Senate Candidate Udall Trying to Hide Boulder Liberal Udall

Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall is giving his hometown the cold shoulder. He doesn't have time to answer his constituents' questions and concerns? Is he afraid to confront the high school students who inspired him to support the Department of Peace idea, now that he has taken a U-turn against the proposal?

Are the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and his staff afraid more people might notice there are two Udalls: one who panders to the radical Left in his hometown of Boulder, and another who pretends to be a centrist on the campaign trail in the rest of Colorado? Udall can't hide from his constituents all year ... Or can he?

Udall Rebuffs Request For Boulder County Town Meeting

The Longmont TimesCall is reporting that Mark Udall has rebuffed a request for a Town Meeting.

He simply doesn't have time.

Several Boulder County Democrats at Wednesday night’s meeting said that while they’re sensitive to [ Mark ] Udall’s congressional and political campaign scheduling needs, they still think it’s important that their congressman try to show up in person before his term expires at the end of the year.

The county Democrats issued their offer to host a town meeting with [ Mark ] Udall after several party members at last month’s executive committee meeting objected to his vote for a trade agreement with Peru that had been sought by Bush.

PlagiarismNowAction Expanding its Reach

This week, Lynn Bartels of the Rocky Mountain News promoted a new Michael Huttner web site. Michael Huttner is a lawyer with lawyer like ethics. He operates ProgressNowAction in a way that appears to be willing to plagiarize other's work, claiming it as their own product of months of research. He also apparently feels free to remove posts from liberal writers that don't fit his agenda.

His new site will doubtless be operated to the same low standards as what we have come to call PlagiarismNowAction.

The site has one YouTube video, which indicates that they will be going into the video editing business. The video is of such poor quality that one is reminded of what one might see out of a high school video class. They tried to stuff a minute's worth of ideas into 30 seconds, perhaps on the theory that their audience has a very short attention span.

We asked, in a comment to the article:

I'm more than a little curious as to why Bartels would promote the new Huttner site. It has one item, and that item is a 30 second YouTube commercial with such poor production values that it needs to be played over and over to understand what it is trying to say.

Did [ Lynn ] Bartels or her editors actually look at the Huttner site to decide if it was really newsworthy, or is Huttner such a valued source that the RMN just pumps out what he says without any quality check?

We received no answer.

Remaking The World

Many writers are likening global warming to a religion. Its proponents talk like it is a religion. Mark Udall's campaign website uses religious terms when it says "I believe that the truth of the one true god has been revealed to a consensus of scientists..." Well, it doesn't really say that, but that is the tone:

I believe that it is time for universal acknowledgment of what is already the scientific and public consensus-global climate change is occurring and human activity is a primary contributor to that change. The problem presents a major environmental challenge that requires an immediate response from our state and national government.

The scientific and physical evidence of global climate change is overwhelming. The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global sea level."

Like any pseudo religion, the practitioners and high priests of global warming will use any method, short of death, to promote their belief system. In earlier times, death wasn't shied away from.

Today, CNN was threatening a form of death - corporate death through shareholder lawsuit - against major companies who failed to confess their carbon emissions to shareholders.

A host of well-known companies are leaving themselves open to shareholder lawsuits because they're not telling investors enough about how much they contribute to global warming or what it might cost them to clean up, according to a recent report.

But the companies most exposed to lawsuits aren't the big utilities but a cadre of less obvious firms.

The fact that there are no laws on the books that would make these companies liable doesn't slow these pseudo religious priests down:

The firms that ranked below average are at greater risk of shareholder lawsuits if and when a cap on carbon dioxide emissions is passed, the report said.

This global warming movement, led by Mark Udall and Al Gore, is costing the economy in untold ways. These people won't be satisfied until we are living in caves and burning firewood again. No, even that wouldn't make them happy.

DSCC Big Blue Lie Machine Still Churning

You would think that the Democrats who are supporting the Mark Udall candidacy would have figured out that this author takes great pleasure in pointing out their fibs, falsehoods, and fabrications.

It is quite obvious that no one in that campaign believes that Mark Udall can be elected if they stick to the truth. They can't even be consistent in their lies.

The liberal blogs have raised a hue and cry over the fact that Bob Schaffer won't spell out his positions. Mike Saccone wrote an essay on "Schaffer's Silence." The DSCC is so lacking in material that it started its own "Parody site" on the theory that if Schaffer wouldn't spell out his positions, it could make them up. Since that site was founded, Schaffer still has not spelled out his positions (and shouldn't be in a hurry to do so).

Today, Lynn Bartels of the Rocky Mountain News provided the following quote from a DSCC spokesperson:

"Bob Schaffer must figure that since he has wholeheartedly endorsed George Bush's agenda, he might as well get something in return," said Matthew Miller, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman.

Matthew Miller and the DSCC must figure that Lynn Bartels will publish any inconsistent lie without questioning its inconsistencies. We are curious, as Bartels should have been, about the basis for the statement that "Bob Schaffer...has wholeheartedly endorsed George Bush's agenda..."

This, folks, is how the Big Blue Lie Machine Works: Keep throwing out lies and some will slip into the msm.

Bush Fundraiser for Schaffer

The Denver Post is reporting that President Bush will be in Colorado for a $1500 a person fund raiser for Bob Schaffer on Jan 31.

Our friends at Rocky Mountain Politics published an identical report six days ago.

A Faux Candidate

Colorado Confidential makes it sound as though the Mark Benner candidacy for the Democrat nomination for US Senate is designed by Benner to make Mark Udall look "centrist," and nothing more.

Benner isn't sure his party's progressive wing is as energized or hopeful as it was in 2004. He said he will serve as the progressive opposition to [ Mark ] Udall's more centrist positions in a primary if he gets the required 30 percent of state assembly votes. If not, he will forgo the route of collecting signatures to force his way on to the primary ballot.

If the purpose is to make Mark Udall seem centrist, it has already backfired. The Denver Post, as our fellow bloggers pointed out yesterday called Udall "solidly liberal" in response to the Benner candidacy. Those are words it will find it difficult to take back.

Mark Udall: Still "Solidly Liberal" in 2008

Based on the latest Denver Post piece highlighted by El Presidente - in which Rep. Mark Udall is identified as "solidly liberal"- it's time to update the scorecard. It has been awhile, after all.

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 7
liberal 27
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.

Udall's Challenger A Moonbat "Gadfly"

But you already knew that, if that candidate were to challenge Mark Udall from his left:

Slotted modestly between a slide show on single-payer health care and a raucous, interactive game during which audience members competed to identify the most felonies committed by President Bush, Democrat Mark Benner announced his decision to run for Colorado's open Senate seat.

The scene in a Denver vegetarian cafe this weekend underscored the unabashedly left-wing character of Benner's nomination challenge to Mark Udall, the five-term congressman from Boulder County whose campaign has already raised more than $3.5 million.

But it was a threadbare announcement that suggested this will be something less than a substantial primary run — or that Udall will have to spend much of that war chest to win the nomination.
. . .
Instead, Benner is hoping to wage a low-budget political insurgency designed to force Udall to the left on two key issues cherished by progressives — single-payer health care and the impeachment of Bush.
. . .
Experts say chances of a resource-lean, grassroots campaign like Benner's catching fire this year are slim — not the least because his much more experienced competitor is already solidly liberal.

But apparently not BDS, impeachment, and socialized-nannystatist enough for the moonbat progressive wing of the Democrat party.

Chalk up another MSM "liberal" tally for the scoreboard!

Some Days are Diamonds

Today was stone. It started when we thought, mistakenly, that today was the second Monday in the new year. We got up early and went on a 150 mile wild goose chase of our own making.

Then we chanced to take our once weekly or so trip to Liberal and Loving It. Some days he is on solid ground, and some days he is in a swamp. His suggestion that...

We need to power cars from electricity (which in practice probably means hydrogen). Not existing ones but set a plan where all new cars starting in 1 - 2 years will be hydrogen powered instead of oil or biofuels.

...is not on solid ground. Electric cars, other than ones covered with solar panels, have no range. Today's trip would have been impossible. Hydrogen powered cars actually put out more pollution than today's vehicles.

We know that Mark Udall is always on the lookout for new and fine sounding green fuel mandates. Hopefully, he won't be reading Boulder blog LALI anytime soon. Unfortunately, Mark Udall has previously admitted that Boulder is

“home base for me. This is the touchstone; this is where I take my inspiration.”

