October 26, 2010 02:04 AM UTC

Jumping the Gun With Libby Szabo

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

TUESDAY UPDATE: Reporter Lynn Bartels of the Denver newspaper is up with a new story today about these basically illegible mailers sent by GOP House candidate Libby Szabo–this one could be quite a bit worse for Szabo than the “false statement false statement” brouhaha described in our post below. It appears that Szabo has been using a picture of a bill signing featuring Gov. Bill Ritter and Szabo’s opponent, Rep. Sara Gagliardi, next to lists of all kinds of horrible things Gagliardi has supposedly done. Here’s an example we received this weekend, Bartels posted a different flyer using the same photo:

The women in the center of this photo, standing directly behind Gov. Ritter, is Lauren Lollini, who as Bartels reports is one of 18 people who contracted hepatitis C due to the actions of a surgical technician at Rose Medical Center. The technician, Kristen Parker, passed the infection after stealing and using their pain medication. In response to Parker’s crimes, Rep. Gagliardi got legislation passed to tighten monitoring of surgical technicians. This is the photo of that bill-signing–obviously to the Szabo campaign, the circumstances of that bill signing were irrelevant. They just wanted a picture of Ritter and Gagliardi together.

But Ms. Lollini seems likely to make Szabo pay for misusing her picture, as an innocent bystander justifiably proud of what the photo actually depicts. Original post follows.

Here’s the latest mailer from GOP HD-27 candidate Libby Szabo–the problem here may not be easy to spot, and not just because it’s the most cluttered and amateurish flyer you’ve ever seen. You’ll be pleased to note that Barack Obama is nowhere in this flyer compared to “The Antichrist,” so at least that’s something.

Spot the problem? In this official flyer from Szabo’s campaign, it’s asserted that Jefferson County DA Scott Storey is “currently investigating” opponent Sara Gagliardi for “knowingly lying.”

The problem is, we seriously doubt anyone is ‘investigating’ Sara Gagliardi. There’s a difference between anybody who wants to merely filing a complaint, and a prosecutor actually investigating a complaint. Everybody with any experience with these things knows that complaints are filed like they’re nothing during every election, but actual investigations under the statute outlawing “knowingly false statements”–let alone convictions–are practically unheard of. Most district attorneys prefer to spend resources on more serious crimes, and are loathe to give the appearance of taking a side politically. All of this would make the allegation that Gagliardi is being ‘investigated’ itself a “false statement,” wouldn’t it? Oops!

There is a case in El Paso County that’s been confirmed under investigation, the mutual allegations of plagiarism between Republican Owen Hill and Libertarian Doug Randall, but that’s a much different case than some he-said-she-said about a mailer that was, in all likelihood, sent by a 527–just like the mailers Arvada residents are getting saying Sara Gagliardi wants to eat their children.

Also, 527 mailers are legible, which really helps.