My Pet Peeve...Mark Udall Wouldn't Know The Truth If...

How can you tell if Mark Udall is lying to the public? Check to see if his lips are moving, either in person or in a commercial. Even the NRSC has noticed:

Puke and Snot in the San Luis Valley

As an off and on visitor to the Renaissance Festival, I was saddened to learn of the untimely death of one of the members of the Puke and Snot show shortly after their last performance in Larkspur last month.

It is nice to see that Puke and Snot fans Mark Udall and Ken Salazar were doing a revival in the San Luis Valley this week although news reports didn't say who was playing Puke and who was playing Snot. We'll improvise.

Puke:

[ Mark ] Udall added, “I’ve always supported drilling — I’m opposed to destroying the environment.”

Those are code words for "I'm opposed to the use of fossil fuels in any form, so I have always opposed drilling, but I'm too much of a liar to acknowledge my record. For the next 60 days, I'll pretend to have always supported drilling and hope no one notices."

Puke again:

“Democrats aren’t against oil and gas exploration,” he [Mark Udall ] said, “but they just want it done right.”

Those are code words for "Oil companies can 'explore' all they want. We Democrats oppose 'development' and low gas prices." Nancy Pelosi said it best when she let the House adjourn without a vote on drilling (Mark Udall wasn't there, remember?): "I'm trying to save the environment."

And Snot piped up:

Asked about the use of corn in energy production and the belief that this is making food prices rise, [ Ken ] Salazar said less than half of the corn produced goes into corn-based ethanol.

He contended that the oil and gas industry is “actually demonizing green technology.”

If we remember correctly, it was the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times who first pointed out negative impact of ethanol on corn and food prices, not the oil industry. Before this author realized what a consistent liar Mark Udall was, we called him "cornfused" because he had a different story for every audience interested in ethanol. Now, he stands in silence while Ken Salazar pulls the same stunt.

Pure Vaudeville.

Aided by Denver Post, Mark Udall Launches Deceitful Attack on Bob Schaffer

It seems Mark Udall is comfortable practicing his own deception, and not simply relying on his friends in the Big Blue Lie Machine. Udall's latest deception came with an assist from a Denver Post article (H/T Mike Saccone's Political Notebook):

"I know that from what I read and the people I listened to, it was clear that there were abuses there . . .. I don't understand how you could leave the Marianas thinking everything was perfect," said Rep. Mark Udall, referring to a fact-finding trip Schaffer took in 1999 that was partly arranged by Abramoff's lobbying firm. Schaffer said he found problems in only one out of 20 factories he visited. [emphasis added]

"I don't understand how you could leave the Marianas thinking everything was perfect." Mark Udall distorted what Bob Schaffer reported on his visit. And the Post reporter (inadvertently or not?) helped him out, claiming that "he found problems in only one out of 20 factories he visited."

The problem is that even the original smear job story from the Post said "he visited more than 20 factories and found serious problems in only one" [emphasis added]. It appears the Post reporter and/or editors failed to read earlier issues of their own newspaper, much less read the actual reports and testimony in the case. Judging by his newfound interest in the issue of the Marianas Islands, Mark Udall is primarily concerned about making political points out of the issue, even if it means making the truth a casualty.

The ball keeps on moving for the alleged scandal here. When it was shown that Mark Udall was the only candidate in the race with a clear connection to Jack Abramoff, Abramoff ceased being the issue. When it was shown that Bob Schaffer's visits to most of the factories were unannounced and arranged on his own terms, the way the trip was conducted ceased being the issue. When it was shown that Bob Schaffer identified problems and reported them but proposed a different reasonable solution, the Big Blue Lie Machine fell back on name-calling and its hallmark: deception.

All the discussion from the Left has shed far more heat than light on this matter. Now, candidate Mark Udall himself has perpetuated a clear lie. And the Denver Post let him get away with it. But not here he won't.

Mark Udall, Addicted to Lying

It is hard to believe that the Mark Udall campaign is so disjointed that it doesn't know how often they have been outed as liars on this blog. It is happening again, today.