Randy Isn't Running but...

Randy Udall, brother of Mark, has, as we mentioned yesterday, written a several page essay full of photos and graphs explaining why oil companies like Shell shouldn't be willing to spend billions to figure out how to get oil out of oil shale.

His arguments make no sense and are inconsistent, even within his own paper. Some of them are lies. If he turned that paper into a reasonably discerning English professor, he would be lucky to land a D. A philosophy professor would flunk him. He would get an A+++ from a movement professor.

The subject is too large to cover here, so we have put part I on The Colorado Index. We called it "We Decided It's In The DNA." Lying, that is, seems to be a family trait in the Mark Udall family.

The Stakes are Really High

There is a very interesting article in the Durango Herald about oil shale in Western Colorado. The big oil companies are talking about potential recoveries of 1 million barrels of oil per acre.

Shell estimates that its method can wring 1 million barrels of oil out of a single acre of ground. That's more than $40 billion from the three 160-acre leases Shell already owns.

If its demonstration projects work and it wins federal approval to expand its leases to 27 square miles, then it takes a calculator with extra digits to show how much all that oil might be worth.

In the best case, "That's the sort of manageable prize that Shell is looking at from this potential," said Davis. But, she said, Shell has to prove its technology first. It has already produced oil from shale, but now it has to prove it can protect the environment, she said.

When one considers that oil sells for $100 a barrel, this land has the potential to produce $100 million of wealth per acre. That is $2,000 a square foot!

No one is saying what the cost of extraction is, but it almost certainly much higher than simply sinking a well in Saudia Arabia. Even so, the price of oil will only continue to rise, especially if OPEC will no longer be able to meet world demand in 20 years, as some have projected.

The environmentalist extremists are trying to mislead the public as to the stakes:

"I am still fascinated that somebody would spend that amount of money to get something that is so elusive," said Cathy Kay, an oil-shale critic from Western Colorado Congress, based in Grand Junction.

Randy Udall, a renewable-energy advocate from Carbondale, [ and Mark Udall's brother ] wrote a critique of shale's comeback. Measured in amount of energy per ton, oil shale has one-third the energy density of Cap'n Crunch cereal, Udall wrote.

Why can't the Udall brothers and cousins, Tom, Randy, and Mark ever be truthful with the public? No one is talking about mining the oil shale, so his energy density statistic has as much value as a similar claim about the energy density of the sand and rock over a conventional oil well. Randy Udall's own propaganda piece admits that Shell has produced 2,000 barrels of oil from a test plot the "size of a 3 car garage."

2000 barrels of oil is a lot of Cap'n Crunch cereal. Maybe we can get Mark Udall, Ken Salizar, or even Randy Udall to tell us how high that stack would be, spread over an area the size of a 3 car garage. Care to bet the FAA would require strobe lights on that stack of cereal?

Oops!

It seems that we have been misspelling Mark Benner's name as Mark Brenner. Thanks to the wonders of blogging, we have fixed that. Our apologies to this obviously serious man.

PlagiarismNowAction Having Technical Problems

It seems that someone at PlagiarismNowAction accidentally deleted a post. We're just trying to help in case it happens again. (If you wonder why we would call them that, follow the PlagiarismNowAction tag)

I posted this EARLIER Today but it was deleted.

This is the second posting about Benner's challenge to Udall that has been deleted without prior notice.

I think someone at ProgressNowAction is "looking" for a reason to delete their most active blogger and activist and kill the effort to have a debate in the Senate race on the issues.

I'll try this again. Below is the deleted posting.

Subject: Mark Benner of Anton to run as a Democrat for US Senate against Udall,

To Announce tonight at Mercury Cafe event 7 pm in Denver.

Mark Benner Democrat of Anton CO tells me that I am authorized to tell you that he will announce his candidacy for Colorado's open US Senate seat as a Colorado Democrat tonight at 7 pm at the Mercury Cafe in Denver during a previously scheduled event

Make no mistake. We are not promoting Mark Benner's candidacy. When other blogs have technical problems, losing posts and such, we try to be good neighbors and help them out. It looks like we had our own problems, but that happens.

Polis and Shafroth Will Debate, Fitz-Gerald Too Busy

KBDI's Independent Thinking will host a debate between Jarad Polis and Wil Shafrothto be aired at 8:30 on January 10th.

Former Colorado state senate president Joan Fitz-Gerald also is seeking the democratic nomination but declined an invitation to participate in the debate, citing prior commitments. A request for dates that would accommodate Fitz-Gerald's schedule went unanswered.

"We'll leave an empty chair, in case she has a change of heart or change of schedule," said Caldara who added that he intends to challenge the candidates on a variety of issues such as Iraq, climate change, ethics in government and campaign finance.

We will be watching.

We have no idea why Fitz-Gerald couldn't make time on her schedule. Jon Caldara is such a teddy bear. No kidding!

Two Letters to the Editor

The Denver Post published two letters to the editor critical of Mark Udall's December 30th we love the soldiers, but lets cut and run editorial.

Gasoline Prices Coming Home to Roost for Udall

Oil has hit $100 a barrel. It was $60 just a few months ago. The Denver Post has an article on the situation:

Aspen-based energy economist Phil Verleger said retail gasoline prices could reach $4.50 a gallon by this spring or summer, when seasonal demand increases.

"It's going to be ugly," Verleger said.

There aren't a lot of people who can absorb an overnight 50% increase in gasoline prices.

At some point, someone will point out that we have a huge reserve of oil in Alaska that has been put out of reach by the environmentalist extremists in Congress like Mark Udall. At some point, someone will point out that Mark Udall and Ken Salazar oppose oil shale development in western Colorado.

Mark Udall does, however, favor drilling for oil offshore. He has said so.

The Gazette Isn't Cowed

On Tuesday, we reported on what we thought was the "dumbest quote ever" by a politician who is actively seeking office. It came from Mark Udall's campaign site:

I believe that it is time for universal acknowledgment of what is already the scientific and public consensus-global climate change is occurring and human activity is a primary contributor to that change. The problem presents a major environmental challenge that requires an immediate response from our state and national government.

The scientific and physical evidence of global climate change is overwhelming. The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global sea level."

Today, The Gazette not only did not bow to Mark Udall's superior wisdom, it called that "wisdom" into question with a long editorial debunking global warming (read the comments, too):

Growing numbers of global warming science skeptics are making their opposition known. They include experts in climatology, oceanography, geology, biology, environmental sciences and physics, among others. Contrary to alarmist claims, they’re not on the payrolls of the big oil companies. They are affiliated with prestigious institutions worldwide, including Harvard, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, MIT, the International Arctic Research Center, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and many others. Many shared a portion of IPCC’s 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (cowon with Gore), and others have won previous Nobel Prizes for their research.

A U.S. Senate report accumulated more than 400 of their views to refute Gore’s claim of “consensus.”

For example, physics professor emeritus Dr. Howard Hayden of the University of Connecticut said, “You think SUVs are the cause of glaciers shrinking? . . . Don’t believe what you hear out of Hollywood and Washington, D.C. . . . [C]limate history proves that Gore has the relationship between carbon dioxide concentration and global warming backward. A higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not cause the Earth to be warmer. Instead, a warmer Earth causes the higher carbon dioxide levels.”

It's Nice to be Read

This blog and blogger works on themes that Mark Udall, his staff, and his helpers, paid and unpaid hand us.

One of the themes that has emerged is the willingness of Democrats (The Big Blue Lie Machine) in general and Mark Udall in particular to lie to the public. We've even caught Udall telling other members of Congress that his bill allowing forest thinning near ski resorts does something it is not intended to do.

At first, we were polite about what was going on, calling it "cornfusion" because the first few examples were about corn ethanol. When it became obvious that Udall seldom felt an obligation to be truthful to the public about any subject, we created the tag "Udall as a Liar." We became a bit less polite and more direct.

Yesterday, we caught what might be a Udall staffer, janus303, doing a "Digg" on each of Mark Udall's web pages. We considered what was happening to be another Udall deception and said so.

