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August 05, 2010 06:31 PM UTC

Romanoff Lies - Consensus Has Formed by Local TV News

  • 45 Comments
  • by: MADCO

In campaigns, news cycles get compressed and yesterday’s audacious claim (Bennet saved jobs at Regal) too often is forgotten by today’s shocker (Romanoff flips on accepting DSCC money).

But there are people who fact check and research and, unbelievably, there are people who care about the truth.

So here’s three of four* Denver local tv news shows reporting on the truthfulness or not of the D Senate primary candidates.  

1) Denver News 7 “Facts Or Fiction: Romanoff ‘Greed’ Ad Against Bennet”

“Fiction. Part fiction. Misleading. Fiction”

They say “fiction,” I say lie.

2) TRUTH TEST

Bennet is truthful about saving jobs at Regal and that in 2004 Romanoff supported the creation of “social security personal retirement accounts”- widely referred to at the time as “partially privatizing Social Security”

3) News 4 “Fact Check”

Bennet working for Anshutz:  Bennet was truthful – he saved jobs.  

So, Romanoff flips on accepting money from the DSCC, lies about Bennet’s work at Anshutz and obfuscates about supporting social security personal retirement accounts.

Bennet tells the truth about working at Anshutz and saving jobs at Regal and is truthful about  Romanoff in 2004 supporting social security personal retirement accounts.

Here’s more from  Bennet, obviously not unbiased but also true.

http://bennetforcolorado.com/t…

*I could find no equivalent feature on Fox News 31, though they do link here to Colorado Pols.com

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45 thoughts on “Romanoff Lies – Consensus Has Formed by Local TV News”

  1. Am I correct in understanding that Anschutz and Bennet pulled $700 million out of Regal? Is that really a reasonable amount?

    Whenever companies go into a downturn and lay off employees, they almost always gain employees on the flip side. Can you really credit Bennet with new hiring after going through major layoffs. And I’ll ask again: what are the retirement benefits like after the $700 million was pulled, and are the employees making minimum wage without any health insurance benefits?

    It just seems to me that $700 million could go a long way towards having a better business, more reasonable ticket prices, better treatment of employees, etc. And it’s hard for me to see how what Anschutz and Bennet did could be construed as “good for the business.”

    I am sure I’m just an idealist, but making money for the sake of making money does not represent anything very good in our society. And I have a lot of trouble seeing this as what I’d want from a public servant.

    It doesn’t matter to me what is considered legal, since our legal system is obviously not making life better for most people when it comes to business dealings. Social justice and our legal system are very far apart in today’s USA (something that is a hard pill to swallow for me).

    I would hope that a public servant (especially a US Senator) would be all about social justice and not just staying above the law.

          1. You are legitimately upset when Romanoff used looted inappropriately. Yet you call PV insufferable claiming they said something they didn’t say.

            Would you be ok if Romanoff’s reply to the looted ad was whatever?

            1. I do think s/he implied that lawbreaking has occurred, because that’s what Romanoff’s campaign has repeatedly done, long after the complaints about the use of the word “looted.”

              I guess you could say that Andrew Romanoff murdered any willingness on my part to allow his supporters to use phrases like “above the law” which means “an individual or business behaving as though exempt from rules or laws that apply to others.”

      2. I looked it up, and the diarist is correct. Looting almost always implies something illegal. I would think that this is a mistake in using that word in the commerical (but I can’t remember if they were quoting the Louisiana Teachers group).

        That said, I do not believe that Michael Bennet broke the law. And if I could swap places with Bennet so that I could make $11 million, I’d be pretty tempted to do so. But I don’t think I would try to run as a political servant thereafter. But again, I am an idealist.

        Given that, do you think that it is regrettable to Bennet that he helped Anschutz pull $700 million out of the company? Or would this be something that doesn’t bother him at all? I have to assume that it’s acceptable (and probably is to many voters), but it’s hard for me to accept.

        But to say again: I do not think that what Anschutz and Bennet did is illegal. And the use of the word looting in Romanoff’s commercial is a mistake (and hopefully not intentional).

            1. then Romanoff should apologize for the error and stop running that ad.

              Oh….. what’s that? He has done neither?

              No mistake – lie.

              BTW- if it was just a mistake – it is somewhere below the bike shares are gutting the Constitution but still dumber than a bag of hammers.

              1. I would very much like to see AR explain this, but how does he go about doing that in a sane manner. Does he buy up commercial time to apologize? Does he talk about it in a debate (of which there seems to be very few in the last few months)?

