FOE OF DRUG WAR CHALLENGING TOLTZ IN DEM PRIMARY

Jack Woehr - as in drug war - is roiling the waters again.

Democrat Ken Toltz, the presumed challenger to U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo
in the 6th Congressional District, was going to petition his way onto
the ballot.

That's how Mark Udall did it in the 2nd District in 1998, and Toltz
felt it was a good way to introduce himself around the district and
gain grassroots support.

He's already attracted lots of money and national media
attention.

But then former candidate Woehr of Golden, a maverick whose only
serious issue is the drug war (he's against it), decided to jump in.
He filed notice of his candidacy last week, barely beating the
deadline. Woehr ran for the same seat in 1994, but lost the nomination
to John Hallen (who then got wiped out by Rep. Dan Schaefer).

Now Toltz is compelled to go the assembly route himself. He can't
afford to speak to a convention that cannot vote for him. And he
doesn't want to be second line on the primary ballot, which is what
petitioners get.

Does Woehr have a chance of getting 30 percent?

"I don't know, but I think they think I can," he said. "They" are
Democratic friends who've been spending the last few days trying to
get him to withdraw on grounds his campaign is futile. He's not going
to.

Toltz, he concedes, "has $1 million; I have an accordion."

He's not lying. But he has no monkey (or money) to go with it. He said
he won't raise or spend funds.

Toltz gamely said he has "no problem" with Woehr's candidacy. As for
the petitions, he can now use them for wallpaper on his campaign office.

Challenging Udall: Lawyer Larry Johnson easily won top line at the 2nd
Congressional District Republican assembly last week with 53.1 percent
of the delegate vote.

Also making the ballot was businesswoman Carolyn Cox, a Social
Security reformer, with 34.3 percent.

The winner of the Aug. 8 primary will face Rep. Mark Udall in
November.

Shut out was former marketing executive Michael Kennedy, with 10.5
percent, and last-minute entry David Ryan of Louisville, who garnered
just 2 percent.

Boulder County Treasurer Sandy Hume was present but didn't speak. If
he wants to petition onto the ballot, he has until Tuesday to turn in
1,000 valid signatures.

The theme of all candidates was pro-gun and pro-life, said District
chairman Jim Abbott.

An anti-abortion slate -- right-to-work promoter Guy Short, Rep. Mark
Paschall and former nurse Debra Puckett -- swept all three delegate
slots to the GOP National Convention.

Give! Former Gov. Roy Romer, who at 71 doesn't think the vacant school
superintendent's job in Denver is challenging enough and is holding
out for the Los Angeles version, personally helped hang a new portrait
of himself in the Statehouse last weekend.

Romer ordered the original portrait, hung early last year, taken down
after only two weeks because of its informality. It showed him in a
bomber jacket giving his familiar thumbs-up sign.

Now he's in a gray suit -- with one hand outstretched. That pose should
be equally familiar -- not only to all the Democratic (and Republican)
donors he touched during his many campaigns, but to the voters he
tried to sell on various tax-raising schemes.

The new portrait set him back $10,000. But no, there's no tin cup
nailed to the bottom of it.

Wadhams gone? The rumor was first aired in this column six months ago,
and now it's back, stronger than ever: Dick Wadhams, press secretary
to Gov. Bill Owens, will leave his post -- at least temporarily 97 to
run the re-election campaign of Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.

Wadhams has worked for Burns before, as Washington press aide in 1993
and as his campaign manager in 1994.

Wadhams, an expert at the nondenial denial, maintains he's staying put
for the "foreseeable future," just "doing my job for my governor in
the state of my birth." But the foreseeable future may be only a week
or two. Owens must finish acting on all leftover legislative bills by
Friday.