November 29, 2007 11:57 PM UTC

Polis Swift-Boats Himself

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• by: Colorado Pols

We were puzzled earlier this week about why Democrat Jared Polis continues to accept questionable donations when he doesn’t need the money. The bad press he is getting is certainly not worth the few thousand dollars in his warchest.

The story just keeps getting worse for Polis, as the Rocky Mountain News reports:

A Nashville, Tenn., auto dealer who has donated thousands of dollars to Republican causes – including the Swift Boat attack group – said he contributed to Jared Polis’ congressional campaign because he considers the Boulder resident “a good conservative.”…

…Another donor, Arthur Gray Jr., of New Hampshire, said his friend Arthur Laffer, economist and former adviser to President Reagan, asked him to donate to Polis.

Gray said Laffer knows Polis and described the Internet entrepreneur as a “very good guy” who believes in “supply side economics.”

Asked about the donations, Polis said, “If conservatives want to support me in stopping the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars to the war in Iraq, then so be it.”

“I’m not surprised that people of all walks of life and across the political spectrum are supporting my efforts,” he added.

But Polis’ two Democratic rivals in the 2nd Congressional District, Joan Fitz-Gerald and Will Shafroth, attacked the donations because Beaman and Gray also contributed in 2004 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The group paid for ads attacking Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s Vietnam War record.

That story certainly hurts, but not as bad as what appeared in this Associated Press story:

Congressional candidate Jared Polis began a town hall meeting Wednesday to discuss his trip to Iraq by taking issue with an attack from a rival Democrat.

Joan Fitz-Gerald, who is running against Polis for Rep. Mark Udall’s seat, questioned why Polis accepted contributions from former supporters of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The criticism Tuesday came just as Polis returned from Iraq.

“I say, ‘How dare they,'” Polis told the crowd of about 100, calling the attack “hypocritical.”

Polis did not deny taking more than $6,000 from five people who also gave to the Swift Boat group that attacked John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign, but said, “My vote is not for sale.”

He said after the meeting that “even many conservatives are fed up” with the war in Iraq, leading to a change of heart. If that is the case with the five people in question, Polis said, he was “happy” to have their support.

So…Polis is “happy” to have the support of the Swift Boaters, and he thinks its hypocritical of anyone to question that. Being proud to have the support of Republicans is swell – unless you’re running in a three-way DEMOCRATIC primary.

The Polis campaign has nobody to blame but themselves for this, and they’re not making things better with this response. And whose idea was it to bring this up as the first subject at his town hall meeting?

It’s too late now, but we’re clueless as to why Polis didn’t just plead innocence and return the checks when he had the chance. It would have been easy to claim that he didn’t know the connection between the Swift Boat ads and that he returned the checks voluntarily. That was the obvious response here, and it would have prevented the story from continuing like this (not to mention that it has completely stopped any visit to Iraq momentum).