Gotta love this story from The Associated Press, including the headline: "Palin Pre-Empts State Report, Clears Self."
Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.
Sen. John McCain's running mate is the subject of a legislative investigation into whether she abused her power as governor by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner, Walter Monegan, says he was dismissed in July for resisting pressure from Palin's husband, Todd Palin, and numerous top aides to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, Palin's former brother-in-law.
The move came hours after the state Supreme Court refused to halt the ethics investigation. Lawmakers were expected to release their own findings Friday.
Secretary of State Mike Coffman said today that a published report was "way off" in asserting that Colorado had purged almost 37,000 people from voter registration rolls.
At a press conference today to respond to a New York Times article which said that Colorado is one of six battleground states that may be illegally purging thousands of voters from registration rolls, Coffman said the story was inaccurate.
"I have no idea where they got the numbers from," Coffman, a Republican, said.
The Times story said that some 37,000 people had been removed from voter registration rolls in the three weeks after July 21, exceeding the number of people who died or moved out of the state during the same period.
The story also said Colorado had seen a net loss of nearly 100,000 registered voters since 2004.
Coffman's office presented data that only 14,049 voters had been removed from the rolls from July 21 through today...
Coffman did say, however, that in reviewing the duplicate voter registration records, it had come across 2,454 that had been canceled within 90 days of the election. [Pols emphasis]
The secretary of state said his office was seeking a legal opinion to see if those cancellations comply with federal law that prohibits canceling registrations 90 days before an election unless someone is dead or a felon.
Pat Waak, chairwoman of the Colorado Democratic Party, said her their voter data didn't match up with the Times', either. She said the party's data shows that from July through September, there were some 12,000 people whose registrations were cancelled, including about 8,000 who died or moved out of state...
"I'm very concerned by a level of hysteria that seems to be rising as a result of the New York Times article," Waak said. "That article was nor helpful to the state of Colorado."
Frankly, the numbers we saw in the Times article seemed awfully high to us as well. That said, we're curious to see how Coffman explains removing any voters within the 90-day cutoff, there's nothing ambiguous about the law governing that. And the New York Times, for their part, is standing by their story:
When asked repeatedly for comment two days before the article was published, election officials in Colorado and Michigan did not respond. But on Thursday, they offered their own figures.
In Michigan, the elections director, Christopher Thomas, said the state had removed only about 11,000 voters from the rolls in August. The Times analysis, which was reviewed by two leading voting experts, found the number to be closer to 33,000.
Asked to make the purged files public so that The Times could compare them with the state records it used for its article, Mr. Thomas declined.
In Colorado, Mr. Coffman adamantly rejected The Times's estimate of 37,000 voters taken off the roles in the three weeks after July 21. He said that the number of people removed from the rolls was about 14,000 and that most of them were people who had died or moved out of the state.
Three weeks of historic economic upheaval have done more than just tilt a handful of once reliably Republican states in Barack Obama's direction. Democratic strategists are now optimistic that the ongoing crisis could lead to a landslide Obama victory.
Four large states John McCain once seemed well-positioned to win - Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida - have in recent weeks shifted toward Obama. If Obama were to win those four states - a scenario that would represent a remarkable turn of events - he would likely surpass 350 electoral votes.
Under almost any feasible scenario, McCain cannot win the presidency if he loses any of those four states. And if Obama actually captured all four states, it would almost certainly signal a strong electoral tide that would likely sweep the Southwestern swing states - Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada - not to mention battlegrounds from New Hampshire to Iowa to Missouri.
According to Gallup's tracking polls, Obama now leads McCain 52-41.
At 2:15PM today, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey of the arch-conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks will be giving Rep. Marilyn Musgrave an award highlighting her agreeing with him 95% of the time. From their press release:
Heading into the November election, Coloradans are focusing on the economy and pocketbook issues. Voters are faced with a clear choice between lower taxes and limited government on one side, and more regulation and higher taxes on the other...
How long ago was this scheduled? Armey and his Club for Growth buddies led the charge for deregulating the financial sector, privatizing Social Security, and just about every other laissez faire whimsy now being discredited by the ongoing economic crisis. It's like being endorsed by a Japanese soldier from a South Pacific island who never heard the war is over.
