In the biggest oops of the CD-2 campaign so far, the Denver Post today ran a placement story by the Fitz-Gerald campaign that has Polis looking like a big, fat environmental hypocrite.
Fitz-Gerald’s environmental liabilities in this race were already known by insiders (not by voters, yet) and Polis has been trying to hammer her from a dual angle: taking special interest money from anti-environmental sources. Polis has also been playing himself as the green candidate, giving his website an eco-feelgood look and putting up significant verbiage on his enviro positions. But today the Fitz-Gerald campaign got the story they wanted in the Post when it ran a Karen Crummy investigative article on Polis’ investment history. Unfortunately for Polis he detailed in a self-disclosure form past holdings in multiple oil/gas and mining companies.
Polis listed income from 20 or more oil and gas companies, such as the China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., ConocoPhillips and LUKOIL, the largest oil company in Russia. He also was invested with pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer Inc., GlaxoSmithCline, Sanofi Aventis and Novartis, and he had stock in mining companies such as Southern Copper Corp., which operates open pit mines in Peru and Mexico.
He also was invested in companies that routinely draw fire from liberal groups, such as Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart of Mexico, Altria Group (previously known as Philip Morris) and Imperial Chemical Industries.
Even so, from January through April, his campaign has continually slammed Fitz-Gerald for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from political action committees and special interests, specifically the oil, gas, mining and pharmaceutical industries.
The article was clearly researched, promoted and pushed by the JFG campaign:
Fitz-Gerald campaign manager Mary Alice Mandarich pointed out that Polis’ campaign has accepted contributions from top oil and gas executives at Aspect Energy LLC, Bonanza Oil Co., Global Industries and Teaco Energy Services.
but it still looks very, very bad for Polis. (The political strategy question here is why they brought this out now instead of closer to August 12.) The Polis campaign response was as weak as Wadham’s response to Schaffer’s Marianas gotchas:
Hanson called the accusation “ludicrous.”
and
Hanson said Polis netted only a few hundred dollars from two of them, and one — which provided him $100,000 to $1 million — was only a week-long investment.
I don’t necessarily trust that the Polis campaign didn’t have a better response buried by Crummy to make a better point for Fitz-Gerald, but regardless, it looks bad.
On the environment, a very significant issue in this CD-2 race (I would argue far bigger than labor — Joan’s native strength — and maybe at the same level as Iraq), Joan already had liabilities and now so does Jared. The person this benefits is Will Shafroth. Considering his past responses to other attacks, the placement of this article is likely to stir Polis into a frenzy that will drag he and Joan into the mud. Will gets to sit by and watch, clapping.
I can see how voters would be misled by today’s story in the Post, however they left out some pretty significant details that I think are worth mentioning:
It’s very important to note that immediately upon learning that I owned stock in these companies, I sold them.
There’s only one candidate in this race who has voted to help oil companies and that’s Senator Fitz-Gerald. The real issue is not just that she took thousands of dollars of corporate PAC money from them, but that she turned around and voted with the polluters in the state Senate.
Senator Fitz-Gerald even sponsored a bill that was called, by the Denver Post, “an oil and gas dream bill”, that went after Colorado’s seniors, ranchers and working families. Then, in another Denver Post article from February 21, 2002, Senator Fitz-Gerald called the oil and gas industry, “the goose that lays the golden egg”.
Senator Fitz-Gerald’s record is one of aiding the oil and gas industry, supporting pollution-causing coal, and taking PAC money from the global mining industry.
Thanks for engaging, Jared. As I said at the end of the post, even if there was a solid response from your campaign I’m not confident that Crummy would have printed it. (I’m not impugning her motives, I just don’t know them and I’m not one to give print journalists blanket benefits of the doubt. It seemed pretty clear to me that Crummy would not have done any of that research without being handed it by the JFG campaign, which made it read as a placement piece.) Was your campaign given ample lead time by Karen Crummy to respond?
Clearly this is big-time politics and good luck to you in answering the attack.