Rossputin Takes Up Bob Schaffer's Defense Against Lefty Lies in Rocky Mountain News

At the risk of giving Ross Kaminsky (aka Rossputin) two free links in the course of one week, we recommend you take a look at his insightful column "Schaffer not exactly 'big oil'" in today's Rocky Mountain News. Consider it your weekend reading assignment, and ask yourself why the Lefty Big Blue Lie Machine has been so intent on painting this deceptive picture of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer?

Perhaps, as Kaminsky points out, to deflect from the authentic weakness of their own candidate, Boulder liberal Mark Udall:

During his five years in the energy industry, Bob Schaffer contributed substantially to the federal coffers while working for a local company on projects to increase supply and lower the cost of energy. During that same time, Mark Udall took his salary from the American taxpayers while doing everything in his power to make energy as costly as possible, following the wishes of every liberal and environmentalist group at the expense of the average American who needs to drive to work or heat his home.

It's a point we've made before - though perhaps not quite so elegantly or concisely. But with the truth fighting to get noticed in this frenetic campaign season, it can't be repeated often enough.

Washington Times: Big Oil Smear Backfiring on Big Blue Lie Machine

Reading an article like this one from today's Washington Times must make the folks at ProgressNow feel deservedly silly and their favored candidate Mark Udall just plain hopping mad:

Bob Schaffer's opponents have spent the past two months tarring him as "Big Oil Bob," an advocate of oil drilling and an energy-industry insider. Maybe he should thank them.

Two polls show Mr. Schaffer, the Colorado Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, has erased a double-digit deficit and pulled within a nose of Democratic foe Mark Udall.

The reason, according to one poll, lies in fuel prices. Since gas hit $4 a gallon here, a majority of Colorado voters have come out in favor of offshore oil drilling and exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, said a Quinnipiac Poll released last week.

At the same time, Mr. Schaffer went from trailing Mr. Udall by 10 percentage points in June - 49 percent to 39 percent - to a 44 percent to 44 percent tie in July. The June survey of 1,351 likely Colorado voters had an error margin of 2.7 percentage points; the July poll of 1,425 likely voters had a 2.6-point margin.

ProgressNow of course has reason to feel silly, having spent so much time and money on a full-fledged Internet campaign to tar the candidate they hate as "Big Oil Bob." The absurdity of their facile ad campaign had been pointed out as early as April.

And why might Mark Udall be angry? Besides the plummeting poll numbers? Perhaps his wife Maggie Fox's intimate connection with the 527 group League of Conservation Voters so singularly obsessed with tarring Bob Schaffer?

Politics is a fickle game. At some point, enough of the public comes to see through the deception - though the ill winds may yet again work against common sense and decency for a time. But for now, it's sure funny to see the tar blow back on the Big Blue Lie Machine.