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April 28, 2011 03:38 PM UTC

Colo GOP chair spreads myth that spending by outside groups favored Bennet in 2010

  • 10 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(Ryan Call’s love-hate relationship with the truth goes on – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Colorado GOP chair Ryan Call was on Jon Caldara’s “Devil’s Advocate” TV show on KBDI (Channel 12) Friday, and the pestiferous Caldara was ribbing Call about how the Colorado GOP inevitably bungles things up when it comes to elections.

Call was mostly unflustered, and managed to stay on his central message, which was his desire to elect Republicans, with support from a rainbow of GOP tent dwellers.

But one of Call’s explanations for the GOP bungle in 2010, was, at the very least, misleading, and Caldara, being the GOP gadfly that he can be, should have called him on it (no pun intended).

Call said:

“Our challenge was that we did not have the resources to effectively counter the millions of dollars that was flowing in from out of state to effectively paint Ken Buck as an extreme candidate, which he wasn’t.”

Interesting, I thought, given that former GOP chair Dick Wadhams told the Greeley Tribune that  outside groups spent as much in Colorado backing Buck as they did supporting Bennet.

And the Sunlight Foundations, which tracks communications expenditures, shows that Wadhams was right. The outside foes of Bennet and Buck spent about the same amount of money in Colorado. Among these outside groups, you recall, Colorado was the most popular place to spend money in 2010. Just under $33 million was spent. (Communications expenses constitute the vast majority of campaign costs by outside groups, which most often do little more than buy TV ads.)

Asked if he knew that spending by outside groups backing Buck was about the same as the pro-Bennet side,  Caldara told me he “didn’t know it or didn’t know it the other way.”

“I’ve not gone through the reports for all the different groups involved in the Senate race,” he said.

I gave Caldara the facts on campaign spending by outside groups, and as someone who clearly doesn’t like anyone to make up excuses for the problems of the Colorado Republican Party’s problems, Caldara should set the record straight for his audience during his next show.

I listened to Call on KCFR’s Colorado Matters back on April 11, and he again suggested that the GOP was outspent on the Senate race, but he didn’t say it directly:

The challenge in the Senate race, quite frankly, had to do with spending from outside organizations that mischaracterized our district attorney’s record and position on many issues….

We saw a tremendous amount of spending by outside organizations, not the party committees, but outside groups that really are ultimately unaccountable to the voters, really weighing heavily in on that Senate race. Much of it was money coming in from out of state. I think they mischaracterized Ken Buck’s positions on many issues in a way that really hurt him, particularly among suburban women.

Call also acknowledged that Buck’s own bungles hurt him in the election, but I think here again he was at least creating the impression that the GOP was outspent by out-of-state interests

If he continues to make this suggestion, either directly or implied, journalists (and even the Caldaras of the media landscape) should clarify that this wasn’t the reality in 2010.

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10 thoughts on “Colo GOP chair spreads myth that spending by outside groups favored Bennet in 2010”

  1. So Call thinks the GOP didn’t throw enough money at Ken Buck? Seriously?

    Either he does not own a TV or was not in the state last year. More likely, he simply can’t tell the truth to save his life.

  2. Should we all whine that the GOP raises more money by far in red districts all over the state, keeping incompetent people in office for years? Give me a break.

  3. by the fact that Democrats always have so much more money flowing in from outside sources. And there is a unicorn grazing on my lawn and guarding the pot of gold conveniently located there at the end of a nice little rainbow.

  4. This reminds me of the RNC ad which proclaimed that: “2008: Unions Spent $400 Million to Elect Obama.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

    The ad quoted the Wall Street Journal, and Politico who cited a year old AP stories where an AP writer pulled the fact out of his ass and did not offer anything to back it up.

    The number then was repeated as true by numerous Right wing sources and Pundits and even by the MSM.

    A year later PolitiFact finally got around to investigating the claim and proclaimed it “False.”

    http://www.politifact.com/trut…

    This is why the right does not care about facts. One person pulls a lie out of their ass, Right Wing sources repeat it over and over, and then the MSM and even liberals and Dems accept the lie as true.

    We need a more skeptical media that does its job and fact checks questionable statements.

  5. Should just flash under at the bottom of screen every time a republican speaks.

    The folks listening on talk radio are more difficult, they always miss the “Rush’s(Beck, Boyles, Rosen) show is intended as comedy.  Any factual content is unintended” warning at the beginning.

      1. The mistruth that was “not intended to be a factual statement” is now nowhere to be found on the official Congressional minutes.

        During the budget negotiations, Republican Arizona Senator Jon Kyl took the floor to speak out against Planned Parenthood, rattling off that the health centers use 90% of their funding for abortions. One problem: his math was way off. Planned Parenthood only uses 3% of funding for abortion services.

        Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/…

        Angry face

    1. I remember a lot of direct mail. And phone calls.   I wouldn’t necessarily call that running a campaign.

      (c rork  – let’s get together some time and share stories. This reminds me of the afternoon I was out canvassing and got a robo call from Crossroads- while I was standing on the sidewalk in front of D/U house that I was about to canvass.  The U saw me with Bennet lit and told me to just keep going – and so I asked for the D. She made a face and got him – and the three of us started talking, she (U) complaining about the Bennet ads – and her phone rang.  You know the punch line…  Crossroads hurt more than they helped.)

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