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October 13, 2005 08:00 AM UTC

Disastrous Press Day for Jon Caldara

  • 59 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

This is the sort of meltdown we would normally predict for right after a contentious election. For it to happen before the election suggests that Jon Caldaraand maybe the Independence Institute as an wholeis flaming out beyond anybody’s control.

Major Independence Institute financier and board member Greg Stevinson has had enough:

Greg Stevinson has resigned from the board of the Independence Institute, saying he is “uncomfortable” with the institute president’s aggressive attacks on Referendums C and D.

Stevinson also is concerned that the nonprofit think tank won’t say who is funding its campaign against Refs C and D.

Stevinson, who opposes Refs C and D, wrote in his Oct. 4 resignation letter that the institute “has never walked away from a good fight.”

“I do not, however, remember us ever getting this close to knowingly misrepresenting facts and walking so close to the precipice of the campaign finance laws.”

The source of the money Caldara has spent on ads opposing C&D is about to be revealed, and to nobody’s surprise:

Mark Grueskin, the attorney representing the Yes on C & D campaign, told the court the ads were clearly political and disclosure of who paid for them was required by the law.

“We believe there was a not-so- veiled attempt on the part of the Independence Institute to fly under the radar,” said Grueskin. “Mr. Caldara and his staff have been directly engaged in opposing Referendums C and D.”

Caldara testified that the “in- kind” contribution included paying for production and placement of the ads. The group spent more than $200,000 on the ad campaign.

Speculation about who might have paid for the ads has centered on Americans for Tax Relief, a group headed by Washington, D.C., lobbyist Grover Norquist, and Freedom Works, an advocacy group founded by House Majority Leader Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas.

The only option that’s left to Caldara is procedural delay, to thwart further disclosure of what is likely to be an unsavory narrative until after the election. That effort has met with some success, but it does nothing for the Institute’s long-term viability.

Caldara has taken such a lead in the fight against C&D that there really isn’t anybody left to take up that banner now that he’s stumbling. Marc Holtzman will try mightily to assume “leadership” of the “movement,” but his own ulterior-motive fundraising against the referenda may poison his credibilitymuch like former state senate president John Andrews’ invocation of Saddam Hussein didn’t help things.

Most C&D opponents outside Caldara’s immediate orbit are furious with him over the way he has damaged and distracted from an effort that seemed certain to prevail last spring. With the possibility of the Institute’s financial support (and even office space) being curtailed after these scandals and Stevinson’s public departure, real questions are emerging as to whether or not Colorado’s highest profile think-tank will survive this election cycle at all.

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59 thoughts on “Disastrous Press Day for Jon Caldara”

  5. VOTE YES ON C AND D PEOPLE!

    Vote to assist the single mothers, the poor, the people with disabilities, the homeless, people on Medicaid, for our current and future students.  Help Colorado move forward.

    God Bless You All.

  6. Caldara for Guv!  The new KING of Colorado.
    hahaahha
    LOL!
    Make them all burn… no on C & D.
    Lets those piggies with Medicaid and disabilities burn.

  7. I have a son that is mentally retarded and I am offended by how the ‘Vote No’ campaign with Mr. John Caldara and Mr. Mark Holtzman treats all vulnerable people of our beautiful state. 

    You should all be ashamed of yourselves.  What a total disgrace.  My son is not a pig. 

    I can only hope that 51% of Colorado voters are sane enough to care about someone else besides themselves.  I will pray to God and hope for the best.

    Please, I urge you all to vote YES on November 1st.

  8. I feel your pain.

    I will pray for the passing of the 2 Referenda as well.
    Republicans that care will vote with their hearts and vote Yes.  Not everyone is like that Caldara guy.

  9. What? Woody – I mean Owens – is looking voters in the eye saying it’s NOT a tax increase, and Calrada’s lying?

    I don’t know what Stevinson’s beef really is, but his stewing about Jon C doesn’t make the rotten pork that is Ref C any easier to swallow.

    Caldara is an over-the-top self-centered sex-toy obsessed pervert, but he’s right on Ref C. A tax increase is a tax increase, even if Caldara calls it one.

    Vote NO on C&D, or I GUARANTEE you, the pols will be asking for more of YOUR hard-earned money by 2007. They are already giving $400 million to ILLEGAL ALIENS (yes, that’s just in Colorado)!

  11. A Republican for C&D is like a gay, pro-abortion Catholic – a moronic oxymoron. Why don’t you just be a Democrat and be true to your self?