"Musgrave 2.0" finally cashed in? Traded for "Republican Revolution" Musgrave? Good luck with that. Original FreedomWorks press release and a poll both follow.
Here's a New York Times article about several swing states -- including Colorado -- in which voters have been removed from the rolls prior to the election. The Times is questioning the legality of the actions in Colorado.
The plethora of ballot measures this year has even the politicians confused.
In a U.S. Senate debate this week, Democrat Mark Udall said he would vote against a tax to help the developmentally disabled. He actually supports Amendment 51, Udall said during a meeting Wednesday with the Rocky's editorial board.
"It should have been a 'yes,' " Udall said.
Udall's opponent, Republican Bob Schaffer, said during the debate he was opposed to a ballot measure that redirects a portion of energy taxes to transportation.
"Bob should have said he was for it," said his campaign manager, Dick Wadhams...
You'll notice we didn't jump all over this one when the story was just about Schaffer's flub on Amendment 52 a day or so ago. Why, you ask?
Because as you can see, it happens to everybody--even though it's amusing to see the wrong reaction from candidates when these initiatives are read back to them sans important details like, say, which of their friends are pushing them. What, you didn't know Amendment 51 was a dreaded "tax increase?" You didn't know Amendment 52 monkeyed with your all-important severance taxes?
I was very surprised on Tuesday when I saw the first ad by local furniture mogul Jake Jabs. My first thought was, "Well jeeze, I'm glad I never bought anything there." My second was to wonder if this was an independent effort or some idiosyncratic choice by the backers of the anti-union amendment.
Wonder no more. The Rocky Mountain News reports that besides the two official proponents of the measure, business labor Julian Jay Cole and Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, meetings about it included State Sen. Ted Harvey (R-Highlands Ranch) and American Furniture Warehouse executive Andrew Zuppa. The money is indeed coming from Jonathan Coors/Coorstek, but Jake Jabs is the other major player.
How are the numbers looking today? Well lets take a look at ballots cast so far and the polls.
And remember, while most of the measurements are of the presidential race, this is very much a Democratic (change) vs Republican (more of the same) race. McCain's only done this well so far because he's viewed as not toeing the Republican line (right!).
Claim: "I'm sure (Abramoff's) not pleased with the sweatshop I helped shut down."
- Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer, speaking last week to The Denver Post editorial board about efforts to connect him to jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff
Facts: As a congressman, Schaffer visited Mariana Islands garment factories on a 1999 fact-finding trip paid for by the conservative Christian group Traditional Values Coalition, which was later linked to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. [Pols emphasis]
In April, Schaffer told The Post the islands' imported labor was a "model" for U.S. immigration. Later, he told The Post and the Rocky Mountain News that "he was told" a factory had been shut down after he interceded.
Michael Rubin, a San Francisco attorney who negotiated $20 million settlements on behalf of garment factory workers, said one or two factories declared bankruptcy and closed after the 2003 settlement "but certainly no one was shut down as a result of a government investigation." [Pols emphasis]
Rubin, who said he had been looking into labor practices in the Mariana Islands for months before filing the lawsuits in 1999, said, "I'm not aware of any (Mariana Islands) garment factories ever having been shut down by federal or (local) authorities."
Schaffer's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, on Tuesday said: "Bob Schaffer was told after he left (the Mariana Islands) that because of a visit he made to one of those facilities, action was taken against that facility."
Bottom line: Schaffer has been all over the place for months trying to defend himself from the charge that he helped conceal labor and immigration abuses in the Northern Mariana Islands, as part of a deliberate strategy conceived by jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The specific claim from Schaffer that he "helped shut down" one of the garment factories in question is considerably newer than the original reporting on the scandal from April, and immediately raised eyebrows since no corroborating evidence for the claim was ever put forward.
And now we know why: it's because Bob Schaffer is lying. Just like he lied to reporters when he claimed the State Department never "discouraged" Schaffer's oil company from traveling to Iraq in search of deals with regional governments--only a couple of weeks before it was proven the State Department had done exactly that.
Are we done here? Is Schaffer's credibility totally destroyed yet? Are reporters aggressively fact-checking everything that comes out of his and henchman Dick Wadhams' mouth, as they should do with anybody who demonstrably lies through their teeth? If not, why not?
