1980 and the other in December of 1981. In both cases police reports said Benson's car was observed weaving through traffic and following other vehicles too closely. Police said Benson flunked roadside drunk tests but was cooperative and not abusive with arresting officers.

Tests revealed that Benson's blood alcohol level at the time of the 1980 incident was .117. At the time of the 1981 arrest it measured even higher at .148. Anything over .100 is considered driving under the influence in Colorado. Neither case involved an accident, campaign manager Atkinson pointed out. Bruce Benson pleaded one case down to reckless driving and the other down to driving a defective vehicle. Benson was ordered by the court to go to substance abuse classes but did not undergo treatment for alcohol addiction.

In addition, it was revealed that Bruce Benson's driver's license was suspended in November of 1978 because he received too many speeding tickets. Benson got most of the tickets driving between Denver and Kansas, one of the main states where his oil drilling company does business. Benson was allowed to drive on a provisional license until he got his regular license back. Then, in March of 1992 in Denver and July of 1993 in Westminster, a Denver suburb, Benson received two more speeding tickets. These tickets were pleaded down to driving a defective vehicle.

Bruce Benson was very apologetic as he made his confession. He admitted to being a bad driver but denied that he had a drinking problem. He described himself as a "moderate social drinker." Benson explained:

The Denver Post worked both sides of the street on the Benson DUIs story. It played the story very big in its news columns. In several of its byline political columns and its editorial on the Benson DUIs, however, the Denver Post argued that such personal information about Benson should not be a major factor in the 1994 Colorado gubernatorial election campaign.

BEA ROMER'S NEW CAR

On Sunday, September 18, 1994, the Rocky Mountain News ran a major story on Bea Romer, Governor Romer's wife, being assigned a brand new, state-leased, $30,000 Chevrolet Caprice automobile complete with such luxuries as a compact disc player. The large full-size sedan, in which state police officers would drive Colorado's First Lady to official events, was ordered for Mrs. Romer by Governor Romer himself.

The sticker price on the car was only slightly more than $20,000, but a six-year lease-purchase agreement inflated the cost an additional $10,000 to a total of about $30,000.

And there was another problem. The automobile had been purchased from an automobile dealer, which explained why it had those additional luxury options such as the compact disc player, power seats, special tires, and a heavy-duty cooling system. The vehicle had not been purchased as part of a state fleet order direct from the manufacturer, which would have produced a less luxurious car but at a highly discounted price.

Roy Romer's initial reaction was to defend his wife having a more luxurious and comfortable automobile provided by the state. He pointed out that previously the state police had been driving Bea Romer around in a five-year-old 1989 Chevrolet Caprice with 70,000 miles on it. Roy Romer said:

"I was riding in that car and it was absolutely - it was one that a person ought not be riding in, in terms of its functionality. It was a very old car and very hard and uncomfortable to ride in."

Roy Romer justified his wife having a state car and driver at her disposal on the grounds that Bea Romer worked as a full-time volunteer for the state. During Roy Romer's eight years as governor, Bea Romer actively promoted early childhood education and literacy programs in Colorado. She worked to establish a preschool program for four-year-olds in deprived neighborhoods that had grown to serve more than 4,000 children.

Governor Romer defended his wife's efforts and her need for a decent automobile quite vehemently. He said: "Just let me tell you, Bea Romer serves without pay and she needs a car and she deserves a car that is comfortable to ride in...."

Most political observers believed that Roy Romer had really gotten his timing wrong on this operation. Why had he ordered a new state car for his wife in the middle of a hard-fought reelection campaign? Isn't that just the time the voters would be most sensitive about even the slightest appearance of government waste on the governor's part? Further, it appeared that Roy Romer was so confident of winning reelection that he ordered his wife a new state car with a six year lease. To some of the political cognoscenti, with Romer and Benson running neck-and-neck in the early polls at the time, that looked like foolhardy - and perhaps embarrassing - overconfidence.