  12. The REAL winner here is Bob Beauprez, who was smart enough/not desperate enough to dign up with this moron like Holtzman did.

    This will set the extremists in Colorado back by years — maybe some sensible conservatives will emerge out of it, though…

  13. People like you are the reason I remain a true Republican.  I am 68 years old, why would I change now?  Get a heart.  I will pray for your lost soul.

    Vote yes.

  16. A gay Catholic is really an oxymoron? You wanna tell that to half the clergy? Get a clue! Now, let’s apply your anaolgy to Republicans.

    I think you just said a mouthful but have no idea you did…

  17. Owens is a democrat now.  We need to take care of ourself first.  Show me to money and vote no. Idiots … all people voting yes are probably mentally retarded like that kid.

  18. I have a retarded aunt, and HOW DARE you use your retarded son to make a political point. Please write again and tell us where there is ONE DOLLAR guaranteed for your son or my aunt in the ridiculous $5 billion dollar tax increase.

    Politicians puching this ARE pigs. How dare you make such an accusation about Holtzman? You are as disgusting as Cindy Sheehan and you disgrace your son just the same!!

  19. Yeah! If more retarded kids were dying in the street or shut-in and out of my face, there wouldn’t be so many of them!

    If illegal immigrants bled to death outside emergency rooms that refuse to treat them, there wouldn’t be so many of them!

    If public schools have working heat, people will keep sending their kids! That costs money!

    If all these goddamn college students couldn’t afford to go, there wouldn’t be so many liberals!

    NO on C&D! Make Colorado like it was in 1903!

  20. realloser:

    the people you call extremists are the GOP. without them, you go nowhere. get a clue. your gleeful attitude about nothing but political gain shows you to be the morally challenged worm you really are.

    i hope you find something in life that changes your hopeless attitude.

  23. AMEN, scroogedara, I couldn’t agree more.  What are we doing to this world.  What happened to compassion?  Caring about others?  I feel blessed with the small social security check I receive. We need to share and assist others in need.

    Vote Yes.

  25. Did you ever stop to think that reckless ideologues who don’t give a crap about the health of our state, but only scoring some dumb-assed point about “drowning government in a bathtub” are the REAL ‘morally-challenged worms?’

    I’ll take “reality-based” Republicans over the Bruces and Caldaras of the world any day of the week. Because, you see, there’s left, there’s right, and then there’s just plain IDIOT.

    Vote however the hell you want to on C&D, but know why you’re doing it!

  26. Offended Mother,

    Thanks for being offended.  I am offended that you think you have a right to the money that I work for. 

    I have a cousin who is mentally retarded but his parents have never asked the government for help because he is their responsibility and they are more than happy to care for him.  I understand that there are people out there that cannot financially take care of their handicapped relatives, but I for one do not think that government is the answer. 

    Please point to me where it says in the Constitution that anyone has a right to these kind of services.  If you can show me where the founding fathers provided for this kind of care I will be all for it.

    Before you think I am full of hate, I do care about those who are less fortunate than me that is why I give money to my church and other community organization to help them.  Just because I think that government is not the answer doesn’t mean that I don’t care. 

    That is the difference between most of the intelligent folks who are for or against C&D.  I believe that government is not the answer, community support is the answer.  Those who are for C&D believe that government is the answer.

  27. While Jon Caldera is right to oppose C&D, he’s made some silly statements that undermine his cause. Stevenson apparently doesn’t want to be associated with anyone who has trouble getting his facts straight. Maybe, he’s looking to municipalities and customers who support C&D for permits and business and decided that it isn’t in his best interest to continue his links to the Independence Institute.

    I attended one briefing on health care at the Independence Institute and wasn’t impressed with the presentation or Caldera, who came across to me as an aloof, cold fish. So I never went back.

    Wonder how long Caldera will last there? Does John Andrews want his old job back?

    Don

  28. That King guy is clearly a Yes dem doing some counter intelligence campaigning.  “Send your retarded kid to Kansas or something! Vote NO, It’s my freakin’ dough!”??  King, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, you weasel.  Admit what you’ve done now or suffer the karma.

    That said, I’m a Republican, and I may have to suck on voting yes because I like stable property values and a robust economy.

  29. CALDARA IS KING,

    Where did Caldara attend college? 

    http://i2i.org/author.aspx?AuthorID=1

    He went to the University of Colorado and now he wants to turn around and take that opportunity away from others.

    Maybe you should change your name to CALDARA IS SELFISH because that is what he is.

    I also have several relatives that are disabled and frankly you sicken me.

