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Perhaps fortunately, my radio diet consists mainly of KRCC, the NPR station in Colorado Springs that arrives here via repeater, and KHEN, the local low-power community station. So I've missed the provocative election-year advertisements run by the Trailhead Group.
I didn't miss an email I got from Keith and Evelyn
Baker, who run the Trailhead, an outdoor shop in Buena
Vista. Just wanted to let you know that 'the Trailhead
Group' is not affiliated with The Trailhead outdoors shop
in Buena Vista, Colorado, nor its parent company The
Trailhead, Inc. Several customers have asked us about The
Trailhead Group's radio messages. We requested that The
Trailhead Group add us to the disclaimer at the end of the
messages. They refused. We urge all our friends and loyal
customers to help us make this distinction clear.
Since the Trailhead Group is apparently unwilling to accommodate a reasonable request from a small-town family business, I'll help make that distinction clear.
The Trailhead Group was founded by Gov. Bill Owens and
bankrolled by folks like Pete Coors and Bruce Benson. It's
a 527 group,
named for a relevant provision of the
internal revenue code. Essentially, a 527 can raise and
spend unlimited amounts of money to influence an election,
but it cannot do so in co-ordination with a candidate's
campaign.
(Or so I gather. Understanding a conjunction of the
internal revenue code with campaign finance law may lie
beyond the powers of mere mortals like me, and I take
refuge in Bob Ewegen's definition of our craft:
Journalism is the art of relentless
oversimplification.
)
So, we have the Trailhead Group working to elect Republicans by dissing Democrats. One of its first activities was making automated telephone calls to residents in ten statehouse districts represented by Democrats.
This has to be one of the dumbest political moves known to history. Everyone I know ranks robo-calls with root canals. If I got a robo-call stating that my state senator was an appeasing agent of Satan, I'd put his sign in my yard because anyone who incurs the wrath of a robo-call operation must be doing something right.
More recently, the Trailhead Group went after Rep. Buffy McFadyen, a Democrat from Pueblo West, running ads that accused her of voting to raise taxes and fees. It cited three examples, among them an increase in fines for motorists who speed through construction zones and endanger highway workers.
Some Coloradans may now rest easier at night, knowing that the Trailhead Group is trying to protect the pocketbooks of those oppressed citizens who race through cone zones.
Now, I haven't actually heard any Trailhead Group ads, but I have read the complaints that they're slanderous and based on falsehoods. I don't see why they have to resort to that when they could just tell the truth about Democratic candidates.
For instance, in the governor's race: Did you know
that when Bill Ritter ran an office, he ordered his
subordinates to spend days, sometimes weeks, in rooms with
murderers, rapists, pedophiles, robbers, burglars, forgers
and just about every other form of depraved humanity you
can imagine? What kind of man would do this to his
employees? Do you want him in charge of your state
government?
Or the Group could run this on the Western Slope about
the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor:
Barbara O'Brien freely admits to having lived and worked
in Denver. Denver, the city that diverts our precious water
and uses it to flush toilets. Don't we deserve better
stewardship for Colorado's resources?
Our 5th congressional district seemed safely Republican
until Doug Lamborn won the primary. His victory came after
the most sleazy, dishonest campaign I've seen in a long,
long time,
according to the ten-term Republican
incumbent, Joel Hefley.
This could indicate a split in the GOP, between those who support sleazy, dishonest campaigns and those who don't. And thus the Trailhead Group might have to attack the Democratic candidate, Jay Fawcett, an Air Force Academy graduate who retired from that service as a lieutenant colonel.
We might hear this from the Trailhead Group: Can we
really trust a man who went to government schools? Who
relied on government medical care? And who spent 20 years
working for an organization that can deliver weapons of
mass destruction?
Given all the ways there are of spinning the truth to attack a political opponent, it's hard to understand why the Trailhead Group has to take another route, starting with its name -- for I can say with certainty that I've never seen any of them at any trailhead.
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