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March 03, 2010 08:17 PM UTC

Norton's lost years

  • 41 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

The following description of Senate candidate Jane Norton in an article on the Steamboat Today website Monday looks innocent enough at first glance, but read it closely:

Norton was Colorado’s lieutenant governor from 2002 to 2006. She was executive director for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment from 1999 to 2002. She worked with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations.

The paragraph covers Norton’s life from 2002-2006, 1999 – 2002, and 1988 – 1993. But the period from 1994-1999, which should have been sandwiched in the middle there, was mysteriously absent.

That’s when Norton worked for Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), which describes itself as the “premier membership association for professional administrators and leaders of medical group practices.”  Her responsibilities from 1994-1999 included “monitoring health care reform legislative and regulatory proposals in the 50 states on behalf of MGMA’s 18,000 clinic administrator members and 6,700 medical group members,” according to Norton’s website.  

Norton’s MGMA job became campaign fodder last month when she stated during a radio interview, “I’ve not been a lobbyist.” Her spokesman later told the Colorado Independent that Norton has never been a registered lobbyist.

Democrats point to her job at MGMA as proof that she was a lobbyist for the healthcare industry.  And MGMA told the Colorado Independent that the arm of the company that Norton’s directed conducts MGMA’s  lobbying activities.

Given the recent debate about Norton’s job at MGMA from 1994 – 1999, it’s weird that this part of her bio wasn’t included in Steamboat Today story, especially when her jobs before and after MGMA were listed.

You hate to be nitpicky when you’re a media critic, especially when you know reporters are doing seventeen things at once these days.

But this small omission in the story, given the larger debate about Norton’s role at MGMA, makes you wonder what happened.

So I called Margaret Hair, the reporter at Steamboat Today who wrote the piece, and asked why she left out the MGMA job.

She said: “I was just trying to highlight her policy experience, trying to provide a quick bio.”  She told me that Norton’s Washington DC experience is more relevant for readers than her job at MGMA.

That’s fair enough, and it makes sense from her perspective, as a reporter. The jobs Norton held  in Washington were more important. Hair’s willingness to discuss the issue helps me believe her, and I do in this case. That’s why journalists should talk to the public. Still, I think Hair should have included the MGMA information in her piece, however briefly, because it rounds out the picture of Norton.

To its credit, Steamboat Today directed its online readers to Norton’s website bio, which at least lists the MGMA job.

For full citations and links, please visit www.bigmedia.org.  

Comments

41 thoughts on “Norton’s lost years

    1. You’re saying the six years she spent directing a high-powered lobbying arm of an industry at the center of today’s political debate — disqualifies her from policy-making?

      1. No, I’m saying that this is an irrelevant issue. The story was supposed to outline Norton’s record as a policy-maker, and in that regard it accomplished that goal.

        1. Lobbying on health care is irrelevant at a time where health care legislation is one of the biggest domestic issues in front of Congress?  It seems pertinent to the policy-making discussion if you ask me.

          1. “I was just trying to highlight her policy experience, trying to provide a quick bio.”

            If you want to question her work with the MGMA it should at done in a manner that at least allows her an opportunity to respond.

                    1. He’s not critiquing the reporter, he’s implying Norton is hiding something.

                    2. of both the media and Norton’s failure to address the issue.  I think it’s obvious why Norton wouldn’t want to and no one expects a political candidate to volunteer information that may be construed as being a potential negative.

                      However, to say that it’s irrelevant and not part of her record as a  “policy-maker” is just an invalid argument. When large-scale policy-making decisions are currently being discussed on a topic on which she supposedly worked on for over 5 years, that is newsworthy.  

                      My point is that her involvement in the health care reform attempts in the 1990’s should be be discussed within the media.  I personally feel that the Steamboat Today article is a bit ancillary to the discussion, it was a possible venue for this topic to be broached, but regardless someone needs to be asking those questions so that the primary and potential general election voters can be informed.

                      The idea of relying on candidates to somehow provide all the information is foolhardy.  The media (in all it’s forms) need to be doing a better job of reporting on the issues and not simply regurgitating sound bites.  

                    3. Talk about a conservative bias in the media.  She has experience on both sides of the fence as far as lobbying goes.  She knows how to make bribes as well as take them.  I thought lobbyists were revered by Republicans as paragons of capitalism.  Who knew that being portrayed as a day to day lobbyist wouldn’t sit well with the anti-corruption crowd over at the tea party?  My guess is Ms. Hair did and self-censored her article even though it was about experience in policy making.  You can’t get much more experience in oiling the skids of democracy than being a lobbyist.