Let's do some quick and simple math. For the last several reporting cycles, Mark Udall has been reporting raising money at the rate of about $13,000 per day.

That is quite impressive, and the Udall campaign has been touting those figures hard, though not on a per day basis.

Two days ago, we put up a graphic that the Mark Udall campaign has been using to fund raise. It claimed that Mark Udall had raised via the grass roots $27,443.

Yesterday, we checked the graphic again. It was up to $28,888. Today it is up to a whopping $28,958.

Does this mean that Mark Udall will be reporting in 15 days, or so, that his campaign donations have fallen dramatically? We don't think so. It means that Mark Udall thinks the public so dumb that it can't catch him in a lie as simple and obvious as this one.

Annoy Mark Udall today, think.

Another Day, Another Mark Udall Lie (or two)

This is becoming tedious. There are actually two Mark Udall attempts to mislead the public today.

Mark Udall's campaign web site has the above graphic. It clearly claims that he has only raised $27,443 in grassroots contributions. If that were a graphic next to an appeal for $10, we might buy it as potentially truthful. It is next to an appeal for as much as $2,300. That makes it an attempt to deceive the public, a lie.

Of course, our favorite unofficial Mark Udall campaign spokesman opines that "a lie is a campaign tactic that someone else doesn't like" or something like that.

The second attempt to deceive the public came in the Denver Post today. It's author was our very favorite official Mark Udall spokesperson, Taylor West. We often refer to Taylor as God's gift to this blog because it is so easy to document the lies.

Today's Denver Post:

[ Mark ] Udall campaign spokesman Taylor West said the congressman did not support the 32-year-old ban but also didn't think Congress was justified in overriding the district while the issue was before the courts.

And yet, Mark Udall's own congressional web site refuses to call the ban unreasonable. Indeed, when asked to sign on to a congressional amicus brief to the Supreme Court that advocated overturning the ban he now claims not to have supported, he said:

If the brief stopped there, I would support it without hesitation. However, it does not stop there. Page 30 of the amicus brief includes declarations that “the District’s handgun ban is unreasonable on its face”

The lie is quite obviously documentable when the two statements are compared.

Another Mark Udall Staffer Lie - But What's New?

We've referred to Taylor West, Mark Udall's spokesperson as God's gift to this blog in the past, and nothing has changed. How difficult and thankless must it be to try to reinvent past Udall positions in a way that will be palatable statewide?

Today, she was reinventing the Department of Peace that Mark Udall co sponsored at the urging of some high school students. The Longmont Times-Call reports:

Udall campaign spokeswoman Taylor West said in a Thursday interview that [ Mark ] Udall initially supported that bill “because there was a severe lack on the part of the Bush administration of using the tools of diplomacy ... as part of our overall foreign policy.”

Misuse of the "tools of diplomacy" sounds like a serious charge, a serious purpose for a Department of Peace. We looked back to see what Dennis Kucinich staffers were telling the Summit Daily News about the Department of Peace when he was pushing it and Mark Udall was still a co sponsor. Look closely to see if the proposal even mentioned diplomacy or foreign policy:

We have lived with war, violence and abuse for far too long," said Kucinich spokeswoman Denise Hughes. "By establishing a Cabinet level Department of Peace, we have the unique opportunity to confront the root cause of these evils and the ability as a society to build a safer world."

Methods would include mediation, nonviolent intervention and encouraging communities, religious groups and nongovernmental organizations to develop initiatives.

The department would be responsible for developing policies that address domestic violence, child abuse and mistreatment of the elderly, create new policies to reduce drug and alcohol abuse, protect animals from violence, develop new approaches to deal with gun-related violence and develop programs that address school violence, gangs and racial violence and violence against gays and lesbians.

Additionally, the department would take under its wing civil rights, labor law, community-based violence prevention and racial tolerance programs.