Three days after the Rocky ran its exposé, Roy Romer dramatically changed his tune about how expensive and luxurious a state motor vehicle his wife needed. He ordered the 1994 Chevrolet Caprice returned to the automobile dealership where it was leased. Bea Romer was assigned a 1991 Chevrolet Caprice that was already owned by the state, had 47,000 miles on it, and had a current value of $8,900, more than $20,000 less than the $30,000 lease-purchase cost of the 1994 vehicle.

OPENING THE BENSON DIVORCE FILE

Eight days after Bruce Benson won the 1994 Colorado Republican gubernatorial primary with a smashing 60 percent of the vote, KUSA-TV Channel 9 in Denver filed suit to have Benson's divorce file opened.

Bruce Benson divorced his first wife, Nancy Benson, in October of 1993 after 30 years of marriage. He married his second wife, Marcy Benson, one month after the divorce became final. As Colorado law permits, Bruce and his first wife, Nancy, had their divorce file sealed and thereby made unavailable for public inspection. After Bruce Benson turned down a request from KUSA-TV to open the divorce file voluntarily, KUSA-TV went to court to get the file and its contents made public.

Dave Lougee explained that KUSA-TV had received more than one telephone call about the existence of Bruce Benson's divorce file and that the file had been sealed from public view. "One of our staff members got a tip," Lougee said, "and the tip was not from someone in the Roy Romer campaign for governor. From the very beginning, our interest was in gaining access to a sealed file. We never addressed the issue of whether or not we would report on the contents of the file."

Bruce Benson and his first wife, Nancy Benson, strenuously contested the opening of the divorce file by the courts. In mid-September of 1994, however, only six weeks before election day, Colorado District Court Judge Morris Hoffman ruled against Bruce Benson and Nancy Benson. To keep the divorce file sealed, Hoffman said, one of the persons involved - Bruce Benson or his ex-wife - would have to demonstrate they had a privacy interest that was more important than the public's interest. The fact that Bruce Benson was running for governor, the judge said, added great weight to the public interest in the case. Judge Hoffmann concluded:

"The Bensons have failed to show their privacy interests outweigh the public's interest. This is a domestic case not unlike the thousands we see all the time. I see nothing in this file in which the Bensons have a particular privacy interest."

The judge acknowledged the divorce file might contain materials that were embarrassing or that might portray one of the persons involved as "not a nice person," but he said those sorts of charges were part of almost every divorce case.

The judge gave Bruce Benson and his ex-wife, Nancy Benson, the opportunity to keep the divorce file sealed until his decision could be appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. The Bensons decided not to appeal, however, because they believed it likely the high court would uphold the lower court. Reluctantly, Bruce Benson scheduled a press conference at which the contents of his divorce file would be opened for all to see.

DIVORCE IN AMERICAN POLITICS

At one time divorce was considered a major problem for anyone seeking elected office in the United States. Supposedly there were four great symbols that all candidates had to claim to represent and support - the Bible, the United States flag, the United States Constitution, and "family life." There was definite agreement that "family life" involved a hard-working husband, a loving wife, and a home filled with happy children. Divorce was not considered an acceptable part of this "family life" scene.

By the mid-20th Century, however, it was slowly becoming acceptable for a candidate for a major political office - such as president of the United States or governor of a state - to be divorced. Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate for president in 1952 and again in 1956, was divorced and had never remarried. Although Stevenson lost both elections to Dwight D. Eisenhower, the fact he was divorced did not become an issue in either election campaign.

In 1964 Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York, ran for the Republican nomination for president. A member of one of the nation's most prominent and wealthy families, Rockefeller was considered a strong candidate. He had recently divorced and remarried, however, and his new wife, Happy Rockefeller, was pregnant with their first child. The baby was born just days before the California Republican presidential primary, and Rockefeller narrowly lost that primary to U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Goldwater went on to win the 1964 Republican presidential nomination, and a number of political commentators attributed Rockefeller's loss to his divorce, remarriage, and the birth of the baby just prior to a key presidential primary.