                He could send out a letter, but would it really reach the right people. I’m not sure that there is a good way to do it, but I’d be happier if he said it.

                Assuming he had the time, he could say it like this.

                My opponent, Michael Bennet, did not break any laws when making $11 million (and helping Anschutz to make $300 million) when reorganizing Regal. The Louisiana Teachers group took him to court and they lost in court. It is part of the American dream to make that kind of money and I applaud his efforts as a shrewd business man. Let us hope that the employees of Regal are well taken care of going forward.

                How does AR get that message out there because I’d be curious to see it?

                I like MB when I watch him in the debates. But I can’t help it — I have a tough time with this particular deal among several other issues.

                I keep reading the justifications for this deal, but it goes against my sense of societal good no matter how I look at Anschutz/Bennet’s Regal handling.

                1. He has dozens of microphones in front of him any time he wants.

                  All he has to do is use one of them to say- I made a mistake. I approved that add and it was a mistake to use the word looting.  And then when the monkeys fly out of his butt it will get so much coverage he’ll reach everyone who cares to watch.

                  How would you invest a billion dollars?

                  1. Really do you think that? And would you want him to fully qualify the answer because it might not be very complimentary.

                    As for the billion dollar question, I don’t buy lottery tickets, and I don’t dream of how I’d use the money. I’d be curious though — perhaps you could put up a survey (and I am not trying to be sarcastic).

                    1. Apparently he can get on Boyles, Rosen and Caplis & Silverman any time he wants.

                      He called a press conference back in January to affirm his candidacy for the Senate which he announced in September and got all kinds of coverage.

                      He could get on all 4 local tv news shows anytime he wants.

                      Hardball, Schultz, and on and on.

                      The survey might be an interesting source of information – but mostly not.  We get all the information we need from the marketplace.  When you have that much capital to invest and want a positive return a) you have to take some risk and b) the decisions you make will affect others.

                2. Oh, please. Even that sleazy 527 corrected its robocall, and, from the sounds of things, dialed back all the numbers with the correction.

                  The Romanoff campaign could revise the ad and start running one that says “Unconscionably profited” instead of “Looted” if it wanted to (the first PAC-attack ad was revised to reflect the endorsement of some give-away newspaper, so it’s not as though these ads can’t be revised).

                  Not to mention issuing a statement or setting the record straight in any one of a dozen forums the candidate has at his disposal.

                  1. I can’t stand those ads and I actually have to temporarily turn off the radio whenever I hear them. They make me cringe.

                    Now, this is just me, but the “unconscionably profited” would have hit home a lot worse than “looted”. I am one of those where the Anschutz/Bennet deal with Regal is a huge and negative issue. I will readily admit though that a substantial percentage of Americans would see the ability to do that kind of deal to be a great thing. And that kind of support for these kind of deals is one of the things that scares me most about our country.

                    1. I’m guessing here, but the universe of voters that would really respond to that is probably already doing whatever David Sirota tells them to do. No offense.

            2. I had to look it up to understand that it was such a derogatory word. After all, “loot” was something we joked around about as kids (those of us who liked pirates).

              So I actually do wish AR could address it. And I also wish that we all talked about social justice more often. I don’t really have an argument with you here.

              The last thing I’ll say on this since I can’t argue with you because I’d like to see AR address it is this: the commercial barely registered with me other than to go do more research on what happened. And when you dig into it, it seems to me that this is a “not good” part of MBs past. In my particular case, it’s a showstopper.

              1. PV, police are empowered to shoot looters during riots. It’s not that obscure what the word means.

                You’re suggesting Romanoff should correct the ad, so I’m not harping at you, but I’ll note — kids who play pirates also joke around about raping and pillaging, but that doesn’t mean one candidate should accuse another of those things, unless that’s actually what happened.

    2. Anshutz invested a load of cash- as far as I can tell from what public documentation exists, approx $750million.

      Then earned a $1.1 billion dividend.  I caluclate that to be approx 35% return. Pretty good.

      But it also took a few years and was risky in that the idea of saving all three failing entities, merging them into one and going public (IPO) with the new company was no sure thing.

      So- they made a 35% return over several years.  But according to you it was too much or too soon.

      The employees were mostly part time and didn’t have much in the way of retirement or other benefits.  

      As for wages and ticket prices- Regal pays a little better than the industry average, though to be fair they are so huge they essentially are the industry average.   And they charge the industry average too.

      Meanwhile, they are profitable and apparently stable.

      Your idealism is not a bad thing.

      I think it’s confused by the size of the numbers.