At the international level, the department would work with the U.S. Secretary of Defense and U.S. Secretary of State to reduce international conflict, train those who work to reconstruct war-torn societies, sponsor countrywide and regional conflict prevention and dispute resolution initiatives and encourage international sister city programs to exchange artistic, cultural, economic, educational and faith-based values.

The department also would submit recommendations to the president regarding how the sales of arms from the United States affect peace and develop strategies for the sustainability and distribution of international funds.

The secretary of the Department of Peace also would develop a peace education curriculum to include the civil rights movement in the United States, how peace agreements have worked to stop conflict and to work with teachers to help students work on peace through reflection and conflict resolutions.

A highlight of that would be a Peace Academy, which would provide a four-year course of instruction in peace education, after which graduates would be required to serve five years in public service in domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution programs.

It looks to us as though a Mark Udall staffer Taylor West was telling another whopper. But as a now famous unofficial Udall spokesman recently opined, "a lie is just a campaign tactic that someone doesn't like," or something to that effect. (Yes, we are laughing because blogging is so much fun.)

Added: The article quoted extensively above was originally published on Tuesday, April 8, 2003 by the Summit Daily News (Vail, Colorado). Its title was "Udall Backs Creating Department of Peace."

Theatre of the Absurd

First, let there be no mistake. We are laughing at Absurdicus. Laughing out loud. Belly laughs.

His turn around time is pretty amazing. We only wrote our Dueling with Absurdicus essay a few hours ago and already he has torn it apart. Or tried.

It seems that Mark Udall isn't really lying to the public. He is using perfectly acceptable campaign tactics that just happen to not be truthful. It's not quite the same thing. Anyone who calls his untruths lies is subject to a libel suit:

Telling a lie is quite a different thing than using campaign tactics you don't agree with. I'd love for [ Mark ] Udall to bring a libel case against you.

We stand uncorrected. Is it any wonder that the public dislikes politics and politicians when lies are "campaign tactics you don't agree with." What would Mark Udall bring a libel case for? You should go back and follow the Udall as a liar labels. Perhaps you can help him make a case.

You really shouldn't ask us to list the lies you have told:
1. The main argument that is being used against drilling on the Roan Plateau is that it is pristine, untouched country, beautiful beyond belief, and that is the argument that we have responded to. The published photographs don't show little critters. They try to show the terrain in a deceptive way. Your argument has evolved from an admission that the terrain isn't what is being described to an argument that the argument being put forward is about the critters. That is untrue. We link to the articles we reference. The best label to follow is "Roan Plateau."
2. We don't own an SUV and never have. We have a wonderful little 2000 Ford Ranger with terrible shocks and reasonable gas mileage for a truck. The wife doesn't own a SUV either, and never has. None of our children own SUV's. We don't think any of our siblings or siblings-in-law own SUV's.
3. Grandpa McGrumpy, eh? Name calling isn't lying. It is just good campaign tactics, lol.
4. A claim that misleading photographs and misleading descriptions isn't propaganda is a lie.
5. Your assertion that oil companies could match the campaign donations of Sierra Club members was a lie. Your assertion that oil companies shouldn't have the right to have a mechanism to protect their interests is offensive.
6. You have no idea what your argument is and claiming that you do is a lie. You haven't used the same argument twice. First it was that you couldn't see anything from 10,000 feet. Then it was an admission that the Roan Plateau wasn't all that pretty with an assertion that we shouldn't suck the land up like a milkshake. Now it is that Google Earth doesn't reveal all of the wonderful and unique critters. The middle argument had integrity. The same can't be said for the other two.
7. BLM is not going to allow drilling on all of the Roan Plateau, so your latest critter argument is a misrepresentation of the facts, another lie.

Is seven lies enough?

Your desire to "continue to slap [us] around" if we name the conditions under which we would like to see the discussion in the political realm is telling. We could "respect" an argument free of the kinds of lies and misrepresentations you and Mark Udall seem to love. Lies aren't really lies - they are only campaign tactics in your book. In mine, they are still lies.

This discussion is at an end. Post any comment you like. This author won't respond. You are not consistent enough or ethical enough in your arguments to make continuing worthwhile.

