Hollywood Liberal Women Rally to Fund Boulder Liberal Mark Udall's Campaign

From the Politico:

One hundred of Hollywood’s most politically savvy women, ranging in age from early 20s to 75 years old, have been quietly gathering over the past few months, planning the event. It should benefit at least seven challengers to GOP incumbents this November — all of them in Senate seats that might make a serious difference in swinging crucial votes over the next two years, no matter who sits in the White House.

There’s no real organization in place yet, not even a rudimentary website. Going by the formal-sounding name Voices for a Senate Majority, the group has already signed agreements with a half-dozen Democratic challengers — Maine’s Tom Allen, Alaska’s Mark Begich, Minnesota’s Al Franken, New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen and cousins Tom and Mark Udall from, respectively, New Mexico and Colorado — and is pledging a minimum of $100,000 to each of their campaigns.

Hollywood liberals sending cash to the Boulder liberal ... It won't exactly be the first time. There was the sweet $1,000 contribution from Barbra Streisand to Mark Udall's Senate campaign. Well, after all, Senate candidates who get donations from Hollywood liberals can be some of "the luckiest people in the world."

As September's liberal Hollywood fundraiser for Mark Udall approaches, we're also reminded of his special Left-wing Daily Kos fundraiser.

Mark Udall is becoming known by the company he keeps.

Photoshop by El Presidente.

A Tale of Two Fundraisers: Dana Perino for Bob Schaffer vs. Daily Kos for Mark Udall

One of the major necessities of political campaigns is fundraising - this is especially true for a high-profile office like U.S. Senate. Tonight Colorado residents are holding a fundraiser for Republican candidate Bob Schaffer. The guest of honor is local Colorado woman Dana Perino, who happens to work as the President's press secretary. This was enough to set off the alarm bells from the Mark Udall camp:

"Bob Schaffer's agenda is all about continuing the policies of the Bush administration that have failed our families, our national security, and our economy," said Udall's campaign spokeswoman, Taylor West.

"It's no wonder that President Bush, Dick Cheney, and now even their employees are doing everything they can to prop up his candidacy."

Schaffer's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, said the Udall campaign "should be ashamed of themselves for attacking a Colorado woman who has distinguished herself as a spokeswoman for the president of the United States.

"I think she does an excellent job," Wadhams said.

There's a little political back-and-forth jousting not uncommon for this campaign, though as demonstrated here before, you do have to be very skeptical of what Taylor West says. Especially when West tries to take attention away from her own candidate's Washington insider, liberal ties.

But the more important distinction missed in the story is that Bob Schaffer raises more money from Coloradans (including myself: a small contributor), while Mark Udall is collecting more money from out-of-state liberal interest groups. Perhaps that's why Udall's fundraising events with Far Left groups like the Daily Kos don't make the local news. But they do tell a lot about the candidate.

DailyKos: Mark Udall, a Progressive Patriot PTMD

Scoreboard time again, and so soon. That paragon of liberal thinking, DailyKos, is promoting a poll with a $5,000 prize:

Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriots Fund is holding a poll to pick the next Progressive Patriots. One of these candidates will get a $5,000 contribution.

The poll has closed. There were 26 votes. Mark Udall won with 12, so he gets $5,000 and another notch on our "reliably left wing" scoreboard line, which is where we put "progressive:"

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 14
liberal 30
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

Long ago, we started using music titles to make it easier to find earlier posts and to differentiate scoreboard posts from other posts. Recently, Mark Udall admitted that in 1971 he had his automobile seized in a drug related arrest. Most states don't seize vehicles unless the amount of drugs involved suggests drug dealing. Mark Udall has been quite coy about what happened. An enquiring public wants to know. In that spirit, our future scoreboard entries will be titled Puff the Magic Dragon or PTMD.

A Campaign Quote Raises Questions

Mark Udall was quoted in the Cherry Creek News:

Speaking about the coming campaign and the issues to define it, Udall said “the outlines are clear- Iraq, the economy, immigration.” Udall said that undocumented immigrants must “travel the path to citizenship— pay a fine (for being in the U.S. illegally), speak English, have committed no crimes.” “We must address... the health care system where families are one illness away from bankruptcy.”

