Thursday, September 4, 2008

To Think Mark Udall Once Made a Big Deal of Attacking His Opponent's Missed Votes...

This piece comes from deep in the archives. Mark Udall has had a hard time living up to the consequences of his very important missed vote that left the energy issue untouched while Americans continue to pay high prices at the pump. But once upon a time, when he first ran for Congress in 1998, he made his opponent's missed votes a centerpiece of his campaign (from the October 28, 1998, edition of the Boulder Daily Camera):
[Congressional candidate Bob] Greenlee said the ads are defamatory to his reputation and he is considering legal action against the Mark Udall for Congress Committee.

The ad accuses Greenlee of missing 800 votes as a city council member....

Greenlee responded Saturday that while it is possible he missed 800 votes as a city council member, those votes have accumulated over a period of 15 years. He said many of the votes the Udall campaign is referring to could have been on such matters as minutes and minor amendments. Greenlee said he has as good of a record or better than any other city council member.
Thanks to our current campaign finance laws, Mark Udall now has other groups to throw the slime at his opponent for him, so he doesn't have to account for the direct attacks on Bob Schaffer this time around. But just the reminder of how concerned he was 10 years ago about the issue of missed votes is kind of funny - since Udall's missed vote was much more crucial than the 800 votes to approve minutes and minor amendments for a city council combined.

Udall? ... Udall?

10 comments:

Unknown said...

You're persistent, I'll give you that. The inescapable fact that you persist in misleading your readers on is that Udall voted against adjournment, when it actually mattered. The first vote apparently wasn't important enough for the House Minority Whip, Roy Blunt, to interrupt his high-priced lobbyist lunch for. If the same Republican leadership that has been screaming about the adjournment didn't consider the vote important enough to show up for, why do you hold Udall to a different standard?

I'm also starting a new tradition. Inspired by the lie-a-thon last night in MSP, every time I see a blatant falsehood propagated within the Republican echo-chamber, I'm making a donation to the wronged candidate.

Mark Udall thanks you, Ben, for your generous donation of $5 to his campaign. There'll be more to come, I'm sure. Thanks to the hard work of yourself and Gateway Pundit, Democratic candidates have raised $25 from me just today!

"Thank you for your generous contribution. Your gift will help our campaign and allow us to fight for the values we share. "

Ben DeGrow said...

Not that you could identify any "blatant falsehood" from "MSP" ... just harsh truths that upset your ideology and Democratic partisanship.

As for Mark Udall, he did miss the vote on adjournment when it really mattered, the vote he promised to make. It's undeniable. I can't help that you're a slow learner.

But you know what is said about such a person ... he and his money are soon parted. So be it.

Unknown said...

RNC Wednesday Night factcheck from Marketwatch

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/election/2008/09/04/palin-huckabee-told-some-whoppers-factcheck-says/

Quick summary: Palin was wrong on the Bridge to Nowhere, Obama's legislative record, her record as an opponent of earmarks, etc. I posted on your personal blog with more details, but I'll share them here as well:

"I find it very strange that so many Republicans have become enamored of a women who made John McCain’ own “pork list” *three* times for pulling in $27 million dollars of federal taxpayers money for a town of 6700, including $15 million to build a commuter rail for those 6700 people; was *for* the Bridge to Nowhere before she was “against it”, taking the money but not spending it on a bridge; and who addressed the Alaskan Independence Party convention - a party which wanted to secede from the United States and which her husband was a member of for almost 10 years - in each of the last 2 election cycles.

Does the fact that she’s against abortion in any circumstances, including when the mother’s life is endangered, make up for the fact that she’s a pork-addicted secessionist-sympathizer? Or is the fact that she thinks Iraq was a “mission from God”?"

As for the vote, when you can explain how a vote that the Republican leadership skipped for a fancy lobbyist lunch is an important vote that matters, I'll accept your premise. Until then, Udall voted on the same vote the Republican House leadership deemed important enough to show up for.