Dueling With Absurdicus

Readers may wonder why we would spend any of our time responding to Absurdicus instead of concentrating on the real subjects of this blog, Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer.

The answer is simple. Absurdicus is a prolific writer. He usually either speaks for Mark Udall in the blogosphere or parrots those who do. Too often he wanders away from the truth, sometimes far away. If Mark Udall wants to get elected surrounded by a bodyguard of lies and liars, the public has a right to know what is happening.

Here is his latest comment left under our Absurdicus makes a plea post:

So you're admitting you didn't read what I wrote. Wonderful.

No, you wrote two sentences. You can't doubt that we read the second sentence because we wrote a whole post around it. We read the first sentence and didn't understand it. Once you clarified your point, we wrote a whole post around what you claimed your first sentence said, something we would have happily done if you had been more clear the first time.

How is showing pictures of the Roan Plateau propaganda? Are you saying they doctored those photos and the Roan plateau doesn't really look like that?

We absolutely are saying that the scrub land character of Roan Plateau is being misrepresented and concealed by the photographs that make the news and made it into the Mark Udall commercial. That makes them propaganda in the same way that a film of any despot patting the head of a little girl is propaganda. It doesn't present the whole picture and that part that it does present is misleading as you admitted in your last argument.

Let's just take your argument to it's eventual conclusion. The Roan Plateau doesn't look all that great at 10,000 feet. Ooops, the Roan plateau doesn't look all that great from 1000 feet away. Just like judging what you look like from any large distance away, why not just not look at all and then make your argument for what the Roan Plateau look like. Let's not even get into the species of plants, animals, etc exceeds that of other lands that already have protected status. You don't even need a picture for that.

Our argument might reasonably be that every square inch of the Earth cannot be protected from human development. We elect politicians to make decisions about what should be protected and what should not. When politicians like Mark Udall and their supporters routinely lie about the nature of the land they want to protect or any other matter of importance, they cannot be trusted to help make public decisions. More importantly, they shouldn't be trusted and shouldn't be placed in a position of trust. That is what elections are about.

Your comment about the "protected status" of other places could easily be turned against those other places if the Roan Plateau is to be the measure.

Your claim that it is impossible to understand the nature of a landscape from 1,000 feet elevation is silly and intentionally misleading. Enough Americans have bought window seats on airliners to know that.

As for big campaign donations. Who are you trying to fool? Do you really put the Sierra club on the same level with Exxon Mobil and their astroturf group Americans for American Energy?

The last we heard corporations cannot make legally campaign contributions at all, and individuals are limited to making $2,300 donations per cycle. The Sierra Club can mobilize individuals to donate. Exxon cannot.

Who are you trying to fool? This isn't a high school debating class where you get to try out an argument or a piece of propaganda and discard it if it isn't convincing. That is what you are doing. If you and Mark Udall are truthful, and make truthful arguments based on accurate facts, you have a right to expect that the public will trust you.

If you and Mark Udall get caught making false arguments often enough, the public won't trust you even when you are truthful. Mark Udall doesn't seem to understand that, which is why we have a "Udall as a liar" tag. For his supporters who can't be truthful or make truthful arguments, we simply dump them into the "Big Blue Lie Machine."

Another Mark Udall Handicap

Now we know what Mark Udall does with his time when he should be studying bills so that he doesn't have to explain "present" votes on legislation that is important to the people of Colorado.

It is almost as embarrassing to be at the top of this list as it is to be at the bottom. Go to the bottom and laugh, as we did.

We weren't certain if we should use the tags we did, but decided "what the heck."

It's Official - Machiavelli Lives, Udall Lies

Dick Wadhams is now Bob Schaffer's campaign manager. Thanks to the Rocky Mountain News.

We had to chuckle at one reader's response:

This is going to be the nastiest Senate campaign in Colorado History and the most expensive. Wadhams has the morals of a snake and the evil genius of Machiavelli. He has never been involved in a race that did not turn into a mudslinging, personal, down and dirty, tell whatever lie you think will win the job, debacle...

