President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Biden*

(R) Donald Trump

80%

20%↓

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

90%

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

(D) Joe Neguse*

90%

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

(D) Adam Frisch

(R) Jeff Hurd

(R) Ron Hanks

40%

30%

20%

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

(R) Lauren Boebert

(R) J. Sonnenberg

(R) Ted Harvey

20%↑

15%↑

10%

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Dave Williams

(R) Jeff Crank

(R) Doug Bruce

20%

20%

20%

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

90%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) Brittany Pettersen

85%↑

 

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

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

(R) Janak Joshi

60%↑

40%↑

20%↑

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 17, 2014 10:43 AM UTC

Fact Check: Gardner voted for the government shutdown

  • 25 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(The con is full-on – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Rep. Cory Gardner (R).
Rep. Cory Gardner (R).

Colorado senatorial candidate Cory Gardner took his falsehoods about the government shutdown to a new level this week when he told PBS’ Guen Ifill:

Gardner: “I voted for every measure that would have avoided the shutdown. I supported efforts during it to make sure we were finding ways not only to get out of the immediate situation but to make sure that we develop long-term solutions."

That's the kind of rotten information journalists should correct before it's too late. Everyone who follows this issue at all knows that Gardner voted with fellow Republicans to shut down the government in an effort to kill Obamacare. Gardner was fully behind using the threat of a government shutdown as leverage to try to de-fund the health-care law. As Gardner told KOA Radio's Mike Rosen in August: "I believe that we don’t need to shut down the government because we ought to just lift this health-care bill out of the way and let America work." As part of a fact-check of a recent ad, 9News political reporter Brandon Rittiman explained how Gardner's votes led to the shutdown, just after Colorado's horrific floods:

Gardner did vote in line with the Republican strategy that led to the government shutdown. That didn't happen by passing a bill to shut it down… Those votes were Republican spending packages, which passed the House. They would have funded the government, but also contained language aimed at curbing Obamacare. For that reason, the president made it clear he wouldn't sign that bill, which had no chance of passing the Senate regardless. Republicans knew they could cause a shutdown by forcing the healthcare issue to be part of the discussion about keeping the government open. However, it takes two to tango, and the Democrats didn't want to mix the ACA into the spending debate. It would have been possible to accept the GOP plan and avoid a shutdown. Whether it was fair to bundle those concepts is the core of the debate.

Against after reading that, even if you're on Gardner's side and you wanted to force Obama to de-fund the health-care law, is there any way you could claim, as Gardner did, that he voted for "every measure that would have avoided the shutdown?" Not.

Comments

25 thoughts on “Fact Check: Gardner voted for the government shutdown

    1. Yes indeed. Can Man Cory Gardner  wanted to make a "statement" about his love of wingnut radicalism and state-sponsored anarchy, as well as his complete willingness to indulge the infantile shit-fits of fat old angry white people behaving like two-year-olds with a six-hour diaper load.

  1. Con Man Cory's Tea Party ideology is more important to him than the people of Colorado:

    1. Supports personhood over the interests of 70% of Coloradoans

    2. Voted to shut down the government and cause $21 bil in GDP to evaporate just weeks after Coloradoans were hit with devastating floods because of a zealous devotion to Ted Cruz and the repeal Obamacare fanatics.

    How does he try to get away with it? He lies to the people of Colorado, further showing his disdain for the very people he wants to represent. 

    1. Anyone who votes with Cruz should be disqualified to represent the people. Con Man disqualified himself when he voted with Cruz on the shutdown.

      That is why people have long memories and will kick them out. The polls are now irrelevant, and the only poll that matters is the result of November 4th.

      Again, the Democratic wave is on, and it is very strong one, and will enable the House to be repopulated with real Dems, and Grayson as the Speaker instead of Boehner, and what's more, the Tea Party caucus will be deemed irrelevant and any proposed bills from the Tea Party will be tabled, permanently.

       

       

       

  2. This story needs to get more legs. This again shows what an out and out liar this guy is and his total belief that he can lie about anything to the people of Colorado.

  3. You guys still don't get it.  I've tried to explain this time after time.  It's just another "Republican Trust."  The fact is that Gardner never voted for any shutdown.  That vote never came to the House floor because Republican leadership wouldn't allow it to come to the floor, because they knew it would pass.  Everything the Republican leadership  brought to the floor, Cory Gardner voted for.  So, he's not telling a lie.  He's just telling a "Republican Truth" which is a statement that while technically true is intended to mislead voters into thinking that something other than what really happened happened.  Again, Obama really did paint Air Force one with his campaign logo as I have explained ad Nauseum.  Until you and the press get your arms around this kind of nonsense and start calling it out for what it is, this will never stop.  He didn't tell a lie here.  He only told a "Republican Truth."