                    4. What if the candidate was a Democrat and they spent six years working for ACORN on voter registration issues.

                      Do you think that would be relevant to the readers to know the candidates past when the article was about policy experience regarding election law policy?

                      Do you think it would be OK if the reporter who had a liberal bias omitted those years from their story because they didn’t want to portray the candidate in a negative light?  I’m pretty sure you would go nuts if a left leaning reporter self censored their work to benefit a democrat but you don’t have a problem with conservative bias in the media.  Interesting

                    5. From the NYT.

                      Ah.  The Coffee Party!  “Meet me in the middle”.

                      This summer, Ms. Park said, the party will hold a convention in the Midwest, with a slogan along the lines of “Meet Me in the Middle.” The party has inspired the requisite jokes: why not a latte party, a chai party, a Red Bull party? But Ms. Park said that while the Coffee Party – and certainly the name – was formed in reaction to the Tea Party, the two agree on some things, like a desire for fiscal responsibility and a frustration with Congress.

                      “We’re not the opposite of the Tea Party,” Ms. Park, 41, said. “We’re a different model of civic participation, but in the end we may want some of the same things.”

                      I guess they missed this part in their story:

                      Park is a former Strategy Analyst [Park’s Linked In page has been taken down, here is a cached link] at the NY Times who was one of organizers and operators of the United for Obama video channel at YouTube:

                      Here’s a nice little tweet from Miss “meet me in the middle”:

                      we need to re-engage the grassroots movement that got obama elected. we need to get busy. cannot give it away to tea baggers.

                      That’s just one from this week, and seems to be a much more intentional omission than the one about Norton.

                    6. and it is OK for conservatives to do it because it is done by liberals?

                      I guess all the outrage about a “liberal bias” in the media was just because you were jealous.  If you hate “liberal bias” then shouldn’t you also hate “conservative bias” or are you just another double standard conservative?

                      “We do it because they do it but when they do it it is wrong.  When we do it it is good because we get to fool the voters into voting for us against their economic self-interest”.

                      You also didn’t answer the question of whether it would be relevant to the voters if a Democratic candidate with a history of working for ACORN should be disclosed in an article talking about their past experiences.

                    7. I think you just have to look much harder to find conservative bias in the print media.

                      In an answer to your question, it would absolutely be relevant to know if a politician has had working contact with any criminal, disgraced organization.

                      🙂

                    8. I guess you think trading bling for votes is a red blooded American activity that a stand up person like Jane Norton should be proud of so why omit the fact that she was engaged in lobbying for six years?

                      Do you count Fox News as fair and balanced or do you think it might be a smidgen over the line trumpeting conservative causes?  Everyone else who has seen the sunlight in the last ten years will tell you that Fox News is a propaganda apparatus for the Republican Party and slants it’s material 100% towards a conservative bias yet you still believe in a “liberal bias” in the media but don’t believe in human influenced climate change.  Interesting.  I guess you would have to go back to the Aztec to find a more bizarre collection of beliefs and superstitions.

                    9. Lobbying had it’s record year of all time since Obama went in the White House.  It is what it is.

                      Fox is biased, but it’s closer to the center than the big three broadcast networks.

                      Anyway, I was talking about print media.

                      On your aside, why are the pre-eminent AGW proponents lying to us if it’s so obvious?

                    10. Thanks for the thread.

                      If you want to consider liars how about the whole ACORN pimp story by O’Keefe?  It turns out that the videos were edited and as phony as Sarah Palin’s political experience.

                      See you on the next thread.

                    11. I’ve always liked reading your posts.

                      O’Keefe’s videos weren’t faked, he put a beginning on them where he showed himself wearing a ridiculous pimp outfit, when he just wore slacks and a dress shirt into the ACORN offices.

                      That does nothing to take away from the fact that in at least 10 ACORN offices, he and his girlfriend received advice on how to set up a brothel using underaged illegals.

                    12. is chump change compared to the influence of lobbyists and unscrupulous corporations who buy politicians for greedy purposes.  I would say on balance ACORN is the lesser of the two evils which makes Norton an accessory to evilness.