(What, no shark tank? - promoted by Colorado Pols)
Ken Gordon has sent his take on the various ballot initiatives on this year's ballot. As always, a very well-reasoned and thoughtful analysis and opinion. I've included it below the fold.
Colorado Media Matters reports that Kristi Burton, sponsor of amendment 48, again violated the noise ordinance of reason on an otherwise valuable piece of real estate in the op-ed section of the Rocky Mountain News. Like a wind-up toy, she repeats her naive (or outright lying) claim that
The McCain campaign has denounced a racially charged, anti-Barack Obama newspaper column written by one of the Republican campaign's organizers in Virginia, and has removed the author-activist from his post as a member of the candidate's statewide leadership team, our colleague at the Top of the Ticket reports.
"The column by Bobby May appeared in a southwestern Virginia newspaper, The Voice, and drew attention after it was cited in a Sunday Los Angeles Times report about how voters in that mostly white region were reacting to potentially electing the country's first black president,'' the Times' Peter Wallsten writes.
"May, who in July was named his county's Republican representative on the McCain statewide campaign team, offered a spoof of Obama's platfrom and plans in his recent column,'' Wallsten reports.
"Examples: Obama would hire the rapper Ludacris (a prominent supporter) to paint the White House black. And the Democrat's administration would divert more foreign aid to Africa so "the Obama family there can skim enough to allow them to free their goats and live the American Dream."
"May also joked that Obama would replace the 50 stars on the U.S. flag "with a star and crescent logo," an Islamic symbol, and that his policy on drugs would be to "raise taxes to pay for Obama's inner-city political base."
Par for the southwest Virginia course, Macaca. Dick Wadhamsfeels their pain.
CQ has changed their rating for CD 4 from "Leans Republican" to "No Clear Favorite". They cited polling data and Betsy Markey's fundraising as the primary reason for the ratings change.
Barack Obama is outspending John McCain at nearly a three-to-one clip on television time in the final weeks of the presidential election, according to ad buy information obtained by The Fix, a financial edge that is almost certainly contributing to the momentum for the Illinois senator in key battleground states.
From Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, Obama spent more than $20 million on television ads in 17 states including more than $3 million in Pennsylvania and more than $2 million each in Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania. McCain in that same time frame spent just $7.2 million in 15 states. Even when the Republican National Committee's independent expenditure spending in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin is factored in (a total of $5.3 million), Obama still outspent the combined GOP forces by roughly $8 million in the last week alone.
On Sunday--and on Monday for good measure--we got copies of liberal activist group Progress Now's Colorado ballot initiative recommendations. Looks like they sent it pretty broadly since we got it twice; you probably got one, too.
Colorado Statewide Ballot Recommendations
We offer you the following ballot recommendations based on extensive research and feedback from thousands of our network members. Print the ballot recommendations below and refer to them as you vote. Click here for a printable PDF copy.
Please share this guide with your friends. Forward this email to 5 people. And feel free to make copies and pass them around at work, school, or your neighborhood...
None of which would have raised an eyebrow, until we got an email from the Jefferson County Republican Party this morning that contained the following oddly familiar verbage:
Colorado State Republican Party Ballot Recommendations
The Colorado State Republican Party offers you the following ballot recommendations based on extensive research and feedback from thousands of our network members. Print the ballot recommendations below and refer to them as you vote. Click here for a printable PDF copy.
Please share this guide with your friends. Forward this email to 5 people. And feel free to make copies and pass them around at work, school, or your neighborhood...
We've copied the email blast from the Jeffco GOP below in its entirety. We're not sure what the hell happened here, but we don't see any explanation that makes Republicans look real good.
At a press conference Wednesday, Headwaters Economics will release a report detailing how Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming choose to tax oil, natural gas, and coal extraction-and how the revenue is spent.
The report shows Colorado has the lowest effective tax rate in the Intermountain West. It also demonstrates that states can increase their effective tax rates with little risk of affecting the local energy economy.
A giant bar graph, perhaps the largest bar graph ever in Colorado [Pols emphasis], will dramatically illustrate the differences between the 5 states studied in the report.
You'll be able to sit down atop Colorado's three-foot bar on the graph, while Wyoming's bar will loom over you head at about 8 feet tall. That's because the effective oil and gas tax in Wyoming is over twice Colorado's (6.2% for Colorado and 15.9% for Wyoming).
When: Wednesday, Oct. 8, at 10:30 a.m.
