UPDATE #2: Rep. Ed Markey (the Democrat from Massachusetts — the male Markey) chimes in with his own quote:
“As the other Markey in Congress, I’ve always admired and respected Betsy’s intelligence and political independence. The fact is, we don’t always vote the same way, and we don’t even look alike! I’m wondering whether all of the attacks Cory Gardner has levied against Betsy over the last several months were based on a fundamental confusion over exactly which Markey he is trying to attack.”
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UPDATE: We’ve created this handy-dandy tool that allows you to quickly figure out which Markey you are trying to discuss — Ed or Betsy (just trying to do our civic duty!):
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That’s the new ad up from CD-4 GOP candidate Cory Gardner, attacking incumbent Betsy Markey–one little, well actually not so little problem, is likely to see it pulled pretty quickly. Betsy Markey voted against the Obama administration’s 2010 budget along with a number of other “Blue Dogs,” Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is the Markey in Congress who voted for the budget. Rep. Markey’s (that is, Betsy Markey of Colorado) release follows, says spokesman Ben Marter, “Rep. Gardner’s new attack ad is lousy with the same already-debunked lies and misleading claims, but if there were degrees of ‘false’, this one takes the cake.” And our favorite quote from the release: “Colorado deserves better than Gardner’s half-baked hit jobs,” added Marter. “Frankly, Massachusetts deserves better too.”
We’ll be honest, we were expecting this mistake–but we thought one of the innumerable 527s glomming onto this race would have made it, not Cory Gardner’s campaign itself. It is kind of sloppy; two weeks from the election, this can’t be the first time they’ve run afoul of the wrong Markey.
This is one of the main reasons we’ve always maintained that Markey has a better-than-prognosticated chance at holding onto her seat. Gardner’s campaign has made so many unforced errors that all add up to a big problem in a close race. This latest ad is a perfect example; this silly, stupid, preventable error is going to lead to news stories that point out the fact that Markey voted against the Obama budget in 2010.
This line about Markey opposing Obama’s budget would not have been written about otherwise, but thanks to Gardner’s bumble, voters across CD-4 are going to hear, once more, that Markey might not be the lock-step Democratic voter that Gardner wants to portray her to be. Some of those voters might also start to question whether other parts of Gardner’s ads have been falsely attributed to that other Markey guy. That’s a pretty harmful blow to Gardner’s overall narrative.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010CONTACT
BEN MARTER
970-817-3939LATEST GARDNER ATTACK
TARGETS WRONG MARKEYRep. Gardner doesn’t do his homework, misfires badly
FORT COLLINS-Representative Cory Gardner’s latest negative attack ad, his third in two weeks, criticizes Colorado’s Betsy Markey for a vote taken by U.S. Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
Watch the ad here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
The new ad accuses Markey (that’s Betsy Markey) of voting for “the most fiscally irresponsible budget in history.” However, Betsy Markey voted against the President’s FY 2010 Budget for just that reason. Markey (Betsy) felt the proposed budget was far too large, and did not include deep enough spending cuts from each of the federal departments.
“Rep. Gardner’s new attack ad is lousy with the same already-debunked lies and misleading claims, but if there were degrees of ‘false’, this one takes the cake,” said Markey (Betsy)’s campaign spokesman Ben Marter. “I would point Rep. Gardner to a site on the ‘internet’ to research his claims a little better: www.google.com. If Rep. Gardner can’t figure out how this whole voting system works, how can he be trusted to actually read bills?”
The two citations used in the attack on Markey (Betsy)’s vote on the FY 2010 Budget are Roll Call vote 192 and Roll Call vote 216.
Roll Call 192 can be googled like this:
http://www.google.com/search?s…Roll Call 216 can be googled like this:
http://www.google.com/search?s…“Rep. Gardner has taken lying to new lows with this attack ad, and he should stop broadcasting it immediately. Colorado deserves better than Gardner’s half-baked hit jobs,” added Markey (Betsy)’s campaign spokesman Ben Marter. “Frankly, Massachusetts deserves better too.”
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would double-check these attacks before airing them. How embarrassing!
some scurrilous Dem ad firm tricked the Gardner campaign into hiring them to make this ad.
Just ask the Beej and H-Man…they’ll tell ya. 😛
That this guy could possibly be going to DC to represent CD-4. Let me guess it took about three seconds to confirm that they used the wrong congressional votes. Just sad.
Really hope that they didn’t produce this ad knowing that the votes came from a different Markey, that would be even worse.
He’s either extremely sloppy or he’s purposefully lying to voters. Either way, it ain’t looking good for Cory.
aren’t Republicans supposed to know the difference?
Or is that one of the “choices” they make?
That foot tapping incident in the bathroom, for one–clearly he thought he was coming onto a woman.
But then where’s the outrage about irresponsible men having abortions?
is endangered!
than what career politician Cory Gardner is peddling.
So which Markey voted for Cap and Trade??
stay on topic.
never get old.
Ever.
😀
This piece of shit thinks that branding Democrats as “Cap and Trade” advocates is a mark of shame but is oblivious to the destruction in Russia and Pakistan due to abnormal climate conditions.
Cap and Trade policies which limit human caused greenhouse gases are actually the kind of forward and innovative thinking that will allow our society to move past hydro-carbon dependence and into a new and sustainable economy.
Too bad this piece of shit can’t acknowledge the obvious that Cap and Trade policies will help cushion our transition.
SOMEONE voted for these things, and it was wrong! Little details (aka facts) as to WHO actually voted for them just get in the way of good storytelling.
Really, this is Rep. Betsy Markey’s fault – when she first decided to run for Congress and found out there was a Markey already in office, she should have changed her name.
I can’t believe not only his entire campaign staff but he personally made a mistake like this. I’m not from CD-4 and am not tuned into the race there, but even I knew that one way Betsy Markey distanced herself from Obama was by NOT voting for the budget.
What an idiot.
By no harm does that mean that you assume that anyone and everyone viewing this commercial will understand the mistake?
you won’t shit on?
Neanderthal Man was a hoax
Real men should not be exposed to gays
He is a liar.
Being morose, on the other hand, that’s natural;-)
This is the 2nd time (just in Colorado) where the GOP has run an attack ad using the votes of a similarly named Representative. The other was an attack ad on John based on votes by Ken. At least the Markeys are in the same chamber of Congress!
At what point is there any real remedy for these “mistakes”? I already suspect a trend here and, as long as their is no penalty, I can see a long line of elected officials willing to say “Oops” after they have won based on a complete lie.
It is one thing to submit a hit piece that spins or distorts the facts. It is another to “accidentally” submit an ad that is just false.
It doesn’t sound like Gardner is even willing to say “oops” in this case. They don’t even pretend to care they got it wrong.
“She voted with Obama-Pelosi 94% of the time so she still sucks” or something along those lines. I did NOT read that he or his spokesperson said, “What I said was a damn lie.”
Gardner’s spokesperson said that Betsy was changing the subject by talking about Gardner’s blatant lie.
Niiiice….
he’ll still win 🙂
is a Republican tradition.
It is small wonder that they can’t understand climate change science when they fumble getting basic facts right. Nothing says worthless Republican like one who sanctimoniously gets the basic facts wrong.
And these simpletons think they can govern? No wonder our nation got torn apart when they were in control. If you can accumulate the correct information then how in the world can you formulate a reasonable response. In Republican cases they don’t. They just repeat stale Reagan quotes and pat themselves on the back about how good they are. What silly cartoonish characters.
to put quote marks around “science”
Here, this’ll cheer you up.