                      FYI: Glenn Beck worked for CNN so your contention that Fox has less of a bias than other networks means that the other networks are even more conservative in their bias than Fox News.  Wannabes like Beck polish their skills at lying on the other networks and then when they are good enough and done enough damage to real journalism, they get picked up for fat cat contracts by Fox.  Traditional media which includes radio is now a wholly owned subsidiary of conservative corporations and the slogan “liberal bias” is as obsolete as eight track.

                    13. But he’s also opinion, not news.  He’s supposed to be biased.  I contend the news anchors on CBS, NBC, and ABC have more of a liberal slant to their stories than the news anchors at Fox do.  This is kind of like a cat person/dog person thing, though.  I don’t expect you to agree with me.

                    14. that Fox News confines its opinions to its opinion shows, but that’s just not true. I’d like to see your counter examples from ABC, CBS and NBC showing anything but a corporatist bias, which we can all agree those news departments have.

                    15. Why would the papers accurately report it?  Bennet is a dead duck.  Norton is way ahead in polls.  Instead of stamping our little feet and whining  that the MSM won’t report on Norton, why isn’t someone suggesting what the dems might do to combat Wadhem’s’very effective media campaign?

                      Wasn’t Jason on the boyles show a few months back?  Didn’t boyles make  mincemeat out of him?  

                      EVeryday on the radio, I hear both Norton and Weins (sp?) attack Obama, and not each other by name.  Both say that Obama doubled the deficit and tripled the debt.  That is what people will remember.  The repubs have a primary race and they are using it to attack dems.  The dems have a primary race and they are using it to attack each other…albeit, very quietly.

                      Meantime, Waak goes on the Sirota show….with a broadcast range of two and half blocks, and gives a detailed confusing direction on how to find your democratic precinct and the elaborate and bizarre mechanism which is used to finally decide who the candidate will be.  It doesn’t matter;  Norton will be the next Senator for Colorado.  dems will still be fighting over how  may half delegates Romanoff has…

                      I speak as a loyal democrat.  I have lived through real tragedies which have decimated the democratic party……the JFK assassination, the RFK and MLK assassinations, Wellstone airplane tragedy;   I do not understand why the party is so weak in the face of real success.  I do not understand why the party has abandoned the American people to the likes of Russ Limbaugh,etc.

  1. If there’s a gap in the job history – that becomes my first question. I think the missing period is something the reporter absolutely should have asked about.

    Totally separate is the question of is it relevant to her ability to function as a Senator. On that I think it could be spun as a plus – she knows how to lobby her fellow senators. But it is quite relevant to being a senator.

      1. This is a weird thing about all the Jane Norton coverage complaints recently. It’s not clear any are due to Norton or her campaign. Instead it’s reporters doing a slip-shod job and that then reflecting on Norton.

        If only there was an interviewer who would do a quality job (hint, hint).

        1. Its’ the reporters ommission, not Jane Nortons.  However, ” I’ve never been a lobbyist” is deceptive at the core.

          I do hope she continues to conceal it, which will just make it more of an issue.

    1. she knows how to lobby her fellow senators

      Yes! The Norton campaign should definitely take your advice, David — “she knows how to take money from special interests to do their bidding influencing legislation” — that’s exactly how her lobbying background should be “spun.”

  2. but I understand how the reporter might have thought otherwise. There’s nothing scandalous here, just a small oversight that’s not as small as it appears, in my opinion, given the debate about Norton’s years at MGMA. One of the things we do on blogs and on Pols is fill in the gaps. It’s a form of media criticism. That’s what I was trying to do here.

    1. and, like you say, is neither scandalous nor a huge deal. But the hair-trigger reaction by some Norton defenders makes me think they protest too much. This is one of Norton’s weakest spots, so there’s bound to be plenty of attention paid to it between now and the election.

  3. 1. eliminate the Department of Education

    2. The President’s job bill isn’t big enough

    combine 2 with 3

    3. The President  must blance the budget or not runa again.

    and those alone give me an indication of how qualified she is to be a good Senator.

  4. It doesn’t sound like Norton was lobbyist, but a legislative analyst for MGMA.  Seems like this may be helpful experience if she become a Senator for Colorado.  

  5. nor her politics. I do think it is important to point out, however, that women are often unfairly treated with suspicion when there are “holes” in their resume timelines. Many women find the years they spend having children and being home with infants fall under the category of “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t”.  Listing time off to start your family is criticised as lack of ambition, and not listing it prompts speculation of scandal. Everyone needs to take a chill pill and give people credit for taking time off for family responsibilities when they can (regardless of gender).

    But please don’t let my rant stop you from bashing her politics!

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