President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Kamala Harris

(R) Donald Trump

80%↑

20%

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

(R) V. Archuleta

98%

2%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

(R) Marshall Dawson

95%

5%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(R) Jeff Hurd

(D) Adam Frisch

50%

50%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert

(D) Trisha Calvarese

90%

10%

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Jeff Crank

(D) River Gassen

80%

20%

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

(R) John Fabbricatore

90%

10%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) B. Pettersen

(R) Sergei Matveyuk

90%

10%

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

52%↑

48%↓

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
October 19, 2010 10:14 PM UTC

You Knew They'd Hit The Wrong Markey Eventually

  • 30 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

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.”

—–

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!):

—–

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, 2010

CONTACT

BEN MARTER

970-817-3939

LATEST GARDNER ATTACK

TARGETS WRONG MARKEY

Rep. 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.”

###

Tweet
Share

Comments

30 thoughts on “You Knew They’d Hit The Wrong Markey Eventually”

  3. 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.

    1. 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?  

    2. 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.

  7. 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.  

  8. 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.

  10. 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.

      2. “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.”

          1. Gardner spokeswoman Rachel Boxer gave TPM this comment: “Representative Markey can try to change the subject all she wants. But the fact remains that she has voted for Nancy Pelosi’s job-killing agenda 94% of the time, and within her first 50 days in Congress, Representative Markey recklessly spent a billion dollars an hour, approving $1.2 trillion in new spending.”

            When asked a follow-up question of whether the Gardner campaign made an error in this latest ad, Boxer said she had to go, and invited me to send her follow-up questions via email. That email has been sent, but was not responded to immediately as of this posting.

            Niiiice….

    1. 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.

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

70 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!