Unknown said...

More fact checking of Wednesday night's activities from Factcheck.org:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/gop_convention_spin_part_ii.html

"Sarah Palin’s much-awaited speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night may have shown she could play the role of attack dog, but it also showed her to be short on facts when it came to touting her own record and going after Obama’s.

We found Rudy Giuliani, who introduced her, to be as factually challenged as he sometimes was back when he was in the race. But Mike Huckabee may have laid the biggest egg of all."

Ben DeGrow said...

I followed the link you provided, and was underwhelmed. Since you are such a fair and consistent soul, did you also call Obama's speech last Thursday a "lie-a-thon"?

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_obama.html

You wrote the following in a previous comment:
"This is why the Democratic Party has been running all over the Republican Party the last several election cycles - they believe in facts...."

And you wonder why you have exhausted your credibility here, despite your best efforts to appear like an independent fact-checker.

Ben DeGrow said...

I should add that FactCheck.org found many more problems in Obama's speech than in Palin's.

Unknown said...

Obama may have stretched some of the numbers and omitted some details, as Factcheck points out, but he didn't just make things up out of whole cloth like Palin and the entire rest of the GNC Wednesday lineup. Did Palin actually turn down the money for the Bridge? Hasn't Obama in fact authored several laws?

We all know plenty about Obama. He's been in the national public eye for 4 years now. We know nothing about Sarah Palin but what we've found out in the last week. You'd think she'd want to spend that time giving us some of that "Straight Talk". More importantly, you'd think McCain would realize that he's named her 3 times on his own pork list, that she *wasn't* against the bridge and that her lobbyist was tied up in the very same Jack Abramoff mess that McCain was bragging about investigating last night.

Ben DeGrow said...

An interesting characterization and justification. Readers can judge for themselves.

Still waiting for links/sources/footnotes.

Keep tying yourself in knots.

Unknown said...

I've given up on posting this on your personal blog - it doesn't like something in the URL's, so I'm posting it here.

Wasilla's earmarks: http://www.taxpayer.net/resources.php?category=&type=Project&proj_id=1284&action=Headlines%20By%20TCS

Palin's Wasilla on McCain's "pork list" 3 times: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-earmarks3-2008sep03,0,6145252.story

Palin hires Steven W. Silver, former chief of staff to indicted Senator Ted Stevens, to get $27m in earmarks for a town of 6700: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/01/AR2008090103148_pf.html

From 2002 to 2004, Silver was a lobbyist for Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/lobbyist.php?year=2003&lname=Silver%2C+Steven+W

The events McCain investigated Greenberg Traurig for, took place from 2002-2004. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff_timeline

Palin and The Bridge: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/us/politics/01bridge.html

Palin addressing the Alaska Independence Party's convention. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwvPNXYrIyI

The Party's goal is to get a vote on secession from the US. Palin's husband was a member. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/members-of-frin.html

Unknown said...

Another example of the cognitive dissonence required to be both a McCain and Palin supporter. During her speech to the convention, around the 18 or 19 minute mark, Palin said:

"When oil and gas prices went up dramatically, and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged - directly to the people of Alaska."

That line got bigger applause than the one where she said "Thanks but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere (which we know from above didn't mean she was giving the money back!)

In case you aren't aware of what she's referring to in this crowd pleasing passage, it's the windfall profits tax she levied on oil companies when their profits soared. The exact sort of tax that Obama has proposed, and McCain ridiculed:

"If the plan sounds familiar, it’s because that was President Jimmy Carter’s big idea too — and a lot of good it did us. Now as then, all a windfall profits tax will accomplish is to increase our dependence on foreign oil, and hinder exactly the kind of domestic exploration and production we need. I’m all for recycling — but it’s better applied to paper and plastic than to the failed policies of the 1970’s."

Is Palin a Jimmy Carter Republican?