May 11, 2010 06:21 PM UTC

Gardner takes aim at Markey in new Website, clips own foot

• 9 Comments
• by: BobMoore

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

The Cory Gardner campaign Tuesday unveiled a new Website called http://www.ebetsy.com “to fight back against the special interests that influenced Markey’s vote” on health care reform, according to a campaign press release.

But the site has a couple of errors, one of them of the embarrassing variety. First, the site says Rep. Betsy Markey declared how she’d vote on health care on March 17th. Her announcement came on March 18. But the more embarrassing error is that Gardner’s Website managed to misspell his own name, providing a link to “Gardener for Congress Website.” See a screen shot of the site at my Coloradoan blog: http://bit.ly/9Q7d3w

The Gardner campaign said ebetsy.com “features the major special interests that filled Markey’s campaign coffers after she switched her healthcare vote and shows exactly how much they gave.” The site seeks to get Republican-leaning donors to give to Gardner’s campaign to offset Markey’s “special interest” money.

The first two sites mentioned on Gardner’s “special interest” list are ActBlue and Emily’s List. But this isn’t money coming from political action committees. It’s money — mostly from smaller donors — that’s coming to Markey’s campaign through conduits. These are sites set up for people to make credit card donations. ActBlue is a conduit for a variety of Democratic candidates, Markey included. Emily’s List is an organization that primarily supports women candidates who favor abortion rights.

Federal Election Commission records show that Markey’s campaign received a little over $3,000 through ActBlue between her March 18 announcement and March 31, the end of the most recent reporting period. But those records also show that she’d gotten another $25,000 in this campaign through ActBlue before her health care announcement. The picture for Emily’s List is similar — a little over $4,000 between March 18-31, and about $27,000 this election cycle before the announcement.

The FEC records show that the contributions to Markey highlighted by Gardner’s new Website came from individuals who gave from $15 to $1,400. Only two of the donations were for more than $1,000.

UPDATE: In the predictable political tit-for-tat, the Markey campaign sent out a fundraising appeal shortly after the Gardner campaign sent out the press release on its new Website. “One of the Republican men challenging Betsy for Colorado’s 4th Congressional District launched a website this morning accusing YOU of being a special interest,” says the e-mail from Markey campaign manager Angela Botticella. The e-mail directs potential donors to Markey’s fundraising Web page, with “a goal of $3,209, the amount Cory Gardner says was ‘funneled’ to Betsy by ‘special interest groups’ like ActBlue and EMILY’s List and even Betsy’s campaign website, before midnight tonight.” (I’m not sure what the Markey campaign is referring to by “even Betsy’s campaign website,” I haven’t seen the Gardner campaign referring to that as a “special interest.”)

UPDATE2: The Gardner campaign has fixed the misspelling of his name on the new site.