Dec 06 2008
Honeymoon’s Over
Actually, for thin-skinned local “progressive” talk show host Jay Marvin, it sounds like it was over before it began, thanks to a snobby Mark Udall being insufficiently appreciative of Marvin’s free campaign efforts on his behalf:
The last draw came election night. Udall had won and beaten Bob Schaffer. I was broadcasting live from the Democratic ballroom at a downtown hotel. My producer, John Turk, went up to Udall’s press secretary Taylor West to ask for in interview. We were told no. Now keep in mind I had given this guy money, had pitched for him on the air, and had even carried water for him when some of his votes got him into trouble with his core.[emphasis mine]
Where were the TV stations when the election campaign was going on? Did they even lift a finger to help this guy.
The worst part of it was after all we gad done for Mark Udall on the air, John Turk was treated like s***, he was only doing his job–and we were denied an interview with the newly elected Senator. It was only after I got in a yelling match with Udall’s campaign manager were we granted a short, tense live interview on the air.
There were many more incidents of the Udall minions walking all over Mary and myself.
I’m not going to go into the rest here. Let’s just say Udall is a phony. He is cold, and has a well crafted image that covers who he really is. And let me also say I will never have this man on my show again as long as I’m on the air in this market.
How perceptive.
I can only suffer Jay Marvin for very short and widely spaced intervals. But I’m sure that if I were a regular member of his audience I wouldn’t much appreciate being told now, a month after the election, that he was merely “carrying water” for a candidate he loathed and didn’t believe in, and covering up the guy’s political liabilities in order to keep the more left-leaning members of the audience placated and willing to vote for him. In essence, he was trying to fool the audience just long enough to get “the Democrat” elected…and now has the poor taste to bluntly state as much.
Since I’m not a member of his regular audience (thank heavens) I can laugh about it instead. Let the backstabbing begin…
ADDENDUM: This part of Marvin’s post also caught my eye, as an illustration of how different Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer are as men:
What she found in the campaign HQ was not pretty site. Interns–for many of them it was their first job–were treated with disrespect and arrogance. Several times Mary was told to out and out lie to people on the phones…
Udall is a cold removed man. Here’s an example. He would come to the Denver campaign office be led down a set of stairs to an office where the door would be shut and he’d make his pitch calls for money.
The whole time Mary was there he never once stopped to thank or say hello to any of the kids busting their butts on his behalf.
I happened to stop by the Schaffer call center in Arvada at around 3pm on election day, and discovered Bob Schaffer himself making a visit on his rounds that day through his campaign offices. He was cheerfully thanking the volunteers, chatting with them here and there as he made his way through the room, addressing many of them by name (apparently from memory). He even took the time to record with me an impromptu interview for PPC…and then to re-record it when I discovered the camera had malfunctioned (which it also did the second time around, I discovered later).
In hindsight, I had a sense after talking with Bob that he already knew he wasn’t going to win the election…but there he was anyway, sharing his time on election day with the volunteers, fuelling their optimism, giving them encouragement, and showing them that their contributions of time and effort to his campaign were appreciated. That’s just the way Bob Schaffer is — friendly, engaged, and gregarious.
Of course, while such qualities are great to have, it’s even more important that someone running for office have strong character and sound political principles. It’s too bad that not enough Coloradans could see that Bob Schaffer had all three. Unlike Jay Marvin, we didn’t have to lie about how good our candidate was.