The response we got was a "Digg" on our essay and:

Bob Schaffer's Bloggers Admit They Don't Understand Digg

We're not going to claim that we understand the Digg process," they say, using the royal "we." No kidding. But that doesn't stop them from baselessly accusing Mark Udall of engaging in "just another form of deception, of lying." Ignorance is bliss, I suppose. Question: In the infinite wisdom of Bob Schaffer's illuminati, is the NRSC also guilty?

There are multiple things to respond to here and lessons to point out:
1) This is an almost childish response similiar to what you might hear from third graders - "but...but...but... that kid way over across the playground told a lie today, so I should be able to lie, too!"
2) Last we heard, Mark Udall is running against Bob Schaffer, not the NRSC, and while Schaffer might have his own character flaws (doesn't everyone), routine lying is not one of them.
3) "We" is also a form favored in modern editorial writing, and much of what we do is editorial in nature - but you knew that and were once again trying to mislead the public.
4) It cost much less to admit that we don't understand the Digg process than to pretend that we did and be embarrassed in the future - that is a lesson Mark Udall and his staff might take from this exchange about the value of truthfulness and the cost of untruthfulness.

Once you get believeably tagged as a liar, it is hard to shake that tag.

Oh, and janus303 was still "Digging" new Udall pages today.

Udall: Down on Colorado's Future or Just Grammatically Challenged?

The Mark Udall campaign is to be commended for a nice redesign of its website after many weeks of being under construction, which left observers wondering what Udall's positions on the issues were.

Along the top of the new page is a scrolling series of multimedia vignettes that look to have been put together professionally. The third in the series, next to a picture of Udall clipped from an accompanying video (which will be dissected later) under the heading "Find the Path Up," reads:

We're tied together - not with rope on the side of a mountain, but by a common interest in solving our toughest problems, believing in ourselves and each other, and knowing that Colorado's best days lay ahead. [Emphasis added]

Somehow, I think that's not what Udall meant to say. His writers must be grammatically challenged, or else the Udall candidacy is backward-looking and defeatist:

Lay means "to place something down." It is something you do to something else. It is a transitive verb.

Incorrect: Lie the book on the table.

Correct: Lay the book on the table.
(It is being done to something else.)

Lie means "to recline" or "be placed." It does not act on anything or anyone else. It is an intransitive verb.

Incorrect: Lay down on the couch.

Correct: Lie down on the couch.
(It is not being done to anything else.)

The reason lay and lie are confusing is their past tenses.

The past tense of lay is laid.

The past tense of lie is lay.

Is Udall trying to tell Coloradans that our state's best days were in the past? Hardly, though maybe it's a subtle message trying to let us know that Udall's regressive policies of higher taxation and greater government regulation would be just the way to hamper Colorado's chances of seeing better days in the future.

But in the end, the use of the word "lay" is likely just an instance of sloppy grammar. Kind of makes you wonder what it means to give people like Udall authority over our education system?

Voting for Udall would be a bad move for Colorado: I cannot tell a lay - er, lie.

Dumbest Quote Ever?

Not all that long ago, the scientific consensus in astronomy was that the universe was in a steady state - that it had no beginning and would have no end. The few who postulated the big bang theory were derided. Indeed, the "big bang" name was hung on the theory as a form of derision.

Two things have happened to destroy "steady state" as a viable theory. The first was the discovery by Edwin Hubble (for whom the telescope is named) that the universe was expanding. The second was the discovery of residual cosmic background radiation from the big bang.

Global warming is nothing more than a theory, and given that the geologic record suggests that we are between ice ages, it isn't all that sound as a theory. Human causation is also a theory, a theory that completely ignores the dramatic changes in the global temperature 10,000 years ago to end the last ice age. Man could not have been a cause of that period of warming.

Now comes Mark Udall with what may be the dumbest quote from a politician who is actively seeking office ever:

I believe that it is time for universal acknowledgment of what is already the scientific and public consensus-global climate change is occurring and human activity is a primary contributor to that change. The problem presents a major environmental challenge that requires an immediate response from our state and national government.

The scientific and physical evidence of global climate change is overwhelming. The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global sea level."

The two men who discovered the cosmic background radiation that supported the big bang theory were both awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics. That is a science prize. Al Gore got a political version of the Nobel Prize because the science, despite the propaganda from the environmental extremists like Mark Udall, does not support the hypothesis or the hype.

Keep in mind that Mark Udall chairs a subcommittee dealing with NASA. He, above all others, should be open to revisions in scientific theory. He clearly is not, and says so:

I believe that it is time for universal acknowledgment of what is already the scientific and public consensus...

Mark Udall Stuffing The Internet Ballot Box

From time to time we get a Google Alert on Digg mentioning Mark Udall. We're not going to claim that we understand the Digg process, but it is very easy to tell when someone is manipulating the system.

That someone is janus303 whose reading list and recommendation list appears to be limited to Mark Udall's web site. He has 11 Diggs and all of them are Udall related. Eight are from Mark Udall's site, including one from a Udall fund raising pitch.

We've admitted to being cynical, and a cynic would immediately go to the Udall site to see if the campaign was publicizing it's Digg hits. It is!

If they had 20 or 30 or 40 Diggs piled on each page, it might not be so obvious that the campaign was stuffing the Internet ballot box. They don't. Including janus303's 11 Diggs, there have been a total of 27 Diggs.

The Mark Udall Campaign is inept when it publicizes the small number of Diggs it is getting and allows someone who is willing to do just a small amount of "digging" to do an analysis like this. It is just another form of deception, of lying.

Edited to add: Janus303 was polite enough to "Digg" this entry, so we paid him the courtesy of a full response.

Even the Left Notices that Udall is a Liar

Mark Udall and his staff seem to complete strangers to the truth. It has happened so often that we created a label, "Udall as a Liar."

Today, PlagiarismNowAction has a post that begins:

A New Year and a message for Mark Udal, the man asking to be YOUR NEW (OLD) senator

MR UDALL

You are purposely misleading your constituents in your statements about your position on the war on Iraq - you are for "responsible redeployment"? I submit you are for redeployment ONLY if it makes YOU look good.

Note: If you wish to know why we refer to this web site by that name, follow the label "PlagiarismNowAction."

Roan Money Being Allocated

The Denver Post is endorsing the Republican plan for setting aside the money from the Roan Plateau gas development for a higher education trust fund.

That's still a lot of money and it's vital to spend it wisely. Part of the cash will, as it should, go to local governments to deal with some of the costs of supporting the energy development. The best plan, so far, for spending the rest of this windfall, as well as some of the $100 million a year or more that eventual production royalties could yield for Colorado for the next 20 or 30 years, was offered by two Western Slope legislators, state Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, and Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park.

We suspect that doing this will require a Constitutional amendment, something that should have happened when the Social Security "Trust" Fund was set up on the Federal level. It immediately became a source of funds for decades of Congressional boondoggles. The same thing will happen here if the hinges and hasp on the lock box aren't welded shut.

A Line in the Scrubland

The GJ Sentinel's number 7 top story of the year was Roan Plateau an emblem of energy debate.

It had a sentence that we found interesting:

Though the plateau is already being drilled from nearby private lands and the BLM’s plan was highly restrictive, conservationists made the land mass their “symbolic” line in the sand, Congressman Mark Udall, D-Colo., said in August.

We found a copy of the original article that this quote referred to. It was titled "Udall vows to keep up fight over Roan drilling."

Udall, who sponsored an amendment to the 2007 energy bill barring the Bureau of Land Management from leasing parcels atop the Roan, said if the measure fails to make the final version of the bill, he and Congressman John Salazar, D-Colo., will continue to fight to halt development...

“I think at heart of our point of view is we’re not going to stop,” Udall said. “We’re not going to quit. We’re not going to give up.

“We think this is the right thing to do, and we’ll look for other ways to keep that 50 percent of the top of the Roan that’s public lands off limits to surface occupancy.”

One of the more interesting lines in that older article was an apparent proposal by Mark Udall to open up American coastal waters to drilling:

There’s so much other area in which we can drill and produce additional fuels to do our part,” Udall said of energy independence.

He said the United States needs to look outside Colorado — to developing coastal areas or renewable energy sources — to fuel domestic energy needs.

We wonder if Mark Udall's Sierra Club contributors have seen this. We'd bet not.

And All We In Colorado Got Was a Lousy Essay

Mark Udall's essay in the Denver Post was easily topped by cousin Tom's poem. Two liberal peas in a pod if ever there were.