As far as we can tell, the only liar in this campaign so far is Mark Udall, and we have example after example of his lying. Just follow the tag "Udall as a liar."

More Deception From Mark Udall

On Sunday, the Denver Post published an article on the relative liberal standings of Mark Udall vis a vis other prominent members of his party. El Presendente did an analysis and we made separate observations.

The article was based on the prolific work of academic Kieth T. Poole. Dr Poole has created a mechanism for rating Congress, congressional leaders, and even presidents against their contemporaries, past and present.

While it appears that Dr. Poole cannot manipulate his statistics, the same cannot be said for active members of Congress. Congressmen need only change their voting pattern to move around on the tables

Sometimes politicians who are running for higher office feel the need to deceive the public as to where they are on the political spectrum. They do this by moderating their positions, their votes and their rhetoric in the hope that no one will look at their past record.

A good example in this election would be Mark Udall's dropping his co-sponsorship of Dennis Kucinich's Deprartment of Peace bill after he decided to run for the Senate.

Ace political analyist David Sirota opined in the Denver Post that no one one in Colorado would know who Dennis Kucinich was or care about this. We lampooned Sirota's argument with our "Nobody Knows About the Loon in the Attic" observations.

While Mark Udall has not moderated his rhetoric, he has tried to make his voting record appear more moderate.

Dr. Poole's statistics show Mark Udall ranked as the 182 d most liberal member of the 110th Congress. Colorado is a conservative leaning state. Ranking 182 of 435 puts him left of center in a left leaning Congress He is near the 40th percentile of liberalism in this Congress.

By voting this way in 2007, he could hope that some, including the Denver Post, would argue that Mark Udall is voting as a moderate in the 110th Congress. The Denver Post has a history of claiming that very liberal politicians are "moderate," and thus helping them over the finish line.

Is Mark Udall really this close to the center of a liberal congress? A very easy way to do a reality check on Mark Udall's voting record is to go back in time. According to Dr. Poole's statistics, Mark Udall's voting records driven standards for the previous congresses are:

109th 68th most liberal
108th 82d most liberal
107th 25th most liberal
106th Not Provided

These statistics make a compelling case that Mark Udall has again attempted to deceive the public. It is a habit, so much so that we have a "Udall as a liar" tag on this blog.

Just Too Busy

Today, a bomb went off in a Times Square recruiting station. Last month, the city of Berkeley voted to oust a recruiting station.

When Mark Udall was asked why he didn't use his position in Congress to try to stop that kind of nonsense, he said, through his spokesperson: "I'm too busy."

Udall spokesperson Taylor West responded in a statement that the ad was "dishonest and intentionally misleading."

"Mark Udall believes Congress has much more important work to do – on everything from the lagging economy, to skyrocketing oil prices, to getting our kids covered with health care, to ending the war in Iraq in a responsible way – than micromanaging the budgets of cities for the sake of political gamesmanship," West said in the statement.

Thanks to Politicker.

This quote is so out of touch with Colorado values that readers should expect us to come back to it several times in the next few days.

Taylor West is God's gift to this blog. We are literally sitting here laughing as we write this stuff and contemplate the possibilities.

Mark Udall, Confused About Where He Is From

Someone pointed out to us that before 2004 when Mark Udall issued a press release, it was always marked "Congressman Mark Udall (D-CO)." After 2004 it was "Congressman Mark Udall (D-Eldorado Springs)."

That suggests that in 2004 Mark Udall did decide to try to run from the Boulder Liberal tag that he had been happy to accept until then.

Excuse us! We had thought that he wasn't running from the "Boulder Liberal" tag, in part because he called Boulder his "touchstone" and because one of his staffers opined publicly that the Boulder Liberal tag wouldn't hurt him.

We've also been told that on his 2007 financial disclosure forms he listed 4346 Prado Drive, Boulder, CO as his home address. On his campaign web site, he claims:

He and his wife Maggie Fox have two children...they live in Eldorado Springs, CO.

