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October 28, 2014 08:06 AM UTC

Fear and Lies: Controversy Erupts Over False RGA TV Spot

  • 14 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: 9NEWS' Brandon Rittiman says the station has not refused the ad, but it isn't running there:

Republican-Governors-Association-RGA-LogoTo be clear, our original report was based on an update to the Denver Post's story:

UPDATE: Channel 9 is not airing the ad in its current form, Hickenlooper campaign says.

Which, to be fair, doesn't explicitly say 9NEWS pulled the ad–so we regret any presumption. This story is still reportedly developing, we'll update.

—–

FOX 31's Eli Stokols:

Thinking it was set to fire a potential kill shot in Colorado’s governor’s race, the Republican Governors Association instead shot a blank.

With eight days of voting left, the Republican Governors Association went back on Colorado’s airwaves with a hard-hitting ad featuring the father of a girl who was murdered in 1993 by Nathan Dunlap, the death row inmate who Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper granted a reprieve to last May.

Unfortunately, a glaring factual error in the ad may lead Colorado television stations to pull the spot from the airwaves.

The Denver Post's Lynn Bartels reports via Gov. John Hickenlooper's campaign that 9NEWS is refusing to air the ad in question, and further explains the enormous factual error behind their decision:

The last frame of the ad states: “Now John Hickenlooper is threatening a ‘full clemency’ for Nathan Dunlap that could set him free.” The ad cites an Aug. 25 story in The Denver Post, but the article never mentions the governor setting Dunlap free. And the governor’s attorneys said that’s not possible.

“The statement in the ad is flagrantly false, misleading and factually inaccurate,” Hickenlooper’s attorneys said in their cease-and-desist letters…

“The temporary reprieve of the governor’s executive order leaves only two possible outcomes with respect to Mr. Dunlap’s sentence, neither of which includes setting him free: (1) full clemency with life in prison and no possiblity for parole or (2) execution,” the attorneys wrote.

Hickenlooper's granting of an indefinite reprieve to "Chuck E. Cheese Killer" Nathan Dunlap was an act that pleased his Democratic base, and it's important to keep this in mind when talking about the politics of that decision. But it has also generated arguably the harshest attacks on Hickenlooper from his political opponents, foremost now from opponent Bob Beauprez. The expenditure of political capital in that decision is part of why Hickenlooper's once-stellar approval ratings have been brought to earth in the last couple of years. These are political realities.

With that said, this ad is plainly, ridiculously false, and we agree it should not air in its present form. Bartels reports that the Republican Governors Association responded to the cease and desist letter with (we are not making this up) Merriam-Webster dictionary's definition of "clemency," as if that's in any way relevant or binding. Given the nature of his crimes, there is no plausible scenario we can imagine in which Nathan Dunlap will ever see the outside of a prison. At no point before this ad has anyone seriously suggested that Hickenlooper might set Dunlap free, this has always to our knowledge been a debate about execution versus life imprisonment. Reasonable people can disagree about the efficacy and morality of the death penalty, but that's not what's happening here. Because this discussion is not based on the facts.

Like the Beauprez campaign's willful abuse of Tom Clements' death, or Cory Gardner falsely invoking Ebola and ISIS against Mark Udall, the scare tactics we're seeing as the 2014 campaign comes to a close are marked with something else: pervasive dishonesty. It's tough to say objectively if it's worse this election than in prior years, but it feels that way today.

Comments

14 thoughts on “Fear and Lies: Controversy Erupts Over False RGA TV Spot

  1. Good for 9 News.  It is nice to know that there is some sense of integrity left in our political system.  Beauprez is obviously desperate and will sink to the lowest level to become the Governor of Colorado but he is a loser.

  2. The GOP is "flooding the zone" with so much bullshit, there's not time or the resources to clean it all up … voters are going to have to slog through knee deep manure courtesy of a Karl Rove dump in order to cast their votes. Hopefully they can see through the GOP's campaign of crapola. 

  3. And keep in mind, the ad came from the RGA — meaning this has Gov. Chris Christie's stamp of approval.  And he's the "moderate" GOP candidate…

    Gutter politics at its worst!

  4. Lying in this way, not spinning or torturing the truth but purposely and blatantly putting out information known by the purveyors to be false, ought to be illegal. If the purveyors of these lies wish to claim it was simply a mistake then they should be required to run ads as prominent as the false ones admitting and correcting the mistake. If they refuse to take the opportunity to claim it was a mistake and take action to correct it that should be taken as  evidence of criminal intent and they ought to be prosecuted.

    Meanwhile, as far as I know, Fox news hasn't issued a retraction of it's false reporting that voters in Colorado can just print up their own ballots on their home computers. At the very least I hope that someone can sue the pants off RGA and Fox (not) News.

    1. No, it's good not too become too cynical, debbie, and to want to give credit where due.

      The corrupt right-wing SCOTUS has poured gasoline on the fires of fascism and corrupt pay-to-play politics in this country through their criminal Citizens United ruling — which will be overturned with blinding speed once decent, moral, ethical, non-extremist Justices are returned to that body.

      9News is a greedy, amoral moneymaking machine; they worship the almighty dollar like the rest. But if they (or any of their equally money-grubbing ilk) should actually ever develop a conscience, and actually do their job of enlightening and informing people of the truth, not just serve as paid lie-regurgitators for the most wealthy, we should praise them for it.

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