On Wednesday, as Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob Beauprez toured Colorado to “build unity,” a video surfaced that Democrats say shows his divisiveness.

The video shows Beauprez in a speech to the Denver Rotary Club in 2010 making comments that echo those that hurt Mitt Romney’s challenge to President Barack Obama two years later.

“I see something that frankly doesn’t surprise me, having been on Ways and Means Committee: 47 percent of all Americans pay no federal income tax,” Beauprez said in the video. “I’m guessing that most of you in this room are not in that 47 percent — God bless you — but what that tells me is that we’ve got almost half the population perfectly happy that somebody else is paying the bill, and most of that half is you all.”

He indicated Democrats had reasons to keep it that way.

“I submit to you that there is a political strategy to get slightly over half and have a permanent ruling majority by keeping over half of the population dependent on the largesse of government that somebody else is paying for,” Beauprez said.

Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio, who alerted The Denver Post to the clip on YouTube, said the comments fly in the face of Beauprez’s “Unity Tour,” which featured his running mate and former GOP primary opponents.

“If he’s talking about unity, this is a funny way to show unity with Coloradans,” Palacio said. “He must be talking about unity with other Republicans, because he didn’t say anything about anybody else.”

Reached while traveling, Beauprez’s campaign stood by the remarks.

His campaign manager, Dustin Olson, said Beauprez had been talking about the same things on Wednesday’s tour: creating jobs and opportunities, “about lifting up and creating more opportunity.”

“I don’t see why it would be controversial to want more people to prosper,” Olson said. “We should be focused on building up our economy so more people have jobs and prosper. It is a sad state of affairs when people are in an economic situation where they are not able to pay federal income tax.”

WATCH the video featuring Bob Beauprez’s “47 percent” comments

In September 2012, Mother Jones magazine released a secretly recorded video of Romney — who is endorsing Beauprez this year — talking to a group of Republican donors. When Romney visited Colorado in 2012, Beauprez often stumped for the former Massachusetts governor.

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,” Romney said. “All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it — that that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.”

Fact-checkers found problems with Romney’s remarks. While it’s true that nearly 47 percent of Americans have enough deductions to pay no federal income tax, they pay other federal, state and local taxes, and many of those who do not pay federal income taxes and don’t depend on the government: senior citizens, the working poor and, because of deductions, more than 21,000 Americans who earned more than $200,000 in 2009.

Americans who pay no taxes at all amount to less than 10 percent of the population, according to The Washington Post, which gave Romney three Pinocchios out of four in its Fact Checker column.

Beauprez was correct in specifying “federal income taxes,” but because his remarks about how half the population depends on the government and how those on the receiving end are “happy” to let wealthier people support them with their taxes could cause the candidate trouble with some voters.

Political analyst Eric Sondermann said the bringing of the video to the forefront now comes at a critical moment for Beauprez as he attempts to present himself to Colorado voters.

“The substance of what Beauprez said is subject for a reasonable debate because in a lot of ways it mimics and foreshadows Romney’s comments which made him appear like the caricature of an elitist,” Sondermann said. “Now, Democrats here want to create that same caricature of Beauprez.”

The Republican Unity Tour made eight stops across the state Wednesday. Beauprez introduced his newly named running mate, Douglas County Commissioner Jill Repella, and was joined at various stops by his three opponents in last week’s primary: Tom Tancredo, Scott Gessler and Mike Kopp.

Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174, jbunch@denverpost.com or twitter.com/joeybunch