Unincorporated Boulder County Liberal

Bob Schaffer must think that if he says "Boulder liberal" three times and clicks his heels that Jack Abramoff and Bill Orr will go away.

Not that there's anything wrong with hailing from Boulder, home of Soldier of Fortune Magazine, Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute, and other notable conservative individuals and organizations. But when Bob Schaffer uses the term "Boulder liberal" and simultaneously claims through his henchman Dick Wadhams that Mark Udall moved to Eldorado Springs to avoid his "boulder roots," but also that Udall's house is not in Eldorado Springs but in Boulder he is just plain wrong.

Lynn Bartels: "Here's the kicker: Udall has never lived in Boulder's city limits."

Never. Not before, not now. Schaffer and Wadhams have access to the same maps everyone else does. They know better. They are not merely incorrect, but they are lying. Spreading a falsehood with the intent to deceive.

If there's one word that sums up Bob Schaffer's candidacy, it has to be 'dishonest.' Schaffer has been obfuscating his own positions, lying about Mark Udall's, and wasting so much oxygen on the deliberate falsehood of "Boulder liberal" that we wonder if there is any truthfulness at all in his campaign.

Bob Schaffer has a well-documented, fringe-conservative record. It's a record that served him well as professional politician since age 25. Until Schaffer edited his bio to make himself look like a moderate (with no evidence to back that up), his claim was that Republicans have lost because they aren't right-wing enough. Schaffer should run on his record. He's going to have an uphill battle if everything that comes out of his mouth is unsupported by facts.

A Idiot

One of Bob Schaffer's bloggers has taken us to task (breaking his no name-calling pledge in the process) over our supply and demand analysis. Their primary argument is that electricity prices are regulated, therefore supply and demand don't apply.

Were it true that prices were fixed by the government, they would be right. However they are not. When the electric utilities want to change prices to respond to market forces (such as supply and demand), they apply to the PUC for a rate adjustment, and in almost every case the PUC approves it without question. So the price may not swing wildly on an hourly basis (thank goodness) but it does change in response to market forces.

But take a look at alternative energy and you'll find that those rates are not subject to the PUC. From Xcel Energy's Windsource signup page: "The Colorado Public Utilities Commission has approved the use of market pricing concepts for Windsource rather than the regulated rate methods." In other words, with renewable energy comes a free-market pricing model.

So if you're a lover of the free market and Colorado's scenic environment and you want to help curb global warming (the existence of which Bob Schaffer's supporters at the Independence Institute continue to deny, even as Bush himself has acknowledged it is a serious, manmade problem that needs addressing) then you should look at Windsource and other renewable energy programs.

Does it cost more? For now, yes (about $14/mo for the average electric bill). Wind farms aren't built for free. But we are happy to pay a little more in the short term to help build the renewable electricity infrastructure. It creates jobs, helps the environment (not just global warming but things like acid rain and asthma-causing soot pollution), and reduces our dependence on fossil fuels. When the infrastructure is built out, costs will come down. And programs like Windsource are opt-in. Can't afford the $14? That's OK, don't pay it.

Bob Schaffer's Bloggers Should Pay Attention to Bob Schaffer

Our friends in Bob Schaffer's peanut gallery have taken some pleasure in recent days by accusing Mark Udall of wanting higher energy prices by supporting renewable energy.

Not only is the logic dizzying (anybody who has ever taken a basic high school business class knows that more energy supply means lower energy prices), but they are also slamming their own candidate at the same time.

You see, Big Oil Bob Schaffer has been putting a fair amount of effort of late in hiding his oil industry background, instead saying that he's been all about the wind and solar. And now one of the myriad of "nonprofit organizations" that has poppoed up to support Bob Schaffer is now running TV ads touting Bob Schaffer's supposed support for renewable energy (a claim that his voting record clearly disputes).

So while the weirdos at the Independence Institute and the rest of the Republican Party insult our intelligence with bizarre and unsubstantiated claims of higher prices from renewable energy, their candidate is running far, far away from them by making himself look more like Mark Udall every day. That's because Mark Udall has it right on energy policy, has for years, and people like Bib Oil Bob Schaffer are only now starting to catch up.

It's interesting how the far-right weirdos at the Independence Institute tout the free market and then demonstrate that they don't even have a basic understanding of basic market principles such as supply and demand. If Bob Schaffer wants any chance at winning, he should signal to his base that they shouldn't be attacking Mark Udall for positions that Bob Schaffer evidently holds. Some might see that as disorganized, or possibly even hypocritical.

Bob Schaffer's Handler is a Bald-Faced Liar and Should Be Ashamed of Himself

Dick Wadhams in regards to Jerry Tan, brother of Willie Tan and co-owner of Tan Holdings Corporation, et.al., and big donor to Bob Schaffer's congressional and 2004 Senate campaigns (watch the video):

There is no record of that...of I'm aware of...of that gentlemen being convicted or investigated for anything like that that I'm aware of.

The Weekly Standard:

Tan, the recipient of the largest labor fine in U.S. history, is a Chinese tycoon who owns clothing factories throughout the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory exempt from U.S. immigration, wage, and labor laws. Tan paid Abramoff millions of dollars to ensure that the exemption continued. And Abramoff was successful in doing just that. [emphasis supplied]

Jerry Tan's company, Tan Holdings, was fined 9 million Dollars for labor violations. Eric Singer, either you were lied to or you allowed Dick Wadhams to use truly Clinton-esque word gymnastics to wiggle out of the truth. You should follow up and set the record straight.

Family Research Council Endorses Bob Schaffer

Meet Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, which has just tossed its endorsement behind Bob Schaffer:



That's right, he just said that global warming is good, because it's a sign of the end times.

Bob Schaffer should come clean with Coloradans and state whether he agrees with the Family Research Council's longstanding, well-documented hate propaganda such as:

...one of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the 'prophets' of a new sexual order.

FRC's other endorsements today include Marilyn Musgrave for her work on amending the Constitution of the United States to discriminate against gay people.