Our New Year's prediction: Mark Udall will get many more votes than Tom Udall, but Tom is a better poet and very possibly a better politician.

Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory

Mark Udall got a chance to say his piece about peace in the Denver Post today.

As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I believe we can achieve consensus by implementing the bipartisan recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. This legislation, which I co-authored with a Democrat and two Republicans earlier this year, is now more critical than ever. The bill calls for increasing international economic development, a "surge" in diplomatic efforts and a careful, yet timely, phased withdrawal of American forces.

He claims his service on the HASC gives him the credibility to require by legislation that we surrender under the terms set out by the Iraq Study Group. Does anyone recall the level of military expertise that Congress infused into the membership of the ISG? None.

Diplomacy only works in an environment of strength. Stalin once asked "How many battalions does the Pope have?" Mark Udall wants to place the US in a position where it has no battalions in Iraq and then pretend to expect that a "surge" of diplomacy will work.

He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune

We picked this nugget up today:

The top 10 recipients of “environmental special-interest” funding, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, are (from 1 to 10): John Kerry, Al Gore, PaulWellstone, Barbara Boxer, Bill Bradley, Mark Udall, Jay Inslee, Jeanne Shaheen, Jean Carnahan, Barack Obama.

This explains, better than any other factoid why Mark Udall has been called an "environmental extremist" by the Gazette and "reliably left wing" by his friends.

Today's Chuckle

Today's funny line comes from Andrew Boucher: (added: We forgot to link this and now can't find the original link. If someone runs across this quote, please provide the link in the comments. Thanks.)

The national races of 2008 were already well underway in 2007. Soon after U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard announced his retirement this year, the national pundits began labeling Colorado as a sure-fire, rock-solid guarantee for a Democratic pickup in the Senate. Democratic Congressman Mark Udall appeared to have a clear shot at the seat. Then a funny thing happened on the way to Udall's swearing in: Former Congressman Bob Schaffer began polling neck-and-neck with Udall. Suddenly the “likely Democrat pickup” isn't looking so likely after all.

Where is Udall's Thumb?

It seems that Bill Ritter may be trying to create policy that allows some road building in Colorado forests, something that Mark Udall reflexively opposes.

The Denver Post has an very informative and balanced article on the issue. The comments are equally informative.

Coloradoan

We never want to be seen as out of step with our more hip friends at Colorado Confidential, so when someone at Colorado Confidential wrote the following, we resolved to keep our eyes open:

(Note: Colorado Confidential noted back in August how you can always tell when something is likely coming from inside the Beltway when the material refers to "Coloradoans" rather than the commonly accepted use of "Coloradan.")

Today, it came to our attention that the CSU student newspaper is called the "CSU Coloradoan," doubtlessly named decades ago by someone from inside the Beltway. Of course, the real self-appointed sophisticates in the state attended Coloradan University and would never guess that CSU had a Beltway connection.

Chuckle.

On No One's Top Ten Lists

The AP has it's top ten Colorado list out. It is a bit lame. Well, it is more than a bit lame. We thought we could do better with a list of things that didn't make the top ten in Colorado, in no particular order. They didn't make the top ten because they didn't happen. Oh, well!

1. Despite much wishful hoping on the left, the Colorado US Senate race is not a Mark Udall runaway.
2. Caroline Bninski spent Christmas with friends and family, not in jail where Mark Udall and his staff tried to put her for a year. How inconvenient!
3. Neither Mark Udall nor his staff seem to have lied to the public or members of Congress in the last week, setting a new record if not for truthfulness, at least for silence.
4. Rush Limbaugh wasn't humiliated by Mark Udall's Congressional resolution which was written in a way to be an unsophisticated falsehood. No member of the Colorado delegation co-sponsored Udall's anti-Limbaugh resolution.
5. The US didn't cut and run when Harry Reid pontificated "This War is Lost." Nor did Udall object when Nancy Pelosi held useless vote after vote to defund the war.
6. Mark Udall didn't convince Bill Ritter to nix gas drilling on the Roan Plateau.
7. Mark Udall didn't cosponsor the loon in the attic's Department of Peace bill this year, and it is reported that Mark Udall also didn't see a UFO.
8. The Gazette hasn't called Mark Udall an "extremist" for six months, but many of his liberal friends have made certain that he can't claim to be a centrist.
9. Colorado didn't have a roadless wilderness mega forest fire in 2007, but there is still time for one to occur in 2008.
10. The Denver Post hasn't made it's obligatory election year claim that Mark Udall is a "moderate" or "centrist."

List making is so much fun. We're wondering if we are on Bill Ritter's enemies list, yet. We're doing our best.

Trouble in Udall Land

Mark Udall is about as far left as we imagine it is possible for a Colorado politician, even a Boulder Liberal, can get and still expect to be reelected.

He is so far to the left that we have a scoreboard feature that tracks the number of times his liberal blogging allies and the msm refer to him as a liberal, reliably left wing, and even extremist. That scoreboard is in the upper right corner of this site.

Now, PlagiarismNowAction has a post up whose only goal is to push Mark Udall even farther left. (Those who wonder why we call PlagiarismNowAction by that name are welcome to search this blog under that term for an explanation.)

He [Mark Benner ] plans to run on the issues. Issues important to him include the environment, torture, withdrawal from Iraq, and holding Bush and Cheney accountable with investigations and impeachment if warranted.

He is being pressured by Democratic Party elites not to run. He will need your support to buck the system. Call and encourage him.

I am a 42 year Democratic supporter. I am a (L)iberal. I believe a challenger could very possibly potentially siphon enough votes from Udall to force him to move left on the issues.

Unlike left wing blogs which are engaged in a never ending attempt to promote Republican primaries, we have much more class than to try to interfere in or promote this primary. It will happen or it won't happen completely independent of what we might do or say. We are merely reporting on it.

More Poorly Thought Out Udall Legislation

The Denver Post is reporting that Mark Udall dropped more bills in the hopper just before the end of the session:

"You can never start soon enough," said Alan Salazar, chief of staff to Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs. With the presidential election next year, he said, passing bills could become difficult.

"So the sooner you get things done, the easier it is," Salazar said...

Udall also offered one to match a bill from Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. That one would require Interior Department agencies and the Forest Service to give Congress an annual report on firefighter safety practices, training programs and actions to prevent fires, including prescribed burnings.

On the one hand, Mark Udall champions all of the Sierra Club policies (no road building, no thinning, no firebreaks) which promote huge, hot forest fires and make it hard to do any forest management. Now, he wants a firefighter safety report!

Udall's comprehensive forest fire fighting philosophy makes as much sense as choosing to arm a battalion of soldiers with pistols and then requiring the battalion commander to report how many of his men were killed by rifle fire.

When the Dam Breaks, Most Run for High Ground

The Rocky Mountain News is praising Bill Ritter's "moderate" decision to allow drilling on the top of the scrub land covered Roan Plateau. They did get a dig in, though:

It's a refreshing change from the officeholder who has too often sided with organized labor, environmentalists, public employee groups and other narrow special interests - to the detriment of solutions that appeal to the broad majority of Coloradans.

It is almost as though the little dutch boy pulled his finger out from the hole in that very leaky and poorly positioned dam.

While Mark Udall hasn't sought the high ground after Ritter stepped aside, Ken Salazar has:

The governor may have other opponents of the BLM plan reconsidering, however. A spokesman for Sen. Ken Salazar - who tried to delay leasing for one year - told us the senator will work with Sen. Wayne Allard on legislation to make sure that Colorado gets its fair share of revenues from future Roan leases.

Looking at Hillary through the Newsum Prism

This week, on Colorado Inside Out, David Kopel offered the view that unless the Democrats nominated Bill Richardson, having the convention dominate the news in Colorado for so long will remind Colorado voters of the "leftyness" of the national party which will make it harder for Udall to try to move himself towards the center of the Colorado political spectrum.

Dani Newsum, who later in the program complained that Bill Ritter and the Colorado Legislature "aren't half as liberal as I would like them to be" claimed that it is an urban myth that Hillary is a "lefty." Newsum considers Hillary "right wing" on foreign policy and "in the mainstream" on health care. Of the front runners, Hillary is the most conservative, but you would never know it checking out "right wing blogs." "She's no Gloria Steinem."