Does anyone not see why we have a tag " [ Mark ] Udall as a Liar?"

Matt Sugar Moves to Udall Campaign

When we heard the news from the Denver Post that Matt Sugar was moving from the state Democrats to the Mark Udall campaign, we checked to see if we had ever tied him into the Big Blue Lie Machine.

We came close but gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was clearly trying to mislead the public with his statements. Judge for yourself to see if we were too lenient.

Frankly, if he had said the same thing as a member of Mark Udall's staff, we would have listed it under the tag "Udall as a liar."

Welcome aboard, Matt. There is no free ride here.

McCain and Udall Compared and Contrasted

This is in response to the Lynn Bartels article in today's Rocky Mountain News. We left a comment promising to explain why Bob Schaffer will not have a problem if Mark Udall tries to cozy up to John McCain.

We promised links. Many of the links we provide are links to other blog essays, here and elsewhere, which zero in on the issue and themselves have links to the original source. Even better than links are the "labels" at the bottom of the essay which you might want to follow.

Here goes:

Mark Udall and John McCain are two different people.

1. John McCain prides himself on running the "straight talk express." We have caught Mark Udall and his staff in lies so often that we developed a "Udall as a liar" label. We also have a "Big Blue Lie Machine" label for those less closely tied to Udall who are less than truthful. See below.

2. John McCain is a self described conservative though many moderates like him because he isn't an orthodox conservative. Mark Udall is a liberal's liberal. He calls Boulder his "touchstone" and his spokesperson has opined that being tagged as a "Boulder liberal" won't hurt him. Liberals and the msm routinely call him "liberal," reliably left wing, progressive, and twice extremist. We have documented over 40 examples of that happening. To see the documentation and our methodology, follow the bread crumbs backwards.

3. John McCain is a war hero and the son and grandson of Navy Admirals. Mark Udall has so little understanding of the apolitical traditions of the military and how they keep our democracy free from a military coup that he once sponsored a resolution that would have encouraged the politicization of military officers. Not content with politicizing the military, it would have encouraged officers to make political complaints to the congress and exhorted congress to pay heed to those complaints.

4. John McCain promoted the surge. Mark Udall promoted a Department of Peace.

5. Once John McCain learned his lesson with the Keating Five, he never again allowed the source of his political fund raising to cloud his judgement or compromise his integrity. The NY Times tried to claim that he more recently had helped a lobbyist, but that help was limited to two letters asking a regulatory commission to vote on a two year old issue while carefully telling them he was not telling them how to vote. Seems reasonable, though the NYT didn't think so.

Mark Udall is taking big bucks from labor unions and has publicly admitted that he had co-sponsored a labor bill that he doesn't like. He is taking even bigger bucks from the environmentalists who don't give a damn if the whole state burns to the ground so long as no forest roads are built that might allow the beetle killed trees to be removed, even dead trees adjacent to mountain towns.

Mark Udall is so deep in the grasp of his environmentalist paymasters that last year he proposed an amendment that would close existing roads which makes the problem worse. Even his heavily self promoted and under financed bill to remove dead trees around mountain towns didn't prompt him to speak out when the environmentalists objected to the road building that would be necessary.

6. Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson dislike John McCain. Daily Kos held a fundraiser for Mark Udall.

7. In 1971, John McCain was in a POW camp in North Vietnam and had been for years. In 1971, Mark Udall was in an Arizona court having his car confiscated and being placed on a year's probation for drugs.

8. John McCain is a man of proven courage, personal and political. We recently wrote that an appropriate bumper sticker for Mark Udall would be "Vote Udall: A Coward For Today In Every Way."

Lynn Bartels would do well to note that John McCain was praising and quoting Mo Udall, not Mark Udall. It isn't uncommon in congress to refer to one's mortal enemy as "my friend."

In the end, the election in Colorado will be about character. Udall lacks moral courage and says what he believes will get him elected. Schaffer just says what he believes.

If the subject comes up in a debate, Bob Schaffer can truthfully say "I know John McCain, John McCain is a friend of mine. You're no John McCain!"