Udall, a westerner, said that Colorado issues would play a key role in the Senate race: water, transportation and creating more transit options. He also emphasized that Colorado’s position for renewable energy and the jobs it could create was strong, given our resources and the presence of the National Renewable Energy lab in Golden.

Someday we must remember to ask if Mark Udall considers it acceptable for (as he says) an undocumented immigrant to gain his citizenship if he went through Bill Ritter's agricultural trespass plea bargain mill.

Note that Mark Udall is not all that interested in talking about his part in the bark beetle crisis, his refusal to allow either clear cutting of fire breaks to reduce the size of a probable forest fire or the harvesting of dying trees by lumber companies.

We wonder if Mark Udall will be willing to talk about his part in his staff's railroading of Caroline Bninski into a one year jail term.

Is Mark Udall proud to be associated with Daily Kos to the point that they were setting up his own personal blog on that site?

So many questions and so few answers. Oh, and our favorite, the Department of Peace?

Daily Kos Diatribe

DailyKos has published a lengthy diatribe from ColoTim with a poll. We didn't vote in the poll - we never do - but only three of the 24 kossacks think Mark Udall is doing a fine job. 15 thought Udall should be supporting impeachment. Only four thought impeachment a distraction.

Keep in mind that while Mark Udall claims that his fundraising success is an endorsement by the people of Colorado, he is doing a lot of fundraising on the West Coast, some with Kos as a host. Kos tried to defuse the fundraising with this curious, somewhat disjointed post (We edited out the reduncancy and added not a word):

...liberal Mark Udall is already too liberal for Colorado ... The event ... organized by ultra liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas, ... scheduled to take place ... San Francisco...

Recall that we caught Janus at DailyKos admitting that he had the password to Mark Udall's Kos blog account.

Even Mark Udall's friends aren't so friendly.

Money Race Even, Rules aren't.

The Boulder Daily Camera is reporting that, discounting the almost $1.2 million that Mark Udall transferred into his senate race from his congressional race coffers, both men have about the same amount of money on hand.

Mark Udall took advantage of a designed campaign finance law quirk that allows a sitting congressman to raise funds for a senate race before his official announcement while his opponent cannot. Thus, Udall had an almost 15 month head start in fund raising. Not coincidentially, Udall voted himself this advantage.

We have to chuckle at another Mark Udall lie:

"This is just another indication of the deep support Mark [ Udall ] has earned among Colorado's working families all across the state -- and we didn't have to sneak behind closed doors to embrace a president who is totally out of step with Colorado voters to do it," [ Mike ] Melanson said.

Mark Udall went to Daily Kos in California to raise funds. While Kos is in step with the folks in Boulder, there is no possibility that either Mark Udall or Mike Melanson will claim that he is in step with Colorado values.

The reason Mark Udall is being so obstinate about refusing to clean up the pine bark beetle mess is that he is getting so much money from the Sierra Club and its allies. Time will tell if the voters will decide they like their forests brown, dead, and burned as Mark Udall's major funders do. Who is raising funds from people who are out of step with Colorado? We think it is Mark Udall.

John Kerry Endorses Mark Udall On Daily Kos

As an aside in a Daily Kos posting decrying the "Swiftboating" of Democrat candidates, John Kerry tossed this comment in:

"I’ll defend people like Mark Udall in a Senate race in Colorado"

What exactly will John "Genghis Khan" Kerry be defending Udall from?

The right-wing has nothing to offer but fear and smears, and they are gearing up to deliver plenty of it. Already we hear of a conservative group with ties to the Bush White House – Freedom’s Watch – that plans to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on this election. I think we all know enough about how the right-wing operates to know that this money won’t go to helping voters make informed choices. That money will go to smearing candidates across America, up and down the ballot.

Republicans spend money on "fear and smears", while well-funded Democrats use their campaign funds for responsible voter education.

Right.

So we are adding John Kerry to the list of Udall endorsements--the type of ultra-liberal, Washington-insider, establishment endorsement that "moderates" like Mark Udall can ill-afford.

How Serious is Brenner?

We should know shortly. DailyKos is promising:

On Monday, we'll examine how a primary challenge may affect DSCC/coordinated campaign money to Udall's camp and the effect of the left wing piling on Udall's already lackluster defense against attacks from the right.