One wonders when KBDI will pull the plug in the looney left commentary that Dani provides. It may never happen as she may be on the program to make the two other left leaning commentatiors seem centrist. It doesn't work, but nice try.

Premature Celebration

We were correct that Tom Tancredo had no intention of running for the Senate in 2008. The Denver Post reports:

Speaking to The Denver Post afterward, Tancredo said he would not challenge Republican Bob Schaffer in the U.S. Senate primary race next year, but "it's a possibility, not a certainty," he said, that he will return for a race against Democratic incumbent Ken Salazar in 2010.

"You know, two years from now, that's a different story. I'm going to get my batteries charged, go to the grandkids' games and recitals" — and then decide, he said.

The celebration in the left wing blogosphere was premature.

Udall Submarined Again

Mark Udall has staked his reputation and his run for the Senate on his ability to keep drilling rigs off the Roan Plateau scrub land. He has had some help from Ken Salazar and the environmentalists.

Salazar managed to get a four month delay, supposedly so that Bill Ritter could review the BLM plan, but really in the hope that Ritter would call the plan completely unacceptable.

That didn't happen, and even the environmentalists seem to be on board with Ritter, not Udall:

Ritter and [ state Department of Natural Resources executive director Harris ] Sherman said they would push for state-of-the-art drilling technology to minimize the environmental impact.

Also, they want to lease the land in phases, which they said would maximize the economic benefits and sustain the local economy over the long haul. Incremental leasing also will allow for new advancements in drilling technology, they said.

Environmental groups praised the plan for "striking a balance" between economic benefits and environmental preservation.

"We want the appropriate balance between responsible drilling and protection of important wildlife habitats and populations," said Suzanne O'Neill, executive director of the Colorado Wildlife Federation.

Mark Udall seems to have a knack for taking positions that his "allies" in Congress, in the state government and even in the environmental community find too extreme to support.

New Year's Resolution

We're beginning to think that Mark Udall has adopted a "Resolution a Day" strategy to win the election. Every day is New Year's day on Udall's calendar.

His anti-soldier, anti-Limbaugh resolution went nowhere. It doubtless got his campaign some more left wing money-it is no coincidence that Udall has been on the left coast raising money-but it made no friends in the military. It was doomed from the day he leaked that he would introduce it.

He was a Johnny Come Lately as a Rockies fan, but he made up for it by introducing a resolution congratulating the Rockies for making the World Series.

Now, he is proposing a resolution to honor the 50th anniversary of a satellite system that few have heard of-Landsat. There won't much controversy in that resolution. We predict that it will pass, which is more than we can say for much of Mark Udall's agenda.

If we could get Mark Udall to make a New Year's Resolution, it would be that he stop standing on the corner waving his arms wildly with these resolutions and ask his staff to do some real work.

Fighting the Good Fight

Mark Udall is using his position on the Armed Services Committee to try to prevent Northern Command from moving out of Cheyenne Mountain without Congressional approval. That is a good thing.

In an unusual juxtaposition, Wayne Allard is asleep while Ken Salazar and Mark Udall are protecting the national interest, and Colorado's interest. Normally, it is the other way around.

Once the Cheyenne Mountain Complex is abandoned, it will never be reoccupied. It will become a relic as system upgrades bypass it for a more vulnerable site a few miles away.

Further, once it is accepted that the site can be in a building, a new building can be built anywhere, and the function moved. Peterson AFB is so small that the next argument, and it will be a reasonable argument, will be that the building must be located to a more secure facility, not necessarily in Colorado.

History has a way of repeating itself. Schriver AFB was built on that justification. The "blue cube" satellite control facility in Sunnyvale, California was thought vulnerable because a freeway passed near it.

The Independent reports:

As the defense authorization was passed last week, U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., who is on the Armed Services Committee and critical of the NORAD relocation plan, said he would continue to monitor progress closely. Udall's office noted NorthCom's plan was initiated more than a year ago without Congress' approval.

Udall's trepidation was underscored by the findings of the Government Accountability Office in May. Inspectors located no documentation to support claims by NorthCom/NORAD's former commander, Navy Adm. Timothy Keating, that the transition would save millions of dollars annually.

The GAO probe also uncovered no paperwork showing how the mountain's operations would be affected. Moreover, security assessments were still ongoing — even though the move was well underway.

The defense authorization would bring the GAO back into the picture, requiring Gates to cooperate in order to obtain the $5 million.

More Troops for Fort Carson

In a move that isn't all that surprising, Fort Carson is to get one of the Army's six new brigade combat teams.

And what question did Mark Udall ask?

Udall said Army Assistant Secretary Keith Eastin assured him the decision to add soldiers to Fort Carson is unrelated to the military's controversial effort to expand its Pinon Canyon training site in southeastern Colorado, where the post's soldiers get some of their training.

"He said the addition of the brigade combat team was not predicated on the expansion of Pinon Canyon," Udall said.

We are guessing that if Pinon Canyon were a part of the deal, and it almost certainly is regardless of what he claims he was told, Mark Udall would have had to think twice about his pandering position. $500 million in new construction and $50 million a year is not an insignificant shot in the Colorado economy's arm.

Inconsistent Mark

You would think that someone like Mark Udall would be afraid, very afraid of weather modification schemes. They work by pumping various chemicals into the atmosphere in the hope of generating rain.

Those chemicals have to come down somewhere, and when they do, they pollute the area. Barium, one of the chemicals of choice, is poisonous when inhaled in at least one of its forms.

Mark Udall not only isn't afraid, he is sponsoring a bill to promote weather modification. Like most of his handiwork, it has gone nowhere. Saner heads, and that is only a relative term, have prevailed in congress.

There is a rumor (if there isn't, we are starting one) that Mark Udall intends his weather modification bill to spread barium in the more conservative parts of Colorado in the hope that if he doesn't win election in 2008, enough conservatives will have died off by 2014 that Bob Schaffer couldn't possibly win in a rematch.

We actually wrote this not because we are afraid of barium, or Udall's weather bill, but to demonstrate how easy it is for the environmentalist left to start irresponsible rumors and to make irresponsible claims about global warming. Fear mongering at its finest.

It is our laugh for the day. At least we are honest about what we are doing. If a liberal had written this, he wouldn't have had the integrity to admit that it was a joke.

Tancredo to Run for Senate - in 2010

USA Today is reporting that Tom Tancredo will make a major announcement tomorrow at 1 pm Colorado time. Their source is the AP, though we couldn't find the AP story.

Tancredo announced in October he wouldn't seek a sixth term in Congress but hinted he would consider running for the Senate after his presidential bid.

Colorado will have an open Senate seat next year when Republican Wayne Allard retires.

At least one left wing blog is already celebrating. We think the celebration is premature. Tancredo has stated that he is tired and wants to take some time off before taking on Salazar. (We wish we had a link for that, but we do not.)

The Denver Post confirms that Tancredo is leaving his Presidential quest and mentions nothing about a Senate run.

A Bleak Future

Today, the Rocky Mountain News has a guest editorial celebrating a vote by the Fort Collins city council opposing uranium mining in its vicinity. The goal of the activists isn't just to stop uranium mining near Fort Collins, it is to stop it everywhere:

We encourage other communities in Colorado to take a long and hard look when uranium mines are proposed in their areas...

On Dec. 4th, the city of Fort Collins made history by opposing this mine, but what it also did was help write a new history of Colorado. Instead of the history our generation inherited - one dotted with mines, endless pollution and endless Superfund clean-up costs - the next generation might inherit a cleaner, greener Colorado, one that protects both the economy and the environment.

We expect Mark Udall to jump on this bandwagon, not because it is good policy, but because he is reflexively anti-nuclear power.

No one in the environmental community, let alone Mark Udall, seems to realize that we will eventually outrun our ability to produce enough renewable power to meet our needs. Our population won't stop growing. If we want to break our dependence on fossil fuels, nuclear energy must have a place at the table.

If we, as a state and nation, cannot accept and act on that simple fact, our children and grandchildren will have a bleak future. Worse, it will be artificially and needlessly bleak. Doubtless there was a lot of back slapping and self congratulations in Fort Collins outside council chambers, but it was terribly misplaced.