  31. Caldera opposes C because he believes low taxes promote economic growth that generates jobs that allows parents to send their kids to college. Higher taxes will make it harder for parents to send kids to college, regardless of how much aid is available.

    C isn’t going to help parents with disabled kids or seniors or college students or any other special interest group that has its hands out. But the proponents are promising, promising, promising, which makes me think Stevenson isn’t going to support their continuing lies to voters, which are much more dishonest than anything Caldera has said so far.

    Don

  32. The independence institute is a JOKE.

    Screw public transportation, cause we’re on the take to the car dealers (maybe no anymore). Randy o’toole’s moronic diatribes seem REAL SMART in the age of $3 a gallon gas, don’t they?

    Screw public education, because all the teachers are Ward Churchill. I can’t tell you how many pissed off Republicans i know about their mobbing and bullying of the schools. Ask the president of Raytheon what the state will be like when nobody gets an education.

    And now it’s screw EVERYTHING the government does for you, because it’s “your money.” These blase statements like “govmint isn’t the answer” are idiotic: you don’t need a fire department? Isn’t that a government service you depend on?

    How about police protection?

    Environmental regulators? Ask pueblo how they feel about fountain creek and Colorado Springs. They’re Republicans, aren’t they?

    Courts? How does waiting weeks for a hearing consistent with folks’ right to due process?

    The Independence Insitute’s vision of our future is a failure. Reject it on 11/1, and then let’s show these corporate anarchists the door.

  34. huh,

    I guess you haven’t been reading the stories quoting the tourism and economic development lobbies. You think they won’t take money from the schools? You think their contributions don’t mean more to legislators than the schools do? You think the governor will let all the C money go to the schools, which are getting more than their share of the budget as it is?

    Better think again.

  36. I am a Metro State student, and if C&D fail my tuition will go up by an estimated 51%.

    Maybe you don’t care if I can’t afford to stay in school (GPA over 3.5, Provost’s honor roll for three straight years), but maybe you’ll start to care if thousands of students just like me can’t and Colorado’s economy crashes and burns from all the good jobs moving to states who bothered to invest in their future.

    It’s exactly this sort of hubris and cluelessness that has me wondering if there’s a better state to invest myself in when I graduate…

  41. Bill Owens, Hank Brown, 19 sitting Republican legislators Bruce Benson and virtually the entire Republican business establishment are behind C and D.  In short, those Republicans who care more about Colorado’s future than cheap political shots are backing the reform effort.  On the otherside, Doug Bruce, Jon Caldara and Marc, the son of that rich guy in Pennsylvania, what’s his name?  As a Republican of long standing, I am in very good company supporting Colorado’s future.  And did I mention Archbishop Chaput?

  42. You libs reveal how low-class you are, like “?” above who can’t express himself above a freshman high level.

    libs like ? have no self-respect nor any respect for anyone else.

    gee, poor students! they should pay for their own education, not put a gun to my head to pay for it. And just because someone went to a state school doesn’t mean they can’t register their opinion.

    libs also reveal what fascists and totalitarians they are by trying to stifle others’ opinions – but then, when you have a hopeless ideology…

    deep down inside, libs know they are wrong about tax extortion, baby killing, etc. That’s why they get so angry. i feel sorry for them.

  43. Public education is now consider fascist…Huh?

    Asking this generation to make the same investments in the next generation that the previous generation made in them is now considered extortion…Huh?

    Liberals like me have enough respect to not take away from others what has been given to me.

    Deep down you know it is wrong to rob the next generation of the same benefit that have helped make you successful.

    Since evidently this point must have got past you I will try it again, the reason I brought up that Caladra went to a public college is because it is shows how people like him and the guy above have no problem benefiting from the investments the previous generations made in them but now they want to turn around and rob the next generation of those same opportunity.  I am not trying to stifle Mr. Caladra’s opinion; I am pointing out how incredibly selfish and self-centered people like you and Mr. Caladra are.

    The opponents of C and D are selfish, plain and simple, they have got their and the hell with everyone else.

    The Colorado voters know the importance of making wise investment and are voting Yes on C and D.

  44. Seems like you Cons are the ones that are like children.  Can’t stand to have your position challenged and every debate is a pissing contest. 

    So, nice policing, pols, pot, kettle, black, you.

  45. “virtually the entire Republican business establishment are behind C and D”
    Hogwash, please provide proof.