By the 1980s, however, divorce appeared to no longer be any factor at all in important national and state election campaigns. Ronald Reagan, a well-known Hollywood movie actor, divorced an equally well-known movie star, Jane Wyman, and later married his second wife, Nancy. Being divorced and remarried appeared to have no effect whatsoever on Reagan's two successful campaigns for the California governorship. Reagan was elected president of the United States in 1980 and thunderingly reelected in 1984. In neither campaign was his divorce and remarriage raised as an issue.

As for Ronald Reagan's first wife, Jane Wyman, her former husband getting elected president enabled her to revive her acting career. During much of Reagan's tenure in the White House, Jane Wyman starred in a weekly television dramatic series.

Although divorce and remarriage were not considered political assets in the 1990s, they definitely were not viewed as a bar to anyone seeking elected office. Many divorced men and women held important elected offices by the mid-1990s. Marital status had, for all intents and purposes, ceased to be an issue in United States election campaigns.

THE BENSON DIVORCE FILE

The opening of the Bruce Benson-Nancy Benson divorce file made all the intimate details of the Benson family's private life available to the public and the news media. Every event, every charge and countercharge, and even the "harsh words" of a failing marriage were revealed for all to see. The major news media in Colorado carefully combed through the three-inch-high divorce file and then ran long articles or broadcast lengthy news items summarizing the "highlights."

Also revealed were the details of the Bruce Benson-Nancy Benson property settlement. These items were made more interesting by the fact that Bruce Benson was a very successful businessman. Among the items mentioned in the divorce file were an expensive home in Denver, a luxury condominium at the Vail ski resort, a Mercedes-Benz automobile, and a valuable James Abbott McNeill Whistler painting.

The divorce file was released to the news media and then, two hours later, Bruce Benson held a press conference. Joining him were his second wife, Marcy, and two of his children from his first marriage, David and Ann. More than two dozen news reporters crowded into the press conference and peppered Benson with questions. He responded openly and adroitly, projecting the image of a political candidate who was able to take a hard punch as well as give one.

Bruce Benson began with an apology about the contents of his divorce file. "I'm fully admitting the errors of my ways in my life," he said. "Are there things in my life I'm not proud of? You bet!"

The Republican nominee for governor of Colorado then acknowledged that the contents of the divorce file might possibly ruin his chances to be elected. He said: "If it's too much and it takes me down, it takes me down."

Benson went on to note that, in the end, he and his family had made every possible detail about their lives available to the scrutiny of the electorate. "If you care enough about your state and country, you've got to put it out there," he said. "I think we've probably set a record in Colorado for opening up our lives."

Benson then publicly charged the campaign staff of his opponent, incumbent Democratic governor Roy Romer, with slipping word to KUSA-TV about the damaging contents of the divorce file. The Romer reelection campaign immediately denied the charge in a strongly worded statement. It said:

"The Romer campaign has been very clear that we have had no hand in making Mr. Benson's divorce records an issue in this election.... Attempts by the Benson campaign to 'spin' the idea that the Romer campaign is somehow behind or connected to this story is a political tactic, and we will not allow this suggestion to go unchallenged."

HOW HARD A HIT?

The Colorado political press corps was very careful not to comment directly on Bruce Benson's divorce file. There was a great deal of speculation, however, on how the contents of the file would affect his campaign for governor. The timing could not have been worse for Benson. The divorce file was made public six weeks before election day, just at the time many citizens were beginning to pay real attention to the election.

"I think he's toast," said pollster Paul Talmey, implying that Benson could not possibly be elected. Talmey, who conducted polls for the Denver Post, said the divorce file raised the question: "Is this the kind of guy you want to be top dog in the state?"

Talmey said the messy divorce was particularly "devastating" because it came right after Bruce Benson's disclosure of two drunken driving arrests in the early 1980s.

Robert Gardner, chairman of the El Paso County (Colorado Springs) Republican Party, argued the voters would rapidly tire of the contents of Benson's divorce file and get back to evaluating the two candidates for governor on the issues. "It's going to be old news next week," Gardner said. "The public's going to look at it and see there's nothing really very astounding there."

