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.

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.

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.

[skip to the bottom]

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.

Burning Bridges Might Not Be the Best Game Plan, Dick

Dick Wadhams:

Pressed this week, Wadhams distanced his current campaign from that of his former bosses.

"There’s only one idiot named George Allen," Wadhams said of the former Virginia senator and governor.

But Schaffer, he says, is "is perhaps one of the most articulate people I’ve worked for." Referencing the infamous "macaca moment", Wadhams said, "Bob is not going to make a mistake like that."

But just a week ago, Bob Schaffer stated that he thought the immigration system in the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands should be a "model" for the entire U.S. Coincidentally, the United States Senated just voted 91-4 to outlaw that very system which led to forced abortions, child labor, sex slavery, and a booming sweatshop industry.

As Congressman George Miller stated upon the bill's passage, "Jack Abramoff is now in prison and Tom DeLay has resigned in disgrace. Very few people would defend the status quo in the CNMI, which has done such damage to workers and their families over the years."

Bob Schaffer is one of those people.

Bob Schaffer's going to need all the help he can get, including donors and supporters of that "idiot named George Allen" who was once held up to be the Republican heir-apparent to the White House. Perhaps alienating Allen and his supporters is not the best way to go, Bob.

Not a Good Day for U.S. Senate Candidate Bob Schaffer

Last evening, smelling blood in the water, Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall picked up on the Denver Post's earlier reporting of Bob Schaffer holding the immigration system in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands out as a model for how he thinks the U.S. immigration system should work, and provided some background on how that really worked--women "getting beaten, raped or coerced into having abortions."

This morning, the Denver Post reported in a front page story about Bob Schaffer's Jack Abramoff ties and his so-called "fact-finding mission." Among the facts that Bob apparently found were that he looks really bad in shorts, parasailing is fun, and "palm-studded beach resort[s]" are more fun when his stay in one is free thanks to Jack Abramoff. The wife thought so too.

The Post can't drop a bombshell like that without the whole universe picking it up. It is literally a blogswarm of epic proportion. Later in the morning, TPM came out with this video as a brush-up on some of the history of the Abramoff scandal:



Then, outdoing themselves, TPM revealed further background on the implicit Abramoff-Schaffer connection via the explicit and very public connection between Schaffer and sweatshop executive and Abramoff crony Ben Fitial.

The story comes out more and more by the hour, and Schaffer has yet to say one word in his own defense. Things are not looking good for Bob Schaffer. Not good at all--nor should they; he's created a big mess for himself. Schaffer once commented that he was the Dr. Phil of the Republican Party.

Heal thyself, Dr. Phil.

Update: We almost missed the AP coverage with this gem from Dick Wadhams who (literally) sounds like a broken record:

"We do look forward to when Boulder liberal Udall has Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to Colorado for Boulder liberal Udall to defend Sen. Reid's involvement with Abramoff," he said.

Poor Dick sounds like he's just about over the edge.

Dick Wadhams Thinks the Sunrise is a U-Turn

Mark Udall said it was night time at midnight, but now it's noon and he claims it's day time? That's a U-turn! That hypocrite!

Yeah, not so much.

Dick Wadhams claims Mark Udall has changed positions on the Roan Plateau because he's now trying to get Bill Ritter's incremental-drilling plan written into law when he used to support a total moratorium.

I read it differently. He and John Salazar had the drilling moratorium in the energy bill, but Congress stripped it out because it didn't have the votes. Now they are going for middle ground, just trying to get the most protection for the Roan that they can.

When some people fail, they try again. But Wadhams, reflecting the attitude of his candidate Bob Schaffer (permanently etched in the Congressional Record), thinks 'my way or the highway' absolutism is the way Coloradans want to be represented. In Schaffer's world it's better to be a righteous failure than it is to compromise and get half of what Coloradans want.

Coloradans are tired of ideologues. They want a Senator who is willing to work hard to accomplish what is achievable for Colorado--strong and principled, but willing to be flexible when necessary. Bob Schaffer is not that, and Wadhams represents his point of view well.