Mark Udall (or an insider think-alike) to blog on DailyKos

Not only can Mark Udall, (D-DailyKos) not be truthfull, he is authorizing a Kos insider to blog on Kos under his name and lie for him. This was buried in the comments on a December 4th post on Kos (6th & 7th comments down):

Things look as good as they ever will (0 / 0)
Mark makes the point to Jonathan Singer well. The largest majority pulled off by a Democrat in a statewide federal race in Colorado in 30 years was Ken Salazar by 1.8 points.
With kind deference to Kos, there is no rational basis for any assumption that this will be an easy pick-up.
by Mark Udall on Tue Dec 04, 2007 at 11:40:57 AM PST
[ Parent ]
Yikes! That was me, not Mark. (0 / 0)
I probably gave something away, but we're preparing to do some diaries with Mark on Kos in the near future and I was logged in as him.
So for the purposes of the above comment that was me not Mark. :-)
by Janus on Tue Dec 04, 2007 at 11:43:12 AM PST
[ Parent ]

Henceforth this blogger will refer to Mark Udall as the would be Senator from DailyKos. There isn't a soul who would believe that Udall can, or even wants to separate himself from the far left, let alone pretend that he is a moderate.

I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Kos is at it again.

Then again, the GOP's entire campaign against Mark Udall is that he's a "liberal"...

He goes on, admittedly tongue in cheek:

Today, the liberalist of liberal liberals, Tom Udall (who is liberal), is scheduled to be feted at a liberal party with the liberalist of liberal Democrats in liberal San Francisco, a city full of liberals. Considering liberal Mark Udall is already too liberal for Colorado victories, it seems fitting.

The event of liberals, liberally organized by ultra liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas, a liberal, of the really, really, really liberal blog 'Daily Kos', is liberally scheduled to take place at a liberal bar in liberal San Francisco, a city full of liberals.

The point that he is missing is that we here in Colorado hardly have to try to tag Mark Udall as a liberal. Our friends in the msm and the left leaning blogs do it regularly for us. See our scoreboard at the right. We are going to make a point in not counting this clever little post because we already have enough posts and msm mentions to make a very solid statement as to how far left the left thinks Mark Udall really is.

Kos, you are welcome to follow the bread crumbs that you will find to the right to check our methodology. We've even found your blog calling him a liberal, but we notice that you have stopped, not because he has stopped being a liberal, but because of the baggage that word carries.

Singin' & Swingin'

This will be an unusual addition to our scoreboard because two far left wing bloggers are hosting a "Drinks With Mark Udall" event. Markos from Daily Kos simply does not hobnob with run of the mill liberals. They must believe that Mark Udall is at least "reliably left wing" or they wouldn't bother to show up, let alone host the event. We will increment that counter by two on our scoreboard. (We strongly considered incrementing the extremist counter, given how far left Kos is.)

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 7
liberal 25
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

Mark Udall: The Modern Michael Dukakis

For those too young to remember, Michael Dukakis lost credibility and the election in 1988 when he stumbled on the first question of the first debate.

That question presupposed the rape and murder of his wife and asked what he would do. He made it look like it was an academic exercise where the criminal had more rights than his wife did. Almost any husband who loved his wife and wanted to protect her would have answered differently. At the end of the debate, Dukakis' body language signaled his knowledge that he had blown the election on that one question.

Now comes Mark Udall with much the same mind set towards Iran. He wants to completely tie the hands of this and future administrations with regard to that country and has proposed a law to that effect.

Udall makes the claim that he loves the soldiers. As with our observation about Dukakis, almost any politician who loved "the soldiers" would do his utmost to protect them.

When they go to Iraq, they face very sophisticated shaped charge roadside bombs.Shaped charges can not be made from parts picked up at the local junkyard or ammo dump. They have to be machined out of copper. None of these shaped charges can be or have been made in Iraq.

It is reported that about 80 per cent of our casualties are due to shaped charges. Most, if not all of these weapons are shipped in from Iran. Iran is at war with us.

Now comes Mark Udall, the modern day Michael Dukakis who wants to protect the criminals in Iran more than the soldiers he claims to love. Of course, Daily Kos is cheering him on.

Kos Says It's Not In The Bag

Kos, that paragon of wisdom, now observes that the election in Colorado is not quite the foregone conclusion he had hoped.