Another Lie from Udall Spokesperson

Yesterday we highlighted a Grand Junction news story in which Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall's campaign ineffectively tried to spin legitimate criticisms against his record. Upon closer review, we also should have included this snippet:

"It is very surprising it's happening this early," said [Udall campaign manager Mike] Melanson. "It's the only place in the country -- we're the only Senate race where negative attack ads have gone up."

What about these Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ads attacking Republican candidates in New Hampshire, Minnesota, Maine, and Kentucky? If he's going to speak so authoritatively about "negative attack ads" nationwide, shouldn't Melanson figure out what his own party is doing first? Of course, he's aware of what's going on from the DSCC, you say.

Once more, Udall's spokesperson spouts an easily disprovable lie. What's going on here?

Effective Anti-Udall Ad Compelling Dems to Subsidize his Campaign?

From KKCO TV on Colorado's Western slope, word comes that an independent ad attacking Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall's sponsorship of a bill to open up offshore drilling in Cuba is making quite a splash:

Even though the 2008 election is eleven months away, the U.S. Senate race between U.S. Representative Mark Udall and former Representative Bob Schaffer has many across the Grand Valley talking. A lot of that is due in part to one political ad that is fueling the fire.

If you've been watching TV for the last few weeks, chances are you have probably seen the Cuban Hero ad. It calls U.S. Representative Mark Udall (D) Boulder a Cuban hero for sponsoring a bill that would allow U.S. compaines to explore drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba.

"What they're trying to portray here is the fact that Representative Udall is supporting offshore drilling off the coast of Cuba when we need to be looking at drilling here," said Kent Baughman, a Republican.

The ad claims Udall's fierce stance on protecting the Roan Plateau from drillers contradicts his desire to let American companies drill in Cuban waters. The Udall campaign team says that's not the case, and the area they are looking at is not environmentally sensitive.

"The legislation specifically states the same precautions must take place with American companies exploring these waters as they would if they were exploring in American waters," said Mike Melanson, Udall's Campaign Manager.

The Cuban bill was to open up an area for drilling - yes, with sensible precautions - but Udall took the extreme position of banning any drilling on the Roan under any conditions. This is an inconsistency his campaign spindoctors cannot hide.

Especially when they've been caught lying before on this very issue.

Now, according to the KKCO report, the Brer Rabbit spin is that the Cuban drilling line of attack is backfiring:

Udall's team says the negative ad is having the opposite effect on its campaign.

"We're certainly seeing an increase in our fundraising because of these commercials," said Melanson.

First of all, the collective judgment of the Boulder Democrat defenders on the effectiveness of the Cuban Hero ad should be questioned, since they've already fallen on their faces attempting to inject nonsensical charges of racism into the debate. The distraction didn't work.

Now, perhaps the Boulder Democrat is having to tap into more out-of-state funding precisely because the ads have been effective and the race is not where the Democrats want it to be. They know this race will be desperately close, if they can keep pouring money into Udall's campaign. It seems likely Udall is not looking at investments, but subsidies, something Democrats know very well.

We can check out the January campaign finance reports to gain more certainty.

When Udall Leaves Colorado, He is "Progressive"

When Mark Udall leaves Colorado, he is very open about just how far left he is. Yesterday, the Seattle Post Intelligencer had this comment:

In his Seattle stop, Mark Udall said his party has a "once in a generation opportunity" to again put a progressive stamp on government.

We're wondering if the guy doesn't know that his left coast comments get reported here.

We'll be checking with our editorial board to see if we should add this to our scoreboard. We would say we are leaning that way, but that would be leaning left, like Mark Udall.

US House Congratulates Rockies

We had to chuckle that as the Rockies made their epic run, winning 20 of 21 games, Mark Udall had nothing to say. It was as though he was in Washington DC and couldn't be troubled to notice something as mundane, as pedestrian as Rocktober in Major League Baseball.

We believe that it is correct to observe that once Mark Udall did take public notice, the Rockies never won another game. Some politicians are lucky, and some are not.

In an effort to make up for lost ground, Udall sponsored a bill in Congress to honor the Rockies after he found out that lawmakers from that other team's state had done the same for their team. Perhaps Udall's luck is changing. The Rocky Mountain News reports that Udall's bill passed on a voice vote.

Protest Against Udall

The Daily Camera is reporting that a group raising money for Mark Udall will be faced with a peaceful protest on Monday.

Shooting Fish in a Barrel

One of the Democrat strategies promoted by David Sirota is called land politics. It has been cynically used but not bought into by Colorado Democrats including Bill Ritter and Mark Udall.

Sirota wants an alliance between environmentalists, Democrats, and hunters / fishermen against Republicans. He wants Democrats to play down their traditional gun control stance and play up "hunting rights."

Bill Ritter so confused his position among voters that this author was told by registered Republicans living ten miles apart that they were voting for Ritter, one because he was for gun control, and one because he would protect hunters rights better than Bob Beauprez!

The Rocky Mountain News reported during the campaign:

Ritter says he would make recreational shooting improvements a priority if he is elected governor. He wants Colorado to take the lead in establishing more shooting ranges, beginning with a pilot program he proposes for the Arapaho-Roosevelt forests.

The words were good, but Ritter turned out to be a gun control governor.

Now Mark Udall is playing the land politics card with hunting in Rocky Mountain National Park. Well, not really hunting. It is killing elk with silenced guns and low velocity rounds.

Udall said he was glad park service managers said they might use sportsmen, but he was concerned the Park Service might give a higher priority to shooters from other federal or state agencies.

“I think if qualified sportsmen or sportswomen are willing to volunteer, they should be first in line,” Udall said.

If the Park Service did use volunteer cullers, it would not be like hunting. They could not take the meat or other trophies, and the work would be done under strict, controlled conditions.

It would be shooting fish in a barrel. These folks might call themselves hunters, but there would be no sport in the process, and no sportsmen involved. We're not sure Mark Udall knows the difference, but this is as close to land politics as he has come.

If Only I Could Write Like This

I am, as so many of you fellow sufferers know, a pedestrian writer, slow on the uptake, and prolix to the extreme.

Now, here's an example of good writing from the other side:

I'm quite fond of Barbara Boxer. Her ardent, sincere, and repeated failures to move liberal policies in the Senate - most recently the Energy Bill - suggest there was a time when liberals actually had power and could work through the policy process. Mike Lux tells me that was the case once, but it's not within my political experience.

Even if I can't write gud, I wanted you to know that I know what gud writin' is.

Looking More Closely at The Udall Commercial - Part 3

In Part 1, we talked about the way the anti - Schaffer Disappearing Act ad was produced and how cheaply and easy it was to produce but:

It's impressive for anyone who doesn't understand what is going on. The hard part is getting the photography. We're a bit suspicious of the photography, but who knows?

In Part 2, we began examining the photography:

The Roan Plateau segment just didn't look right. There is so much blue water and white snowcaps in their photograph that it looks pristine, beautiful, and, well . . . wet!

Cynics that we are, we suggested readers use Google Earth to look at the Roan Plateau for themselves. There is not a lot of water there. It is scrub land.

The next photo that we want to examine is the Pinon Canyon photo that appears about 17 seconds into the video. That photo was taken right at sun up. The orange is the color given to the land as the sun's rays go through the thickest part of the atmosphere. The shadows caused by the hills make the areas in shadow look more lush than they are.

No one seems to have thought of this when the photo was used, but anyone who uses the full screen mode on YouTube will see how unproductive and barren this land is. If more land is needed for maneuver training by the Army, it is hard to justify protecting this kind of land from that use. Pandering politicians like Ken Salazar and his brother John who claim otherwise are doing themselves and their own reputation a disservice.

Of Course, Mark Udall is not just a panderer, he is a liar who would sell out the nation's security for a few votes. He told the ranchers in the pinon canyon area that future wars would be against urban based terrorists and that the Army didn't need their land. Never mind that he is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and knows better.

15 Seconds into the commercial (it moves fast) is a photo of Bob Schaffer standing beside a building with a large plaque. Curious minds that might want to know where in Colorado that building and plaque might be will be disappointed to see that a trianglur shaped haze with two embedded rectangles has been produced by the animator to make it unreadable. It is funny to see how clear and sharp the photo is to the left of Schaffer's image and how fuzzy it is where the plaque is located.

The triangle shaped haze is a simple white triangle and two rectangles made translucent by the animator and placed in front of the building image. You can see where both rectangles extend outside the hypotenuse of the triangle. This part is very sloppy and cheaply done animation.

