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CARROLL: Ironic ad targets Polis

By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 24, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Jared Polis

Jared Polis

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Jared Polis is being attacked on TV by reactionaries posing as political liberals. His adversaries are so reactionary - so opposed to progress and wedded to old ways - that their ad denounces the 2nd District Democratic congressional candidate for founding and supporting public schools that specialize in serving immigrants and at-risk kids who'd given up on regular school.

The ad is the handiwork of Colorado Counts, a group funded by various unions rooting for one of Polis' opponents, former Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald. Here are the ad's lurid opening lines: "Let's look at Jared Polis' record on education. Polis has pushed for conservative ideas that undermine public schools, like backing a radical school voucher bill while serving on the state ed board. Or funding multiple charter schools."

Actually, the voucher bill was not radical. It was a modest pilot program that mainly would have served disadvantaged minorities. But let's put that issue aside since the very word "voucher" is akin to an obscenity in Democratic circles, and Polis himself now contends he repudiated the final bill. No, the stunning part of the indictment is the unions' hostility toward public charter schools, as well as the ludicrous claim that those founded by Polis through The New America School are undermining public education.

I asked Dominic DiFelice, superintendent of The New America School, to profile the roughly 1,000 students that attend campuses in Aurora, Lakewood, Northglenn and Eagle Valley. "Ninety-five percent are English language learners," he said, and thus fairly recent immigrants. "Many would never function in regular school settings," he added.

The vast majority, he further explained, also fit the official state definition for "at-risk" - 85 percent or so at the Aurora campus on Lowry and an astounding 95 percent at the other three schools.

And the result?

"They succeed a lot better in our environment than they would have in another environment," DiFelice said. "They love our schools."

Earlier this year, 110 students graduated from The New America School - very few of whom, DiFelice understandably believes, would have graduated any other way.

The attack on Polis' education record is, in short, despicable. But unintentionally ironic, too.

As the narrator describes the candidate's alleged sins, the screen highlights Polis' assurance that "Our charter school projects continue to thrive." This is a bad thing, the reactionary liberals from Colorado Counts imply - but try telling that to 110 recent high-school graduates.

Fitz-Gerald's view

For the record, the Fitz-Gerald campaign had nothing to do with the Colorado Counts ad. That would be illegal. But the ad apparently does mirror her attitude toward public charter schools. Last year during a Senate debate on a bill allowing schools such as the Cesar Chavez Academy in Pueblo to replicate themselves across the state, Fitz-Gerald dismissed charters as vehicles of "white flight."

Now that would be news to those 110 graduates, too.

Tax cheaters

Don't Denver officials realize that allowing the committee hosting the Democratic National Convention to fill their tanks at city gas pumps, as they did until Tuesday, is no different from granting personal friends the same tax-free privilege? The host committee operated for months as state and federal tax cheaters - while the mayor and his aides played the role of accomplices.

Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.

Comments

  • July 24, 2008

    6:57 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    The ads from Polis push universal health care, get out of Iraq now, and higher taxes. All of these are very bad ideas. It's not his past that matters when he pushes an agenda like this.

  • July 24, 2008

    8:48 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    dakar writes:

    Both Polis and Mark Udall's biggest campaign issues are the Iraq war. It is now looking like regardless of who's president, the majority of troops will be out of Iraq in 2 years. So Polis other big issue is universal healthcare - letting the gov't handle our healthcare would be wasting to much money due to inefficiencies. Should the gov't work to improve healthcare - Yes, but not run the system.
    Udall is out of ideas and doesn't have anything going for him, he is being propped up by those in Boulder.

  • July 24, 2008

    9:15 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    byteme writes:

    Polis is a poser. Thanks to mom and dad, he has been able to buy a seat on the state board of education, buy name i.d. by pushing amendment 41 so kids of public workers can't take scholarships and is now trying to buy his way into congress. His philanthropic efforts are superficial and designed for tv ads. The 2nd CD deserves better.

  • July 24, 2008

    10:13 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    DaggerJade writes:

    In response to byteme's idiotic, obviously planted, comment: Tell the hundreds of kids who have graduated from his schools, who otherwise wouldn't have been able to go to school, that his philanthropic efforts are superficial. byteme, I'd really like to see you give the graduation speech and get booed off stage.

  • July 24, 2008

    10:41 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    DaggerJade writes:

    If Joan Fitzgerald had any integrity, she would condemn the ad. Joan will go to ANY lengths to win. She lacks integrity.

  • July 24, 2008

    12:07 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jackwoehr writes:

    It's not precisely an "ironic" ad. It's a bunch of dimwits with more money than brains attacking a politician with more money than brains. It's more, um, "Douglas Adamsian" or "Kurt Vonnegutish" than "ironic".