Given perceptions of this race, I would've expected Bob Schaffer's fundraising to dry up (as it has for the NRSC). But in fact, he's not trailing that badly.

He then goes on to quote the numbers but fails to note, as so many papers have, that Udall dumped $1.5 million into the race from his Congressional campaign. That means that the fundraising is even closer than he might know, or want to admit.

The drummer plays on.

The Democrats apparently think that this blog is effective. They just started a step-sister. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but if past liberal conduct is prologue, we expect to be Cinderella to that blog's ugly and mean spirited step-sister. Is Tim Gill funding this operation, too?

The second post out of the box quoted Daily Kos as calling the Republican senatorial candidate "bat shit insane."

Independents who read this blog will note that it refrains from name calling and attempts to illuminate the issues in a thoughtful and thorough way. While the liberal bloggers work hard to create an echo chamber of innuendo and name calling, we don't source our material from conservative blogs, so you won't see much of an echo chamber effect here.

Our ugly step-sister did help us with our count project in one way. It reprinted a CQ assertion that Mark Udall is a liberal. The Daily Kos did the same thing. CQ's statement was:

Udall is generally liberal, although his record started moving toward the political center once he decided that he would run for the Senate in 2008

CQ provided no facts to back up the last half of that statement. If it is true, and we don't think it is, it says a lot about Udall. He knew he would be too liberal to be elected statewide in Colorado, so when he decided to run for Senate, he began trying to conceal his liberalism. It calls his integrity into question.

Given that this "Mark Udall is a liberal quote" was made by a msm outlet and echoed by two liberal blogs, we think that we can up our scoreboard by three.

We wanted to point out that it will be very hard to sell Udall as a centrist when the msm and Liberal blogs themselves routinely refer to him as either "extremist," or "liberal." We started keeping track and created a scoreboard that links to the sources. Recently, we started linking to our most recent scoreboard post so that readers could examine our methodology for fairness.

Scoreboard

Extremist 2
Reliably Left Wing 1
Liberal 9
Moderate 0
Conservative (That would be a laugh)

Interestingly, CQ is the first msm outlet that we know of to make the claim that Udall was "moving toward the center," and they didn't bother to source it. Since they labeled him as a liberal we will ignore their modification.

Added 24 hours later: The blog, udallvschaffer, and its two posts have been taken down. This scoreboard operates like any other, once the game is played, once the posts are written, the statistics remain. You can run but you can't hide, or if you like, you can hide, but you can't run. More... and more...

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Yearly Kos

5280 reports that Mark Udall's campaign manager was at Yearly Kos, along with Jared (Amendment 41) Polis, and Jay Fawcett.

The laugh of the weekend must have come when Hillary Clinton spoke of "The Rule of Law" in a panel at Daily Kos.

Maybe not. The Democrat concept of "the rule of law" is more accurately described as "Anything a Republican does is a crime and we're going to investigate and prosecute."

Did you know that Congress has over 300 investigations going? That factoid came out of the Sunday talk shows this weekend.

Wishful Thinking

From the YearlyKos convention, Colorado Confidential reports:

DNC Chair and Blog Godfather Howard Dean kicked off a stream of politicians and dignitaries headlining the keynote speaker forum. Colorado's 2nd congressional candidate Jared Polis strolled the halls and Sen. Mark Udall was also expected to drop in Saturday.

Is there something in the water in Chicago? We were under the impression that there was an intervening election and a decent man named Bob Schaffer standing in the way of that particular title. Almost anyone can be a Kentucky Colonel, though.

Also, is that THE Jared Polis of Amendment 41 fame? Cherish this time Leslie and Wendy. You are walking among the greats of our era. Just don't drink the water.

The Deception of the Left

If someone uses the screen name "nonpartisan" one might expect that he was, well...actually nonpartisan.

We found a blogger who uses that screen name but writes in a post that he admits is cross posted at Daily Kos and Swing State Project:

"My, how far we in the activist Netroots have fallen."

And about Mark Udall, whom most would consider very liberal almost to the point of being an extremist (especially on environmental issues) he writes:

"Colorado: Congressman and Blue Dog Dem Mark Udall locked up this nomination early, with support from Chuck Schumer. The blogosphere has yet to mention a strong candidate against him (Mike Miles, anyone?)"

Blue Dog Democrat???? I almost choked on my glass of water when I read that.