Author Archives: anacaprana

Markey Outraises Musgrave By $110K

17
  by: anacaprana July 16, 2008 at 8:27 AM MDT

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

UPDATE:

A little sleep and some time to crunch numbers yielded this fun fact:

Marilyn Musgrave reported 309 itemized donors from Colorado (donors who gave more than $200) and 336 itemized donors outside Colorado.

Betsy Markey reported 408 itemized Colorado donors and 71 donors outside Colorado.

MARKEY REACHES $1 MILLION RAISED

Betsy Markey, a small business owner and Democratic candidate for Congress in Colorado’s Fourth District, raised $389,566 for the second quarter of 2008 and will report $580,059 cash on hand – breaking all previous fundraising records for Democrats running in this district.  As of July 15, Markey had crossed the $1 million raised mark.

Republican Marilyn Musgrave reported raising $279,629 for the 2nd quarter, meaning Markey outraised her opponent by jusy shy of $110,000.

The previous record for Democratic fundraising in the 4th congressional district was set in July 2006 by Angie Paccione, who raised $301,652 for the second quarter of 2006 and reported $382,103 cash on hand at the end of June 2006.  Paccione had raised $700,236 overall for the cycle at the end of the second quarter of 2006.

Markey’s support came from donors of all income groups, every county in the district and all political persuasions.  Of the over 2000 people who donated to the Markey campaign in the second quarter, 779 donors gave $25 or less – and 100 of them gave $5 or less.  Markey received donations from citizens of all 18 counties in the district.  

“I’ve been honored by the outpouring of support for the campaign over the last three months,” said Markey.  “This unprecedented level of financial support for my campaign indicates that our message of positive change is really resonating with voters in the district.  I am particularly touched that nearly 800 people gave $25 or less for this quarter alone.”

The Markey campaign added 1,234 new donors this quarter, with 3,377 donors overall for the cycle.  Of the contributions given this quarter, 79% of them were from in state and the average contribution was around $60.

Tweet
Share

Musgrave Staffer Employs “James Bond” Tactics to Film Markey Speech Posted on YouTube

5
  by: anacaprana May 29, 2008 at 12:46 AM MDT

Betsy Markey, a small business owner and Democratic congressional candidate, delivered a speech at Colorado’s 4th District Democratic nominating assembly on May 16th where she told her audience, “If you want to do something big…you cannot be consumed by everything that is small.  Colorado…the politics of the small need to become the politics of the past.”

Apparently the Musgrave campaign was so eager to see Betsy speak, they snuck a young staffer into the Democratic Assembly with a video camera.  Ironically, this cloak and dagger act was caught on tape itself.

Delegates and guests were required to have credentials to be present in the room where the Assembly occurred as voting was taking place.  As both the picture below and this video demonstrate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v… , this staffer was wearing no credentials and quickly exits the room with camera in hand after Markey delivers her speech:

  Musgrave Staffer

The Markey campaign was only alerted to the tracker’s presence and identity when he approached the campaign’s table in the Doubletree Hotel and told a Markey staffer that he worked for Marilyn Musgrave, apologized for lying about his identity at past events and noted that he thought Markey had delivered a great speech.

Upon further investigation, the Markey campaign determined that this individual had also attended the Morgan County Democratic Dinner, identified himself as Kyle and told Markey’s staff that he was videotaping the event for extra credit for a school project.

“If they wanted to see the speech so badly, they should have just asked,” noted Markey campaign manager, Anne Caprara.  “I would have helped Kyle get credentialed.  And I would have told him to save the battery on his camera because we had plans all along to post the speech on YouTube.  No need to sneak around and lie about who you work for…what can we expect next?  Will “Kyle” be showing up at future events in funny glasses and fedoras?”

The full video of Markey delivering her nomination speech is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

“Will Kyle have to sneak in to the upcoming Republican convention in order to tape Representative Musgrave’s speech, or have they at least given him credentials for that?  We look forward to watching his next film.  And we hope that Representative Musgrave will do us all the pleasure of sharing her speech at the convention on YouTube as well,” said Caprara.  

Tweet
Share

Why Mississippi Offers More than Just Hope for CD-4

53
  by: anacaprana May 16, 2008 at 1:47 AM MDT

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

I’m not an impartial observer of the campaign process here in Colorado and don’t pretend to be.  But numbers are numbers and sometimes they speak for themselves with no need for spin.

Consider this…Democrats have won three special elections in the last few weeks in districts that are about as red as they get.

Look at the numbers:

IL-14: Bush won the district with 55% in 2004 and House Speaker Dennis Hastert received 60% of the vote in 2006.  Hastert held the seat since 1986.  Coincidentally, this district is Ronald Reagan’s boyhood home.

LA-06: Bush won the district with 59% in 2004 and Republican Congressman Richard Baker got 83% of the vote in 2006.  Republicans had held the seat for more than 20 years.

MS-01: Bush won the district by 62% in 2004 and Republican Congressman Roger Wicker received 66% in 2006.  The fun fact here was this seat has been in Republican hands since 1941…it was represented by the same Republican (Jamie Whitten) from 1941-1994 – a longer tenure than Michigan Congressman John Dingell.

How does this stack up against Colorado’s 4th District?