Fred Brown, the political columnist for the Denver Post, saw Bruce Benson's divorce file as another piece "of negative political baggage that weighs him down." It was Brown's view that, revelation by revelation, Benson was progressively losing more votes than he was gaining. No one revelation was a "mortal wound," Brown wrote, but the combination of Benson's DUIs plus Benson's divorce plus Benson's overemphasis on money in the campaign was starting to hurt Benson badly.

The Colorado political press corps was having a field day with the Benson divorce file. After the first round of stories about the divorce file itself, there was the second round of stories about how badly the messy divorce file would hurt Benson's campaign. It almost seemed that every political analyst and commentator in the entire state of Colorado had been asked to speculate, in print or on television and radio, on how the divorce revelations would affect Benson's chances of being elected.

BENSON'S COLLAPSE IN THE POLLS

Two weeks after Bruce Benson made his divorce file public, the Denver Post and KCNC-TV Channel 4 published the results of their latest poll on the governor's race in Colorado. The poll had been conducted during the period immediately following the revelations concerning Benson's "messy divorce," so the poll purportedly was a good measure of how the divorce issue was affecting the gubernatorial contest.

The news was all bad for Bruce Benson. As of October 5, 1994, just one month before election day, Democrat Roy Romer was leading Republican Benson by more than 20 percentage points. Romer had the support of 53 percent of the persons surveyed. Benson had the support of only 31 percent.

Even more disturbing for the Benson campaign was the fact that Benson had been doing better against Romer the previous summer than he was doing in the fall. The previous Denver Post/KCNC-TV Channel 4 poll, taken in mid-July shortly before Benson won the Republican gubernatorial primary, showed Romer only 12 percentage points ahead of Benson. At that time 45 percent of poll respondents supported Romer and 33 percent supported Benson. In the three months from July to October, Romer had gone from being 12 points ahead of Benson to 22 points ahead.

Pollster Paul Talmey considered the poll results particularly notable in view of the fact that Benson had been spending so much money on television ads and direct mail during September and early October. "It isn't so much a surprise that Romer is ahead as it is that Benson's so far behind," Talmey commented. "It ain't over 'till it's over, but for all the money Benson has spent, he's not doing well.... It's rare to see a challenger against an incumbent who goes up and then drops back so fast. It really does have to be laid at the feet of some of the personal problems he's had."

The early October Denver Post/KCNC-TV Channel 4 poll indicated that Bruce Benson was doing particularly poorly with the women's vote in Colorado. Among women voters, Romer was leading Benson 59 percent to 24 percent, a 35 percentage point lead. Among men voters, Romer was leading Benson by only 47 percent to 37 percent, a 10 percentage point lead.

In a series of issue contests concerning the two gubernatorial candidates, the poll found that Bruce Benson was more popular than Roy Romer on only one issue - cutting taxes. Forty-one percent of poll respondents said Bruce Benson would do the better job of "keeping taxes down" while only 23 percent said Roy Romer would. Particularly ominous for the Benson campaign was the fact that only 19 percent of those polled believed Benson would do the best job of "setting the right moral tone for the state." Forty-eight percent of respondents ranked Roy Romer high on the moral tone scale.

The bad news about the Bruce Benson divorce file, and its dynamic effect on Benson's standing in the polls, caused a great deal of soul-searching in the Colorado Republican Party. Many leading members of the GOP told Mike Bird and members of his campaign staff that it now appeared the party would have been much better off with Bird rather than Benson as its 1994 gubernatorial candidate.

There was a popular television commercial some years earlier in which a frustrated man, having just drunk a sugary and fattening softdrink, lamented the fact that he could have had a healthful vegetable juice drink instead. "I could have had a V-8," was the final line of the commercial. After the release of Bruce Benson's divorce file, some Colorado Republicans were going around saying: "We could have had a Mike Bird!"

Clearly, by the time of the October 5, 1994, Denver Post/KCNC-TV Channel 4 voter poll, Roy Romer was comfortably ahead in the 1994 race for the Colorado governorship. From this point on, incumbent Democratic governor Roy Romer only had to hold on to the better part of his 20 percentage point lead to easily win the election. If Bruce Benson wanted to win, he would have to play catch-up politics - as aggressive and confrontational a brand of catch-up politics as he possibly could.