    Hmm let’s see, we can say yes to Ref C and give 3.7 billion to the State to use as they see fit

    or

    we can say no to Ref C and REFUND or offer TAX CREDITS in $ to:
    223 Million more in Earned income credits
    117 Million more in Child Care Tax credits
    573 Million more in Bus. Pers. Prop. Tax REFUNDS
    17 Million more in Charitable Donation Deductions
    8.8 Million towards Pollution control devices
    1 Million for Foster Parents
    .8 Million for health care
    63.9 Million towards promoting Research & Development
    157 Million towards reducing vehicle regist. fees
    5.7 Million towards health care benefits
    1.8 Million towards Agriculture Develop. Programs
    205 Million lowering taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains
    234 Million lowering the Colo. capital gains

    If you think lowering taxes on capital gains and interest is about rich people, you better think again. Those taxes affect everyone from little you and me, all the way up to the rich guys. Don’t blow off rich guys either, they’re the ones who come up with big bucks for charity when times are hard.

    So I have to ask those of you who approve of Ref. C. How does it feel to be suckered once again?

  46. Oh do you mean charities like the Independence Institute because the rich love giving to that so they can support their pet cause and get a tax deduction.

    The real question is how much are we going to save in the purchase of all those dildos…oh wait another lie by the desperate and selfish anti-Colorado Economic Recovery Act crowd, they have got theirs, the hell with everyone else.

  48. woe, woe Marshall…..slow down buddy. I’m voting no on C and I’m not selfish. Many believe that government isn’t the solution. I believe that it complicates problems and isn’t efficient. I’m asking you to recognize that you and I both want to leave the place better than we found it and that just because I believe in less government spending than you doesn’t make me selfish and think to hell with everybody else.

    We simply disagree on the amount of money we want state government to spend. I don’t go out dissing you just because you want the state to spend more. Ease up please.

  49. Hey dummies —

    Caldara has a son with profound Down’s syndrome.  Do you think that he would knowingly do something that would hurt his kid or kids like his?  Caldara polarizes, and that’s his job, but he’s not mean and he’s not heartless.

  50. I voted against Ref C for a two very specific reasons.

    1. I do not like the shotgun approach by the leg to lump all spending increases into one initiative.

    2. Our current fiscal problems are a combination of revenue and spending, and this initiative only addresses the revenue side.  I believe that this is nothing more than a band-aid approach that will require re-visiting in the future.

  51. Keith,

    Point taken…I will make you an agreement I will stop with calling the anti-Colorado Economic Recovery Act crowd selfish when I stop getting called fascist, communist, ward churchill supporter and the like just because I support the Colorado Economic Recovery Act.

    I think it is healthy to have a discussion on the role of government and I respect your point of view.

  52. I would frankly prefer to keep Caldara’s personal life out of the debate.  But having a child with Down’s Syndrome and calling legislators who try to help children with Down’s Syndrome “Pigs” is a strange way to prove you’re not mean and heartless, playnice.

  53. Jon Caldara has never called a legislator who has tried to help children with Down’s syndrome a pig.

    The pig in the commercial represents pork spending. Nice try.
    Document 1 case where Caldara has called a legislator a pig because he/she tried to help children with Down’s syndrome and I will give you $500.

    If you don’t want to get personal, then don’t. You won’t catch me saying pinko, communist fag.

  54. You’re wrong, Keith.  Caldara went to the Capital with a huge pig (papier mache.)  The mother of a developmentally disabled son confronted him and said “Don’t call us Pigs.”
    He pointed to the capitol and said “I’m not calling you a pig.  I’m call them (the legislators) pigs.
    Please donate the $500 you owe me to the “Yes on C and D” campaign.
    The pig commercial was Holtzman, not Caldara, by the way.  That ad just called voters who want better schools or highways pigs.  A great way to win friends, and a good reason why the polls now show bill ritter edging Beauprez but crushing Holtzman.
      And I would never call you a commie pinko fag, you red-necked, flag-burning, Bible-hating, SUV driving, tree-killing, species endangerer!

  55. I am a redneck. I drive a SUV. I don’t burn the flag (unless I’m retiring one and then I sprinkle the ashes over the grave of a veteran). I love the Bible. My IQ aint no higher than a midget’s ass and when Caldara was pointing at the capitol he was thinking pork spending not Down’s syndrome.

  58. Caldara hasn’t backed one thing that’s passed as long as I can remember (FasTrax? T-REX?).  Signing him for the NO campaign assures its death.  My prediction: YES by a landslide.

  59. now that C passed the truth of the matter is: they spent all our money on ILLEGAL aliens .  so now they want more money and they’re holding our kids and poor amereican citizens hostage…..suckers!!!! lmao  lol

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