Rebutting Bob Schaffer's Sleazy Attack

Vince Carroll of the Rocky Mountain News gets it exactly right.

Carroll begins:

Republican Bob Schaffer has spent the week suggesting that his opponent in the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Mark Udall, is a hypocrite because he sponsored a resolution in 2002 denouncing Saddam Hussein in the strongest terms, stipulating that he possessed a variety of terrible weapons and describing Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The resolution was even billed as a "preliminary authorization for the use of force against Iraq."

If you fail to look closely, you could easily conclude that the supposedly anti-war Udall was actually on the same page as the congressional majority that ultimately did authorize war - and that Udall's vote against their resolution amounted to splitting hairs.

That's rubbish. Schaffer should cut it out.

Here's where Mark Udall stood on the war in 2002 and where he stands on it today:

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

The Ben DeGrow spaghetti factory has been running at full tilt, throwing every noodle it manufactures to the wall and finding nothing will stick.

Let's go through the distortions one-by-one:

1. Calling for increased fuel efficiency and an orderly transition to alternative fuels does not raise the price of gasoline, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow says it does.

2. Mark Udall is not opposed to developing domestic petroleum resources, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow and Bob Schaffer says he is. What he is opposed to is raping the most ecologically and economically sensitive land when the oil companies have already leased 68 million acres and aren't drilling.

3. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will never make a noticeable dent in gas prices, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow and Bob Schaffer say it will. Bush's own Energy Information Adminsitration says that best case it will reduce gas prices by a penny in ten years. Even John McCain is opposed to drilling in ANWR.

4. Oil shale is a boondoggle. Always has been, and by all accounts always will be. Ben DeGrow and Bob Schaffer dancing around like a couple of drunken '49ers every time the topic comes up doesn't change that fact.

5. Drilling on the Roan Plateau will not affect gasoline prices at all, because you can't make gasoline out of natural gas, no matter how many times Ben DeGrow suggests that it will.

6. And finally, if Bush had not run up the national debt through wars of choice and giveaways to the oil and pharmaceutical companies, we'd still have a strong dollar. Experts say that if the dollar were as strong against the euro as it was ten years ago, oil would be trading at $80/bbl. What does Ben DeGrow and his Senate candidate have to say about that?

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.

Read the Fine Print

We'll reprint the only factual information contained within the hackery spewed forth by Bob Schaffer via his mouthpiece Dick Wadhams as channeled through Rocky Mountain News stenographer Lynn Bartels:

U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall took $1,500 in contributions from two firms that once employed disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

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In fact, the money came from Abramoff's employers' PACs.

That's right. Nothing to do with Abramoff, Abramoff's lobbying, his clients, his schemes to defraud Indian tribes, or his support for the sweatshops and their associated "free-market" forced abortions.

Two of the largest lawfirms in the world have PACs, and those PACs gave Udall a total of $1,500 during the time that Abramoff was in the employ of the companies associates with the PACs.

Meanwhile, Schaffer accepted thousands in tainted money from the likes of Tom DeLay, to say nothing of the thousands more he took directly from the sweatshop moguls themselves, and then to say nothing of the $13,000 parasailing junket he took on Abramoff's dime. All of this is documented fact. Let's review:



There's nothing in this story that should ever have been reported by Lynn Bartels. Shame on her for not checking her facts.

Earmark Reform Needed

The Denver Post has an interesting but unnecessarily "gotcha" article up about two earmarks sought by Mark Udall before he swore off earmarks for the year.

It is better have Congress doling out that money than some agency that is totally unaccountable to anyone, given that Bush has refused to do his job when it comes to oversight and management. Congressional candidate contributions are public record. That at least provides some level of accountability now that the Democratic Congress has made requesters of earmarks also public information.

And really-- some career procurement agent with three kids working on $40,000 salary is going to find $6,850 a far more appealing incentive to award a contract than a U.S. Congressman. Considering that Udall has received similarly large amounts from many many donors who do not have federal contracts, it's not really fair to tie the two together.

The fact is that there are not a lot of people who can afford to give that kind of money to a political candidate. Those who can afford it are typically business executives who would be the type to get federal contracts. Not many stay-at-home moms, mechanics, or other regular working folks are in the market for federal contracts.

So you have a limited pool of people capable of fulfilling federal contracts, and a limited pool of people capable of making large donations, and the two pools of people significantly overlap. It's definitely coincidental, and without some evidence it would be irresponsible to report it as causal. Correlation does not imply causality.

On the other hand...

That's not to say the system doesn't provide the appearance of a conflict just in terms of donors and contract recipients, but that's a political issue not an ethical issue. However, when you add in all of the internal favoritism, political horse trading, committee assignments, seniority, and all the other stuff that goes on in the (once) smoky back rooms of Congress, the system is still broken.

Udall and Marilyn Musgrave are wise to suspend further earmark requests until the system is reformed. Many reforms need to be put into place. We know who the earmark winners are, but we don't know who the losers are. That's just as important. There isn't adequate time for the public to review those earmarks, and there isn't enough transparency on how they are allocated, whether there was any competition, and a whole host of other problems.

With sunlight as the best disinfectant, we can have a system where the earmark system is good enough to come back. With a perfect system (which we will never have, but we can try), state and local governments, small businesses, etc. would not need to be lobbying dozens of federal agencies for a piece of the federal budget when it comes to things like defense, national parks, and interstate highways. They could go to their Senators and Representatives for earmarks, and the Congress--under the full light of the sun--could debate and allocate those resources in a very public and accountable way. Imagine how much local tax money you'd save if your city, county, and state didn't have to pay lobbyists to work the federal system, spreading around largesse among low-paid federal workers, or promising lucrative jobs in exchange for federal contracts.

Earmarks can be good. Right now they aren't. Good for Marilyn Musgrave and Mark Udall for drawing a line in the sand.