    1. The public has accepted the the GOP is responsible for the ongoing debt ceiling/government shutdowns – it's GOP obstruction and the public accepts this. By voting with the GOP, he voted to shutdown the government. By going along with the Tea Pary zealots – Cruz et al – Gardner hitched himself to these idealogues. If he were truly the guy who can change the tenor of Congress – as the Post "thinks" – then he would have proved it by bucking his party. He did not. He's either a coward or a toadie and by the way he is comporting himself on the campaign trail, it is more likely he is both. 

      As 9News puts it – Gardner is "spinning the truth" – bottom line, Gardner has lied and lied and spun and spun and at this point in voter's minds, it is one in the same:

      http://www.9news.com/story/news/politics/truth-tests/2014/09/11/spinning-the-shutdown/15477223/

      Make Gardner explain his actions and let a reported explain his actions did in fact shutdown the government. 

      So maybe a better state is – Gardner shutdown the government. If he denies, the follow up is – his actions caused the shutdown. All true, and all claims lead Gardner into the trap of having to spin and spin – and at this point, he is a known liar (that's a fact) and his attempt to spin will show him to be a liar. 

        1. He is part of a GOP that shutdown the government – in the technical sense, he did not cast a "shut down" vote (a bill that explicitly stated its intent was to shutdown the government) but his votes in a series of votes between the House and the Senate led to the shutdown – hence, he voted with the GOP and Ted Cruz (the Tea Partier in Chief) to shutdown the government. Let him explain how that is not a vote to shut down the government – voters who saw him called a liar on the 9News debate this week by the moderators. For that to happen – he has to be telling some WHOPPERS, not the garden variety. 

          He can try to explain the nuance, but now that he's been called a liar by the press in such a public fashion – it doesn't matter. 

        2. And you are rejected as a human being.

          Why the fuck would you want to be known as a Con-Man fan?

          Con-Man voted to shut down the government by ignoring the Senate-passed bills which would have had passed to avoid the shut down, but Con-man decided to act like a monkey and throw shit to the cage instead. 

          In other words: Con-Man cannot be trusted to represent Colorado in the Senate, and he will never get past 39% of the vote . Udall has done a great job and has earned my trust to continue to work for the state of Colorado. 

          What does Con-Man plan to do to represent the state of Colorado? Not a damn thing. He'll just work for the 1% and you know it.

           

    2. So let's not keep attacking it from the "He lied" point of view. Most persuadable  voters just assume that all pols lie anyway.  They don't implicitly trust any  of them. There are plenty of concrete pure party line obstructionist votes to use that aren't a matter of honesty.

      The comparison shouldn't be about who's the biggest liar but about what was Gardner spending his time on while Udall was spending his trying to help flood and fire victims, trying to protect our constitutional rights, our environment, to conserve the public's wild land etc. Start with Gardner's party line laser focus on attempt after cynical attempt to defund or repeal ACA just for show because he knew perfectly well they couldn't possibly make it happen.  It was just to make a statement. He says signing on to federal personhood was just to make a statement. For show. Maybe he signed the Norquist pledge just to make a statement. For show. 

      Ask the people of Colorado if they want a Senator who spends his time trying to get real doable stuff done for his constituents in Colorado and for his country or if they want a Senator who spends his time making empty statements for show and to hell with doing real work toward solving real problems for real Colorado people.

      That difference is a lot clearer than the potential results of any pissing contest about which pol lied more about what and there's no way Udall doesn't come out on top judging by that standard.

      1. Agreed and Con Man has been so brazenly lying and smiling and cutting "warm and fuzzy" ads that I think he first needs to be proved to be a liar – and the last debate solidified that. Now, you go at him on the issues and his brazen lies, smiling and warm and fuzzy talk is no longer taken at face value, it makes him look very, very small and cheap – too small and cheap to occupy the U.S. Senate – and then people can hear his positions on the issues for what they really are – Tea Party zealotry. 

        1. We've got him increasingly on the ropes over his being a conniving, bald-faced liar and fraud; now we need to bear down on Con Man with all rhetorical guns blazing, and finish his sorry ass off.

          Con Man peaked immediately after the Dungpile Post "endorsed" him; when we look back, we'll see that it was all downhill for him beginning right after that.