  • July 24, 2008

    12:52 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    daRock writes:

    No wonder the DNC does not see $4 per gallon gas as a problem. The don't even see $4 per gallon gas.

  • July 24, 2008

    3:45 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Ezana writes:

    Poser or not as a teacher I can tell you that Polis is on the right side of every issue I hold dear! (as is Udall).

  • July 24, 2008

    4:46 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    soccermom writes:

    I appreciate Mr. Carroll's efforts to keep this election focused on the issues and off smear campaign tactics.

    The media has some power to guide the elections towards civil discourse, I hope they take full advantage of it.

  • July 24, 2008

    8:58 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mike846 writes:

    I find it interesting Joan would call charter schools examples of "white flight" when the record clearly shows that some of the most successful on both the East and West sides of town reflect heavily the ethnic minorities of those neighborhoods....and that ethnicity ain't white. But then, since when did truth matter to her? As for Polis, he's got his own agenda, and while I laud him spending his bucks for good causes, I guess I'd really like to know why "Ninety-five percent are English language learners," he said, and thus fairly recent immigrants." Wow. Even illegal immigrants (most likely) are part of "white flight". Vote Republican. Mike

  • July 25, 2008

    11:40 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    BrianSchwartz writes:

    While Polis may support some measure of school choice, his health care policy is appalling. He advocates single-payer politically-controlled "universal" health care, where people die waiting for treatment, as documented here:
    http://www.patientpowernow.org/2008/0...

    Also, according to Jared Polis (Speakout, Feb 13 2008), a law is required compel doctors to treat the uninsured in emergency situations. Similarly, laws are required to make other citizens do the right thing. If us voters are so heartless, then what would it say about him if he wins? For background on this, see:
    http://www.wakalix.com/wp/2008/02/13/...

  • July 27, 2008

    11:38 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    redwhiteandBLUE writes:

    It's been said " HE"S a DOER" LOL!!! (TV commercial)

  • August 4, 2008

    12:28 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    fatheromalley writes:

    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    The ads from Polis push universal health care, get out of Iraq now, and higher taxes. All of these are very bad ideas. It's not his past that matters when he pushes an agenda like this.

    Thank you Mike! Try www.fatheromalley.com

    dakar writes:

    "......letting the gov't handle our healthcare would be wasting to much money due to inefficiencies. Should the gov't work to improve healthcare - Yes, but not run the system. "

    If government is so inefficient here, what makes them so efficient elsewhere? Welfare? Redistribution of wealth?

    It's not only inefficiencies, but who wants to place their own health and that of their families into the hands of these losers?

    We running to government as if that were the only option is breaking this country. The programs of FDR were supposed to be temporary, but why repeal them when you can get large segments of losers and those that "support" them voting for you.
    Whenever someone robs Peter to Pay Paul, Paul will vote for who?

    Froward69 writes:
    Thank you dakar, for pointing out how this administration and McCain have turned left (at least in rhetoric) in regard to the Iraq war..."(How? )

    "however I would not believe it until I saw some actual action from the Right. based upon the past lies and deceit from the right regarding such issues. "

    And how about the lies and deceit of the left? I recognize you by your one sided "limp" socialist..

    Withdrawing:
    Obama will find too, that conditions on the ground dictate any timetable and he WILL abide by that, as Bush did, and all of you "anti-war" people will be dissappointed in him as well if he wins.. guaranteed. The Democrats will stop short when THEY are in office. The Socialists don't want to be saddled with a REAL defeat in Iraq. They like the nebulous kind that never happens but they continually declare..

    Google General Giap..
    If you reeeeally wanted CHANGE, you'd have talked to your neighbors, gone to the primaries and carried real men with real change to victory.. but no, you had to get a little tingle down your leg over a black candidate..

    A black President at any cost is not my cup of tea... I can wait until a non-bigot American black runs for office..thaaanks..

    The "white European" work ethic is just fine for this country.. many others from different races have successfully integrated that into their philosophy in becoming a citizen.

    I see a lot of "legal" Americans write here, but from the attitudes shown, many are only Americans by a piece of paper, not in spirit..

    Eventually they will either change or be shut down politically once the general populace tires of the false differences erected by the socialists that see America only as the battlefield of "class warfare"..

    These are what Lenin referred to as "useful idiots"..

    Love to all,
    Father O'Malley..

    www.fatheromalley.com
    www.numbersusa.org
    www.votesmart.org
    www.fairtax.org
    www.jihadwatch.org