      Example- if instead of a 750  million dollar investment yielding a billion dollar payout, Bennet had bought a failing movie theater for $100,000 and earned a $135,000 payout  over a few years, you wouldn’t mind.

      So I’ll ask you the hypothetical I’ve others – You have a billion dollars to invest.  What do you do with it?

        2. By the way, do I have this wrong when I said that they walked away with $700 million. Is the actual number around $300 million?

          My question would then be as before: How did it benefit the company, the employees, and society to pull the $300 million away from the company?

          I think that many people think that this is business in America. But there are some of us who think that capitalism has run amok … is that fair for some of us to think that? What is a fair profit? $300 million for pushing paper around doesn’t strike me as fair.

          1. (see above)

            if instead of a 750  million dollar investment yielding a billion dollar payout, Bennet had bought a failing movie theater for $100,000 and earned a $135,000 payout  over a few years, you wouldn’t mind.

            So I’ll ask you the hypothetical I’ve others – You have a billion dollars to invest.  What do you do with it?

            1. I think that each of us has a different barometer for determining what is right and what is wrong. I am idealistic and feel that all boats must rise for there to be true prosperity. I would consider myself unsuccessful if I didn’t make almost everybody that worked for me successful.

              On the other hand, I’ll probably die in poverty, because that approach doesn’t seem to work in our current society.

              I more than understand that some people think that the current business approach in the US works just fine. But I’m looking for more from our public servants (and note that I didn’t say politicians).

  2. watch the 3 TV spots.  Channel 4 does not use the word false at any point in their analysis, and all three use the word “true” far more often.  The only real problem they seemed to have was the use of the word “loot” which they said is “misleading.”

    They also discuss how the stock has gone down, and 9 talks about how jobs were lost.  But I suppose you can just take the parts you want.

    1. Ok so Three out of Four say it somehow is not correct or stretches the truth they must be wrong. I am concerned how much koolaid you’ve been consuming to not admit that Andrew’s team has made some mistakes.  

    1. not the other way around

      from Mr. Romanoff

      “I am not taking PAC money now, and I will not take any PAC money in the general election.

      The DSCC is now supporting my opponent, supplementing the $1.3 million he has taken from PACs with independent expenditures of its own.

      After I win the primary, I will ask the DSCC to honor my pledge by excluding PAC dollars from any contributions or expenditures it makes on my behalf.

      Now we’re under attack not only from my Democratic opponent, but also from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). The attacks may not have been coordinated, but they use the same script. “Andrew Romanoff is a dishonest, career politician,” says the Bennet campaign. “Andrew Romanoff is a hypocrite, plain and simple,” says the NRSC.

      The source of this slander? The opposition said I couldn’t win if I didn’t accept contributions from political action committees (PACs) and then accused me of planning to do so in the general election.

      Both statements are false. I don’t take any PAC money now, I have not done so at any point in this campaign, and I will not do so in the general election. I don’t know how to make my stand any clearer.

      I wish my opponent had been willing to discuss these issues in the open, instead of ducking nine debates and hiding behind surrogates. I’m slated for another debate — without him — tomorrow.

      Coloradans deserve better. “

      2. Yeah- I heard him say this on the radio yesterday afternoon.

        http://www.khow.com/cc-common/…

        But I also Read Romjue’s statement:

        “We’d be willing to accept that, sure. I don’t think it is a significant part of what the DSCC raises overall, either. The DSCC doesn’t represent an industry or any group of industries or anything else. There’s no direct relationship,” Romjue said. “The percentage of PAC money they raise overall is low. We’re not going to unilaterally disarm.”

        http://mobile.politico.com/sto…

        So Romanoff says no PAC money, and if he wins the primary he’ll ask the DSCC to only support him with money from individuals.

        Romjue doesn’t really contradict in a way that should get him fired  – but says it would be ok to take money from the DSCC because their PAC contributions are low and it’s indirect.

        The DSCC, meanwhile, says it would be “improbable” they could honor such a request.

        So forget for a minute that Romanoff’s first claim was that he wouldn’t need or want the DSCC support

        “I don’t welcome the outside interference,” Romanoff said. “My campaign is going to continue to rely on contributions from individuals,” he said, eschewing PACs and special-interest donors he labeled part of an “incumbent-protection racket” in his speech.

        “When we win the primary,” Romanoff predicted, “we’ll find a lot of friends around the state and country we might not have now. But I’m not going to change my message to suit the interests of new-found friends.”

