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Veterans group draws fire from Schaffer camp for endorsements

Schaffer campaign chief livid over 'despicable' attack

By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 13, 2008 at 11:23 p.m.
Updated October 14, 2008 at 1:24 a.m.

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Only in politics can an endorsement by a veterans group become a controversial story.

The group in question, Move America Forward, will be in Greeley today to endorse U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's re-election bid and in Colorado Springs on Wednesday to endorse Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer.

A Washington group called Campaign Money Watch on Monday noted that Move America Forward has ties to business enterprises in Kurdistan. Schaffer visited the region in northern Iraq in 2006 as part of an oil and gas trip that has come under fire in the campaign.

"All roads run through Kurdistan," said David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch.

Schaffer's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, was livid at the attempt to make the endorsement a controversy.

"They're attacking a group of women who lost their kids in Iraq? How much more despicable can you get than that?" he asked.

Present at the endorsements will be Greeley native Debbie Lee, a Gold Star mother of Navy SEAL Marc Lee, who was killed in Iraq in 2006.

The political strategist for Move America Forward is Sal Russo, a principal in a public relations firm hired to promote the safety of doing business in Kurdistan. Schaffer's former employer, Aspect Energy, signed an oil deal with Kurdistan, a deal criticized by some State Department officials as undercutting U.S. policy in Iraq.

Ryan Gill, operations director for Move America Forward, said he had no idea that Schaffer had visited Kurdistan when he recommended that the group endorse him.

"I think they're reaching," he said of Campaign Money Watch.

Campaign Money Watch, which has aired three TV commercials critical of Schaffer, bills itself as nonpartisan. But critics, including Wadhams, said the group is leftist and supports Democratic candidates.

Comments

  • October 14, 2008

    7:35 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    JohnSmith2 writes:

    "Melanie Morgan is MAF chairman and a columnist for WorldNetDaily, and author of the book America Mourning. She gained national notoriety in the summer of 2006 when she suggested that Bill Keller, an editor of the New York Times, be killed in a "gaschamber" for alleged "treason" after the Times' reporting on US government spying on Americans."

    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?...

    This is a vile extremist group founded by far-right radio talk show hosts that makes Code Pink look reasonable. They maintain a list called the "Sedition report" that catalogs every perceived slight to their radical right-wing agenda.

  • October 14, 2008

    3:09 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    hunterman writes:

    Wadhams knows his candidate is bought and paid for by dirty oil money. Tough macaca, Schaffer is a deserved loser.

  • October 15, 2008

    1:37 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    UncleZancle writes:

    We need more candidates supporting dirty oil, a lot more.