The Washington based producers of this deceptive piece of animation couldn't be troubled to find a photo of a Colorado building and weren't honest enough to let the viewer see that. Going out on a limb, we would go so far as to suggest that this building might be located in Alexandria, Virginia, given the unusually large size of the brick and the round object at the top of the photo. In Colorado, brick buildings are relatively scarce due to the easy availability of quarried building materials. We've never seen a building built with oversized brick.

All in all, we think this commercial is so poorly thought out and executed that it will do Mark Udall much more damage than it will ever do to Bob Schaffer. We actually think Bob Schaffer's campaign should be promoting it!

Big Blue Lie Machine In Action

Of the 500 or so YouTube views of the new Democrat ad against Bob Schaffer, we're responsible for at least 25.

The Roan Plateau segment just didn't look right. There is so much blue water and white snowcaps in their photograph that it looks pristine, beautiful, and, well . . . wet!

Most of western Colorado simply doesn't look like that most of the time. It is arid, with little in the way of trees because there isn't much moisture to support them. It is no accident that the Bureau of Land Management owns places like the Roan Plateau. When the west was settled, no one else wanted them because they were too dry to support even dry land farming.

Pull up Google Earth and enter "Roan Plateau." Compare what Google Earth shows to what this new commercial shows. You will see that it is not the idyllic place that the Big Blue Lie Machine and the Sierra Club would have you believe.

It is hard to believe that anyone thinks Mark Udall can expect to be elected when, in this internet era, it is so easy to chase down and expose the lies being told by him and for him.

Bad Idea Near Death

It looks as though the Congress won't buy into Mark Udall's 20% or even 15% renewable energy mandate.

The Denver Post is up in arms about it, but we think that they are wrong. Just because Colorado might have an abundance of potential renewable energy sources doesn't mean that every state has them.

We wouldn't be all that happy if Congress passed a law that said that we had to get 15% of our fresh water from ocean desalinization. California, on the other hand, might be quite happy with such a law for obvious reasons.

We (including the Denver Post) need to respect other states and not try to make Colorado's energy shoe fit them if it won't fit.

Production Values Hide Udall's Lack of Values

The Rocky Mountain News is reporting that the DSCC has created a new "disappearing Act" YouTube ad.

The cost of producing things like this is so low that given the proper software, one person could do this in an afternoon, though it might take longer to render. It appears to have been done on something like Lightwave 9. There isn't even all that much animation in it, mostly making the camera move. It is a matter of plopping in a background, creating two foreground objects and making one disappear. They did that three times in 15 seconds. The intro is the reverse.

It's impressive for anyone who doesn't understand what is going on. The hard part is getting the photography. We're a bit suspicious of the photography, but who knows?

Expect to see a lot of this kind of thing from now on in this election and all the ones to come.

As to its political value, we would ask just one question: So?

This ad is more a reflection of Mark Udall's willingness to pander to special interests when it comes to national security issues (oil and gas production / military readiness) and his willingness to buy votes with SCHIP than it is a reflection on Schaffer. Schaffer doesn't need to go public on the issues for months.

This ad could be parodied in a way that would make Mark Udall look bad. It isn't well thought out.

What a Liberal Thinks About the Poll

Yesterday, Ben wrote about the strange write up in Colorado Confidential of the latest poll. He wasn't the only one who noticed the Colorado Confidential spin:

What is strange to me about the poll is not the result -- it is very much what we have seen in every Colorado poll, and the race is definitely a toss-up, contrary to most people's expectations -- but the way the group that conducted it is spinning the results, as the internals reported insist on Udall's strength among his base and his appeal to moderates and Republicans, as well as on Shaffer's weakness among his base. Reading the description, one could believe that Udall was found to lead by 10%! In any case, the bottom line is that Colorado is tight.

Let this serve as a reminder. Spinning so wildly is the same as lying. We've decided to add a new label: "Colorado Confidential Caught Lying." It's not quite the same as the Big Blue Lie Machine, but a cog in that machine.

It Takes One's Breath Away

The level of naivete demonstrated by people who manage to become editors of newspapers is sometimes breathtaking. The editor of the Vail Trail has an amazing editorial promoting the loon in the attic's Department of Peace and regretting that Mark Udall lacked the courage to continue to support it.

How is that people — most of whom grow up with parents admonishing them daily to behave with peace and civility — can embrace messages that snicker at the notion of peace on a wider scale? Most people will live their entire lives without engaging in murder or acts of war and be happy for it. Yet when someone comes along and suggests more vigorous pursuit of this thing called “peace,” they are pilloried for it.

Not by everyone, I should hasten to add. But in this polarized and partisan world we live in, the ones yelling from the fringes are doing a good job of capturing our ear through the mainstream media. So when someone like Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich — who’s on his second go-around running for president — proposes a “Department of Peace” for the U.S., he is subject to the snarky attacks of those who believe the only way to demonstrate patriotism (or, at least, the best way) is to kill people, blow things up.

And when someone like Colorado Rep. Mark Udall — who is running for the U.S. Senate — is attacked (actually, the term now is “Swiftboated”) by a so-called 527 group for once supporting said Department of Peace, he is also ridiculed, painted as a pacifist who’s now willing to hold open the door for terrorists. (Sad to note here that Udall has withdrawn his support of the idea, no doubt a political calculation to fend of wussy-branding from his GOP rival.)

This retired Army Officer can only point to history. 1) Would a "Department of Peace" have kept the WWI Germans from declaring unrestricted Submarine warfare or discouraged the sending of the Zimmerman Note? 2) It seems that Chamberlain pursued peace with Hitler as hard as a politician could, and that worked, right? 3) Stalin thought he could buy peace with Hitler, too. 4) December 7th, the day that will live in infamy just passed, and a Department of Peace would have precluded that? 5) It seems that the North Koreans marched across the border without provocation or notice, supported by both the Russians and the Chinese. 6) The Vietnam war was preventable short of surrender-heck we had a war and still surrendered.

7) The Cold War ended not because we disarmed, but because we rearmed and rebuilt our armed forces under Reagan and the Soviet Union couldn't keep up. 8) Since Bin Laden's goal is a peaceful world wide caliphate where non Muslims convert or die, what would a Department of Peace promote but the date and time of mass surrender and conversion?

If Alex Miller is unhappy because people are snarky toward politicians like Mark Udall who promote, even temporarily, a Department of Peace, it might be because there are so many times in history where the price of peace would have been surrender and the loss of our freedom, a price many think a bit too high.

Alex Miller, and Mark Udall, we understand that there is a sale on prayer rugs in Vail this weekend. Maybe you can get your names embroidered on either end. Have you thought about how good your wives will look in burkhas? Oh, was that snarky? Maybe there is a reason. Snarky people intend to keep their freedom.

Spin on Lefty Poll Can't Get Past Fact that Colorado Senate Race is Toss-Up

Need a sign of the times for the U.S. Senate campaign for Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall? The reliably Left-leaning Colorado Confidential site today is touting a new poll conducted by Research for Change, Inc., run by a "lifelong Democrat" who "provides research and strategy for progressive causes and political campaigns." (Not that these easily discoverable facts are mentioned in the story.)

The big news? Udall leads Republican Bob Schaffer among women and independent voters. Wow, that's different. What about the bigger picture?:

A new survey of likely Colorado voters shows Democrat Mark Udall, candidate for U.S. Senate, with a 2-percentage point lead over his Republican opponent, Bob Schaffer.

"The Schaffer people would call it a virtual tie, and the Udall people would call it a slim lead," said Mark Mehringer, of Research for Change, Inc., the group that conducted the poll.

What crafty advocacy journalism in the story's lead. Do the poll results actually show "a virtual tie" or "a slim lead"? Rather than sharing what can be determined as an objective fact, the writer casually assigns differing opinions to the two campaigns via the quote of a Left-liberal pollster. The inability to distinguish fact from opinion, a tenet in the church of relativism, appears to have crippled the Left's capacity for any basic, honest analysis.

To arbitrate the question, the story could have included the standard disclaimer about the survey's statistical margin of error, but failed to do so. Nevertheless, it's safe to assume that any sample of 500 Colorado voters yields a margin of error somewhat greater than 2 percentage points. Nor does the story give the actual percentages (Is it 42 to 40? 47 to 45? 36 to 34?).