        A quote from January that you point out Romanoff disputed this week, that theStatesman defends

        Romanoff sat with a reporter from The Statesman for an interview immediately following a Jan. 19 press conference where he declared he was still running for the Senate – after rumors swirled he was instead considering a run for governor – and made his most uncompromising statement to date about his refusal to take money from political action committees, which he labeled part of an “incumbent protection racket.”

        “Andrew said what he said in response to a direct question about the DSCC,” said Statesman editor Jody Hope Strogoff, who has covered Romanoff’s political career for more than a decade. “If he’d like to make a case he was answering a different question than the one he was asked, he can do that. But he’s had more than six months to correct the record.”

        In an interview conducted in late June and published in the July 9 edition of The Statesman, Romanoff said he didn’t “recall answering the question in the way that you all attributed it to me” when asked about his position on DSCC funding after the primary. A review of the earlier interview’s transcript determined the quote was accurate, and The Statesman appended a note to that effect with the published interview.

        Now the DSCC support would be welcome, according to Romanoff because he’ll specify he only wants the clean, non-corrupting money and according to Romjue because PAC money is only 20 or 25% of what the DSCC gets and it’s only “indirect,” whatever that means.

        So – Bennet’s donations are 18% from PACs, but that’s wayyyy too much.  DSCC has 20 to 25% from PACs but thats low.

        The Bennet campaign gets donations direct from PAC donors and thats evil. Romanoff’s campaign is going to get support from PACS through the DSCC but that’s ok.

        Great- I’m on board as soon as you show me how to scramble a dozen eggs and eat only the white part from one egg.  Or show me how someone could be just a little pregnant.  

        I agree with more than one thing Romanoff has said and done – but the one that leaps out of your ridiculous post is  this – I agree that Coloradoans deserve better: vote Bennet.

  4. Pols has admitted that the stations do not actually say Romanoff lied.  To paraphrase Jane Norton, are you man enough to admit your diary lies too and change it?

      2.  

        I don’t take any PAC money now, I have not done so at any point in this campaign, and I will not do so in the general election.  I don’t know how to make my stand any clearer.

           To set this matter to rest, I took one further step today.  I vowed to ask the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) to exclude any PAC dollars from contributions or expenditures it makes on my behalf.

        by:  Colorado Pols

        Tue Aug 03, 2010 at 12:01:03 PM MDT

        http://www.coloradopols.com/di…

        1. This has become spam.

          You’ve posted this ….153 times in the past 36 hours.

          I see why you feel the need- but seriously, right the diary and let us have done with it.

          You’ve posted off topic, tangential to the topic and spun claims around it that are flat not true.

          Why don’t you out someone instead?

        2. SK2 made a claim about Colorado Pols the poster.

          I challenged SK2 to prove that claim.

          You reply with this spam.

          BTW-

          Because Romanoff and his campaign have conditioned me to stop and listen carefully and read and re-read everything he says, I no longer trust him.  

          If he fires Romjue today and says it’s becasue Romjue was flat out wrong to say that it was ok to accept DSCC support becase their PAC 20 to 25% PAC contributions were low and it would be indirect – I’ll pay attention.

          Otherwise- it’s just another mistake/lie.

      3. It’s on their diary on this issue:

        the point is that you lie Pols

        This statement is completely inaccurate:

        Well, the three biggest Denver news networks have all come out with their “Truth Test” or “Fact Checks” or whatever other clever name they have for checking the accuracy of campaign ads. The result: 3 out of 3 say the “Greed” ad is false.

        by: StrykerK2 @ Thu Aug 05, 2010 at 10:43:23 AM MDT

        This is semantics

        But to show you, again, that we are willing to listen to arguments, we’ve changed the wording.

        by: Colorado Pols @ Thu Aug 05, 2010 at 10:46:52 AM MDT

        Like Pols, you say all the news stations are calling the ads a lie.  That is not correct.  They changed their diary.

        1. from Merriam Webster

          Lie  noun

          Dictionary

          1 an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with the intent to deceive by an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker

          2 something that misleads or deceives

          3 a charge of lying

          Thesaurus

          Meaning a statement known by its maker to be untrue and made in order to deceive

          Synonyms

          fabrication, fairy tale, falsehood, falsity, fib, mendacity, prevarication, story, tale, untruth whopper

          Bolding is mine.

          Asshattery is yours.

    3. Listen, Stryker, don’t start lying about us now. That’s not at all what happened. The ad is still a lie, and the stations all said that it is largely untrue (because there are some true parts, like the fact that Andrew Romanoff and Michael Bennet are both real people).

  5. Is it still a lie?

    To me, this ad is a glaring indication that Romanoff is completely and utterly clueless on matters of finance.

    Either that or it’s just a lie.

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