Where: Civic Center Park (East side of the park, directly across from the State Capitol)
UPDATE: Press release from Campaign Money Watch refutes recent claim by Bob Schaffer that his "investigation" resulted in the closure of any Saipan garment factories:
Schaffer recently told The Denver Post's editorial board that he helped shut down a sweatshop in the Marianas, citing a visit he made during a 1999 "fact-finding trip" to the islands arranged by Abramoff's firm. However, a Campaign Money Watch investigation found that closures of sweatshops on the islands were the result of a court settlement stemming from a class action lawsuit pursued by a coalition of human rights and labor groups. There are no news accounts that suggest Schaffer - or any other member of Congress - played any role.
Full release follows.
Campaign Money Watch launched the following ad in Colorado to highlight U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer's (R-CO) ties to jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the money he's taken from Northern Mariana Islands sweatshop owners Abramoff's firm once represented.
After a couple of flubbed attempts to highlight the Abramoff/Mariana Islands scandal by independent groups in the last few weeks, Campaign Money Watch knocked it out of the park with this very clear and unapologetic spot. And this isn't some small-budget job meant to stir up earned media controversy with just enough airtime to get it on the radar: it's allegedly a $1 million dollar buy. Every voter in Colorado will see this.
As we noted yesterday, there's a conference call coming up in an hour with reported new information that refutes claims Schaffer has made in his defense about his involvement with CNMI labor practice investigations. If the new disclosure is significant, a fresh ball of damaging press will get rolling only a few short weeks before the election.
And as we first speculated in April, Bob Schaffer's self-incriminating praise for the now-outlawed labor and immigration policies of the Northern Mariana Islands, the defense of which was the centerpiece of jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff's crumbled empire, may catalyze the end of his political career.
As all of you know, the CD-4 race between Betsy Markey and threatened incumbent Marilyn Musgrave has become highly acrimonious in the last few weeks, with both campaigns trading accusations of lawbreaking and complaints filed in every applicable jurisdiction. Longtime CD-4 watchers recognize what's happening is typical for Musgrave when down in the polls, as she has been at one time or another just about every time she runs for re-election.
Yesterday, Musgrave tried to keep the slugfest going with a new criminal complaint against Markey, citing her much-trumpeted claim that Markey got preferential treatment for her company while an aide to US Senate Ken Salazar. As we've covered here in detail, no real evidence exists to support the claim, merely "unanswered questions" that Musgrave's camp is determined to keep rhetorically asking.
We've said repeatedly that these complaints can be useful as another vehicle for your allegations--not because anybody actually goes to jail, but because it helps make the charge seem more credible to voters. But Musgrave screwed up a very important credibility-related detail, as the Greeley Tribune reports:
A Weld County man filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday alleging that Democratic Congressional candidate Betsy Markey violated federal law in receiving contracts for her company while a Senate staffer.
The man, Ron Buxman, is the state Republican chairman for the 4th Congressional District [Pols emphasis] -- most of northern and eastern Colorado. Buxman owns a dairy farm between Greeley and Windsor and is a former vice chairman of the Weld County Republican Party.
He said in a conference call that he filed the complaint because he felt compelled to as part of the Republican party and acknowledged that Musgrave's campaign helped him prepare the complaint. [Pols emphasis]
Jason Thielman, campaign spokesman for Musgrave, said his staff provided statements Markey provided to the press and other public records...
Ben Marter, campaign spokesman for Markey, said the current complaint against Markey is a stunt...
In April 2006, Buxman -- then vice chairman of the Weld Republicans -- filed a complaint against former 4th Congressional District candidate Angie Paccione alleging that she violated federal election law after an e-mail from her campaign offered free vacations to contributors. The Federal Election Commission cleared Paccione of wrongdoing in that case in July 2006. [Pols emphasis]
Let's get this straight: Musgrave went looking for a surrogate to keep her accusations against Markey going, and the only person she could find was...the GOP chairman for her district? Who admits that Musgrave's campaign did all the paperwork? Who filed a similar complaint against Musgrave's last challenger that was summarily tossed out?
How is this not completely laughable? Is there a reporter in the world who won't see through this transparent ploy in a matter of seconds? If not, why the hell would you do it? To get laughed at?
Note to Musgrave campaign: you really suck at this.