      2. From your mouth to Udall's ears.  I've been saying this for months.  It's just that no one will point this out to voters.  Once you understand Republican Truths, you can debunk them.  If you call them "lies" you fall into their trap.  It's just stupid.  Rather than calling them lies, you've got to point out exactly why they're misleading.  Otherwise, people don't get it and they dismiss your claim that they are "lies" which they aren't.  Here's what Cory Gardner says, but here's what really happened."  It's so simple but Udall won't do it..

        1. I agree that Udall should be doing a better job of explaining why what Gardner is saying is untrue – yes, you don't want to get into a "he's the liar", "No, he's the liar" situation. 

          Hopefully the early ads about trust and lying were to soften up Gardner and take some of the shine of his new campaign (after all, not everyone knows him and perhaps Udall was out to define him as untrustworthy before Gardner had the chance to define himself). And now we will see more specifics about exactly how he lied and what the impact is on Colorado – ie, 70% don't support Gardner's position on personhood; the majority of Coloradans didn't agree with shutting down the gov't, especially in the midst of the floods – how did that specifically hurt Colorado tourism, for example. 

        2. Agreed, Craig.  Case in point (that I made earlier today regarding Gardner's perceived position on Amendment 64).  Gardner starts by saying "I opposed it when it happened" followed up mention that "the states are the laboratories of democracy".

          Both of those statements are true. 

          Nowhere does he state definitively that he has 'evolved'. 

          Many folks in the cannabis community think Cory has evolved because he voted in favor of HR 4660, which defunded DEA and its ability to raid medical marijuana facilities in states where it is now legal.  What has been lost in the conversation is that he voted against the germane amendment to the bill that defunded those operations.   So he can be in his anti-mmj crowd and tout his opposition to defunding DEA; with the cannabis community he can tout his vote in favor of the final bill.

          Neither of those statements are lies. But nothing in his statements establishes that he, today, supports the Colorado marijuana industry.  And nothing in his record suggests that he will go head-to-head with a Senate Majority Leader McConnell – who is on record that he opposes the legalization of marijuana anywhere, anyhow – even medical marijuana.

        3. Actually my point isn't about making such distinctions but about comparing what the two have actually done.  My point is Gardner has fully joined in the GOTP effort to simply obstruct and parade their hatred of everything Obama, wasting time making empty statements when they aren't engaged in outright extortion to get what they couldn't get through elections and the legislative process. While Gardner was making hissy fits for show his priority, Udall  was spending his time working for his constituents.

          People may not agree with everything Udall advocates but most middle of the roaders will agree that, for instance, helping flood victims is a positive thing and that seriously trying to accomplish something is better than devoting yourself to making symbolic noises of disapproval that aren't meant to actually help anyone your top priority. 

          The contrast is clear. No fine distinctions between technical and actual lies. No contest between between whether Gardner lied about supporting government shut down or Udall lied about getting to keep your plan if you like it and which is worse.  Just a concrete comparison of how these two candidates spent their time as legislators.

          I don't see how Udall doesn't come out on top in that comparison with persuadable voters and I don't see how it doesn't motivate at least a few more low info Dems to get off their butts during a midterm and put a few damn stamps on an envelope or drive by a drop off point. 

          Bottom line: While Gardner blusters and votes for dead end symbolic legislation to make statements, Udall works to accomplish real and beneficial things for the people of Colorado and the nation.

    3. Craig. GOP is finished. They signed their own death warrants when they shut down the government.

      The GOP thugs will be thrown out in replacement of real Dems who will work for the people, and not for the 1%.

       

      1. The only problem is that the Democrats continue to let the GOP off the hook by just calling these thing "lies" and thinking that's enough or even worse, thinking people will know they are "lies" and not even responding.  That's why they need to get a line, stick to it, use it for every candidate and push the point.  Otherwise, these guys get away with it.

  4. Jason, Glad you changed subjects from your usual personhood rants. Apparently that does not poll very well.

    Think you might use your journalist skills to investigate the Drug Dealer who is currently serving as Senator?  Seems forfeiting a car that was used to transport illegal drugs is a little much for a joint, ya think?

    Besides the three ounces of grass, what were the other drugs?

    Seems like a story that a journalist might be interested.

    Oh, you are not that kind of journalist.

    1. Actually, with women of child bearing age, it polls very well. That may apply to their significant others, as well.  It certainly does with my son, whether he has a significant other or not.  He protects his friends from overreaching, predatory government laws. 

    2. It affects me, dickhole.

      Y'see, I'm trying to bring another child to the world. 

      And you want to ARREST my wife for trying to make a life?

      Then, ACHole, you signed yourself a death warrant. You're finished. 

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

100 readers online now

Newsletter

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