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Reality Check: 'Sale' ad on Schaffer partly truth, partly spin

By Raj Chohan, CBS4, Special to the Rocky

Published August 6, 2008 at 9:49 p.m.
Updated August 7, 2008 at 1:33 a.m.

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The topics of school vouchers and big oil come together in a new attack ad targeting Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer. The 30-second spot called "sale" comes from the National Education Association.

Ad: Who does Bob Schaffer stand with? His campaigns have taken $180,000 from big oil and gas.

This claim is true. According to opensecrets.org, Bob Schaffer has taken about $180,000 in campaign contributions from oil and gas related interests since 1996. That's a fraction of the roughly $9 million he's raised over the course of three campaigns.

Ad: And he voted to give them billions in tax breaks.

This claim is also true. As a congressman, Schaffer voted for the 2001 energy bill, which included nearly $14 billion in tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. The bill also included billions in tax incentives for research and development into renewable energy. Still, fossil energy got the lion's share of the tax breaks.

Ad: Now it turns out Schaffer is in the pocket of his pro-voucher friends, too. Schaffer was paid by a big oil company to push for vouchers.

This is spin. The ad implies Schaffer's support of vouchers is driven by his political donors. In fact, Schaffer has long been a proponent of school vouchers, which he argues would provide low-income children an alternative to poorly performing public schools. The fact that he's worked for energy executives who also support school vouchers may reflect nothing more sinister than like-minded interests teaming up in pursuit of a mutual goal.

Ad: Diverting money away from public schools for private schools.

This claim is also true. The NEA has long opposed vouchers because they divert public tax dollars away from public schools.

Ad: Then on the Board of Education, Schaffer helped one of his big pro-vouchers contributors keep a taxpayer contract.

The claim is true, but there is some spin. While on the Colorado Board of Education, Schaffer did vote to keep open a poorly performing charter school. It was a vote that forced Denver Public Schools to reconsider its initial vote to close the school. DPS did reconsider and gave the school a one-year extension. In the weeks after the vote, an executive whose company manages the school gave Schaffer several thousand dollars in contributions for his 2008 senate campaign. The same donor also contributed to Schaffer's 2004 Senate campaign. The ad implies Schaffer's primary intent was to help a past donor rather than voting on the merits of the measure. There's no evidence beyond innuendo to prove this conclusion. In defense of the vote, Schaffer said he made his decision because he wanted to keep open a school of last resort for inner-city students who would otherwise be dropouts. Three board members agreed with him, three did not.

Ad: Bob Schaffer, for the special interests, not you.

Bottom line: The ad is correct in pointing out that Bob Schaffer supports school vouchers and charter schools. It also correctly highlights Schaffer's ties to fossil energy interests. However, the implication that Schaffer has put his "education" vote up for "sale" is rooted in partisan speculation and ignores Schaffer's long-held conservative positions on public education.

Contact Raj Chohan at rchohan@CBS.com. To see his full report, as well as sourcing, click on cbs4denver. com/reality check.

Comments

  • August 6, 2008

    10:45 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    JohnSmith2 writes:

    I've long been of the mind that Schaffer is less of a crook than his is an ideologue and an extremist.

    The problem is that his ideological blinders have kept him from seeing the crooks he surrounds himself with. Let's examine a couple:

    1. Schaffer served on the board of the National Alternative Fuels Foundation, a scam concocted by convicted fraudsters William Orr and Scott Shires to defraud the federal government using a 3 milllion dollar earmark for a snake oil-like fuel substance that had no scientific merit.

    2. Schaffer went on a "fact-finding mission" to the Northern Mariana Islands organized by convicted fraudster/lobbyist Jack Abramoff where he went parasailing. Upon his return, Schaffer carried Abramoff's water in covering up the slave labor conditions there including forced abortion. He even went so far as to intimidate a witness to a congressional hearing, calling him late the night before trying to find ways to impugn the witness's credibility.

    And finally, Schaffer hired D--- Wadhams to be the captain of his goon squad. Wadhams is well-known for pushing the legal and ethical line in campaigning, often stepping well beyond it if doing so would help him win. The Rocky's Vince Carroll even wrote Wadham's coarse behavior and told him to knock it off.

    Schaffer has a keen ability to surround himself with morally and ethically-challenged henchmen while maintaining plausible deniability for himself. It is my hope that the media will see through this tactic and make the connection: either Schaffer is a crook who seeks out like-minded associates, or he is a blind ideologue who overlooks his associates' indiscretions in furtherance of a radical agenda. Neither possibility makes for great Senate material.

  • August 7, 2008

    7:14 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    "The NEA has long opposed vouchers because they divert public tax dollars away from public schools." Ah, but the money still goes to education but education not run by the NEA. If the NEA comes out against a candidate I'm all for that candidate.

  • August 7, 2008

    8:31 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    JohnSmith2 writes:

    So you are saying that if the NEA came out against a Democrat in favor of a Republican that you would vote for the Democrat?

  • August 7, 2008

    5:32 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    galty writes:

    It is just spin that "vouchers divert money from public schools". Vouchers pay for students to attend private schools, but voucher plans also make the private schools pay for that child's education with the voucher money. The Colorado voucher plan that Bob Schaffer worked on would have given more money per student to the public schools to do a better job (maybe?) with the kids who remain.

  • August 7, 2008

    5:34 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    galty writes:

    The writer of this "reality check" also got one other "fact" wrong. He writes that the $180,000 was in fact given by "big oil". What is the definition of "Big Oil"? Most people would say that's one of the major oil companies, or at least one of the top couple hundred oil companies in the world. In that case the "Big Oil" money is probably next to nothing...