But perhaps we trifle over small things. It's a hard to say, though, as none of the details of the alleged poll's cross-tabs are available. Readers are, however, spoon-fed selective pieces of data such as:

Udall holds a 17 percentage point lead in his own congressional district. But more curiously, Udall is only trailing Schaffer by 2 percentage points in Tancredo's heavily Republican sixth district.

No word on how big Schaffer's lead might be in his own former congressional district. Perhaps that factoid would throw a wrench into the message Colorado Confidential is trying to push.

But ultimately, that message is weak, as even the Left's propaganda machine can't twist reality enough to change the clear conventional wisdom that next year's U.S. Senate race is currently a Toss-Up. Back in April, Colorado Confidential's Jason Bane was busy touting the then-prevailing analysis that "Udall will enter the general election as the favorite." The trend of eight months in this campaign has really got the Left busy lowering its once high expectations for their favorite liberal son from Boulder.

So let's recap: A poll commissioned by Left wing groups finds that their once sureshot candidate is in a statistical dead heat and can only spin it that he still leads among groups in which he has already been leading. But no context of previous polls in the Schaffer-Udall race.

Nice try, Colorado Confidential. Keep lowering the expectations for Udall. But it's hard to hide the past.

We're Begging For It

This may belong on the Ritter Watch blog. Our friends at Colorado Confidential have discovered that Colorado is one of the five most hospitable jurisdictions in the world for oil and gas exploration. Their comment:

It turns out there's a reason that Colorado is such a hotbed of oil and gas activity: We're begging for it.

The report they quote is here:

Essentially, this survey was designed to determine in which jurisdictions public policy factors, such as taxation and regulation, and the business environment more generally, constitute significant barriers to investment in the upstream petroleum industry...

It seems odd that they should be worried. The Democrats are working overtime, from Mark Udall in Congress to Bill Ritter and the legislature to make Colorado as inhospitable to business as possible. Give them two more years and they will not only chase the oil and gas industry out of state, they will chase everything else out.

They and Hillary are alike: She has more ideas than the country can afford. They and Hillary are different in that Hillary admits her addiction to big government, but they don't seem smart enough to have figured it out.

Real Latino Reaction to "The Cuban Hero Award"

A few days ago we said this:

If the Denver Post, itself a liberal bastion, says that a political ad is fully truthful, why would a blogger go out of his way to title a post "Republican Attack Ad Backfires on Senate Candidate?

"Those latinos who know Castro best, Cuban refugees, are stalwart Republicans and will cheer on this ad. If there is a Step and Fetch It in this ad, it is an accurate characterization of Castro's own propaganda machine, not the latino culture.

Well, our view has been validated by the folks running a Cuban orientated blog station in Denver. Note the link to the Cuban Hero Award. This makes the Big Blue Lie Machine look silly. Take a few minutes to listen to the music.

The Alternate Universe That Is Boulder

Does anyone recall the Mark Udall quote about Boulder County being:

“home base for me. This is the touchstone; this is where I take my inspiration.”

We have found a new Boulder based blog that is part of the alternate universe that is Boulder. It is Rant from Boulder and Bellview. It is an entertaining read and we learn so much. We would have never guessed that Karl Rove was so effective that:

They have had years to paint Senator Clinton as a looney liberal. She isn't. She is right of center just like her husband. but the truth never got in the way during a campaign cycle.

The implications of this revelation are enormous! Hillary is a part of the vast right wing conspiracy and yet Karl Rove has painted her as a looney liberal!

That kind of thinking is what makes Boulder politicians look so far out of touch with reality:

Maybe it is true, in this alternate reality, that Mark Udall didn't really sponsor the Department of Peace. It was really to be a top secret renewable energy project that would have sent Saudia Arabia back to the era of scimitars and horses.

Running from his own History

It is reported in an essay titled "In Search of True Leadership" at PlagiarismNowAction that Mark Udall "wishes" he had never lent his name to the effort by the loon in the attic to establish a Department of Peace.

We wonder what other far left schemes he "wishes" he had never lent his name to.

Washington Politics Never Simple

The Denver Post is reporting that the Democrats are playing games in the Senate in an effort to make Mark Udall look good to the Western Slope, or at least some on the Western Slope.

The House removed the one year moratorium prohibiting drilling on the Roan Plateau for reasons that aren't obvious considering that the Democrats clearly had the votes to keep it in the bill.

Now, Ken Salazar is riding to the rescue???

The fight over the Roan now shifts to the Senate, where Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., says he will seek a one-year moratorium on Roan drilling. But his effort is unlikely to happen until after the new year.

Meanwhile, a political slugfest erupted Wednesday over questions about the 3,500-foot mesa in northwestern Colorado and the motivations for protecting it.

Sen. Wayne Allard, a Loveland Republican who supports energy development on the Roan, said House and Senate Democrats have an ulterior motive in seeking the one-year drilling moratorium.

Democratic leaders, Allard said, want to give Rep. Mark Udall of Eldorado Springs credit for protecting the state's Western Slope. Udall, who is running for the retiring Allard's seat, co-wrote with Rep. John Salazar, a Manassa Democrat, the provision on Roan drilling that passed in an earlier House bill. It was stripped this week from the compromise version. The plateau sits in Salazar's district.

"This boils down to the Senate race, frankly," Allard said. "Democratic leadership is convinced that this is going to be an important issue in the Senate race in Colorado."

What gives?

Uh-Oh--Udall Losing Image Battle

The liberals are circling the wagons:

Two of Colorado’s top political analysts agree that without quick and proper responses, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall risks getting stereotyped the way Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry got tarred by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

That air of Udall's election inevitability is quickly dissipating . . .

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.

Schaffer v Benner?

In what might be a cynical ploy to make Mark Udall look like the moderate (chuckle) he can no way claim to be, a far, far left wing member of the state Democrat executive committee is making noises about entering the primary against Udall.

The name is Mark Benner, and he would supposedly run against Udall on an impeachment platform, a cut and run platform, and a drive the health care system into the ground platform.

Yes, we admit that this guy makes Mark Udall look a little less wild-eyed in comparison, but so would Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro (with whom Udall had a recent photo - op and now we know why).

Where do the Democrats find these loons? Oh, we forgot, the loon in the attic is coming to Denver this summer and he will want a bird of that feather around to roost next to. Mark Udall, who usually flocks with the Ohio loon will be busy helping push Hillary over the line (or off the cliff, as the case may be).

So Many Lies, So Little Time

If the Denver Post, itself a liberal bastion, says that a political ad is fully truthful, why would a blogger go out of his way to title a post "Republican Attack Ad Backfires on Senate Candidate?"

Those latinos who know Castro best, Cuban refugees, are stalwart Republicans and will cheer on this ad. If there is a Step and Fetch It in this ad, it is an accurate characterization of Castro's own propaganda machine, not the latino culture.

This post is just another lie at a time when we have been legitimately pointing out elsewhere that the Big Blue Lie Machine is working at full power here in Colorado.

It seems that the Democrat party and its minions are becoming desperate out of fear that they won't realize the big Senate gains they confidently predicted only a few months ago.

Democrats would be well to consider that our democracy is endangered when they make the truth a regular victim of their politics.

Can You Spot The Lies?

We've had some time to review an interview that Mark Udall (D-MoveOn) gave to Jonathan Singer, named by Wikipedia as the first major left wing blogger.

This interview again shows Mark Udall in the process of telling lies. Rather than spoil the fun, we encourage readers to look at the interview and do your own forensic investigation. What statements that Udall has made to Singer will we tag as lies? For that matter, Singer told a whopper in his introduction. Can you tag that one, too?

This interview is so long that we will either dismantle it on another blog more suited for long posts, or do it in parts here. Meanwhile, have fun playing detective.

They Call The Wind Maria

In the enthusiasm over the poll results, our fellow bloggers appear to have missed this quote from Rothenberg:

Now, state voters will have a clear choice between liberal Cong. Mark Udall (D) and conservative former congressman Bob Schaffer (R). Neither man is running from party or ideological labels, but each believes he fits the state better.

Actually, Mark Udall is moving farther left by choosing to "blog" on MoveOn.org.

Meanwhile, we update our scoreboard:

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 7
liberal 26
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.