Another Inconsistent Mark Udall Comment

Now that 2008 is two months old, Mark Udall is running from the anti-fossil fuels energy record that he has fought so hard to make since he entered public life.

The Stirling Journal-Advocate reports that Mark Udall said:

“For me, all paths lead to and from energy,” he said Thursday.

He said that while the U.S. needs to explore and develop alternative energy sources, we cannot completely walk away from fossil fuels.

It was just last year that Mark Udall fought as though his political life depended on it against drilling on the Roan Plateau. He would very likely still hold that position if Bill Ritter hadn't seen the pot of tax gold at the end of that rainbow. When Bill Ritter folded on the issue, Mark Udall couldn't do an about face quickly enough.

We would guess that this statement means that Mark Udall now supports development of ANWR oil, or does it? Mark Udall now is willing to promote oil shale development in Western Colorado, right?

In all of Mark Udall's long career, this is the only statement that we know of that even remotely supports US oil and gas oil development and use. Yes, he is willing to allow offshore drilling, but only off the Cuban coast.

Not long ago, Mark Udall dropped a similar comment about nuclear power which he has never before supported. He didn't follow up on it with legislation or a strong advocacy of nuclear power, he just uttered the word so that he could claim both sides of this issue.

We suspect that that is what he is doing here.

We are putting both of these comments under the tag "Udall as a Liar."

Another Udall Staffer Tells a Fib

According to the Longmont Times-Call:

Speaker after speaker at a Tuesday night Boulder County Republican dinner emphasized the importance of electing GOP candidate Bob Schaffer to the U.S. Senate.

In the interest of balance, the Times-Call got a quote from a Mark Udall spokesman:

Udall campaign spokeswoman Taylor West dismissed “that whole Boulder-liberal thing” during an interview later Tuesday night.

This a very curious quote as on October 6, 2007, the Times-Call found Mark Udall at a similar Boulder gathering and reported:

Said [ Mark ] Udall, who lives in Eldorado Springs: “It’s wonderful to be home.” He said Boulder County is “home base for me. This is the touchstone; this is where I take my inspiration.”

We're not Colorado Media Matters and we are not trying to emulate that ethics challenged site, but it is fair to ask why the Times-Call didn't match these two quotes up as we just did. Mark Udall wasn't running from his Boulder liberal roots then. Indeed, he was embracing them.

Who Does Udall Want at the Top of the Ticket?

With a little time now for the Super Tuesday results to sink in, and a desperately close and hard-fought primary campaign in the cards for the Democratic Party, who is Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall's campaign secretly rooting for? The candidate who makes him look like someone with a wealth of foreign policy and military experience, or the candidate who makes him look honest as a Boy Scout?

Just wondering who Udall would rather have standing by his side at the DNC in Denver, and to campaign with him this fall. Inquiring minds...

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.

Udall: Sounding the Alarm to Subsidize Art While Letting our Forests Burn

We already pointed out that Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall is trying to cover his tracks on his poor record of wildfire prevention. As was pointed out, he told the Rocky Mountain News:

"I have been sounding the alarm on the beetle and wildfire risk problem for our forests since my first year in Congress," Udall said Wednesday evening.

Well, apparently the alarm was drowned out by his concern for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) budget. In 2006, Udall voted No on a bill amendment that would have cut $30 million from the NEA budget and committed most of those funds "to the United States Forest Service to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires."

Is Udall really concerned about the "wildfire risk problem" Colorado faces? Maybe, he'll think about it after making sure your tax dollars have sufficiently subsidized artwork, including many controversial pieces that you may recall in recent memory.

Lest you think this vote was an isolated incident, Udall opposed similar amendments in 2002 and 2003 and 2004, choosing to fund postmodern sculptures and other outside-the-mainstream art projects rather than ensuring Colorado was adequately protected from wildfires.

Udall's campaign probably hasn't counted on their candidate's weak record on forest conservation being highlighted. But we are glad to perform the public service.