CO-04: Bush won the district with 58% in 2004 and Marilyn Musgrave received only 45.6% of the vote in 2006.  In fact, Musgrave had the lowest percentage of ANY winning candidate – Democrat or Republican, incumbent or challenger – in 2006.  She’s held the seat only since 2002 and her winning percentage has decreased by an average TEN points since she was first elected.  The fun fact here: Democratic Governor Bill Ritter won this district with 53% of the vote in 2006.

So with all due respect to ColoradoPols Big Line – 2006 was not our best shot here.  2008 is.

I’ll be the first to admit though that all the numbers can be in your favor…but without a great candidate you won’t go anywhere.

Tomorrow night in Colorado Springs the CD-4 Dems are going to nominate Betsy Markey to take on Marilyn Musgrave.

Betsy is the only candidate in this race who is out talking about the economy and has offered her own plan on how to tackle the issues that matter, which you can find right here: http://betsymarkey.com/plan

And she’s not afraid to take your questions in person.  She already held one town hall on the economy in Greeley last week…and this coming Wednesday, May 21 at 5:30 she’ll be holding the second in Fort Collins at Boltz Junior High cafeteria at 720 Boltz Drive.

There’s been a lot of talk about Marilyn Musgrave changing her image…but not much has really changed and we will make sure that voters are aware come November.

And quite frankly, most of Congresswoman Musgrave’s image makeover is laughably ironic compared with Betsy’s background.

Consider the much talked about visit Musgrave made to the Larimer County Food Bank in late 2007.  There were a lot of press pictures and much made about her image makeover…but in order to get in the front door of the Larimer County Food Bank you need to pass the large sign on the wall thanking former Food Bank Board of Directors President Betsy Markey for raising nearly a million dollars for their capital campaign.

We are glad to see that Congresswoman Musgrave has come around on the Farm Bill…after all, only a few months ago she voted against it.

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/200…

We’d also like to see her turn some of her attention to drought and disaster assistance for the Eastern Plains – measures she has voted against in the past.  http://clerk.house.gov/evs/200…

And it would be nice if she was with America and the district on the issue of turning over those big oil subsidies to incentives for renewable energy.  http://www.coloradoan.com/apps…

And it is interesting that even as Musgrave is touting her support of the farm bill in the district, she’s hoping people ignore the other vote she took today – to oppose an amendment to restore full GI Bill educational benefits to the veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmsp…

Maybe fear of losing her seat will do what nothing else has done – force Marilyn Musgrave to focus attention on issues that matter to her district as opposed to issues that matter to the extreme right wing of the Republican Party.

But given the results in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi…we are betting that voters will be a little less forgiving this year.

Anne Caprara

Manager, Betsy Markey for Congress

Tweet
Share

Betsy Markey Releases Economic Plan to Help Midde Class and Small Business Prosper

7
  by: anacaprana April 30, 2008 at 1:14 AM MDT

On a conference call with reporters today, Betsy Markey, Democratic candidate for Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, released an economic plan that focuses on concrete ways to cut government waste and to work to provide assistance to the country’s middle class.

The Markey economic plan, entitled “Finding a Middle Road”, focuses on several key ways to reduce government spending, provide immediate relief to taxpayers during the current economic crisis, restore middle class wealth in America, encourage investment in business, and take definitive steps to stay in touch with the district after she is elected.

“As a small business owner and as a mother, I am worried that nothing is being done in Washington to secure our economic future and make sure our children are not going to inherit a government mired in debt,” said Markey.  “This plan is the beginning of the conversation I intend to have with the residents of the fourth district about what we can do together to clean up the mess in Washington, DC.”

The Markey economic plan proposes ways to make college more affordable by extending current tax law to create tuition credit for college costs up to $10,000, looks to help alleviate the current mortgage crisis by providing incentives to homeowners to switch from variable rate to fixed rate mortgages, and proposes ten concrete steps to cut current government waste.

The plan can be read online at http://betsymarkey.com/

Additionally, any district resident can have the plan mailed to them by calling headquarters at 970-221-1473 and requesting a copy.

Tweet
Share

Musgrave Says Yes to President Bush and No to Colorado on Medicaid

5
  by: anacaprana April 24, 2008 at 11:53 PM MDT

(We can’t let Bob Schaffer get all the press here – promoted by DavidThi808)

Despite her recent claims of bipartisanship, Marilyn Musgrave voted yesterday with the President and just a sliver of Congressional Republicans to strip needed Medicaid funds from the state of Colorado and the rest of the country.  All 50 of the nation’s governors – Republicans and Democrats – as well as state Medicaid directors and 349 members of the U.S. House of Representatives supported the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008 (HR 5613), which prevents the federal government from shirking its responsibility to contribute to Medicaid funding and instead pass those costs on to the states.

The Bush Administration’s plan, which was agreed to by only 62 Members of Congress, including Musgrave, would have cost the state of Colorado a whopping $787 million in critical health funding over five years. The bill even includes two offsets to ensure that its cost of $1.65 billion is fully paid for, including extending an electronic asset verification demonstration for Medicaid applicants and beneficiaries.

Betsy Markey, Democratic candidate for Congress in Colorado’s 4th district, said today that she would have voted differently.

“The more she claims to have changed, the more Marilyn Musgrave remains the same,” Markey said today.  “Slashing federal funds for Medicaid would not only have a devastating effect on many crucial public health programs, but would also put the state of Colorado in serious financial straits.  It is unconscionable that in these tough economic times anyone would try to shift the burden of funding a federal program like Medicaid to the state of Colorado.”

Tim Pawlenty, the Republican Governor of Minnesota and the chairman of the National Governors Association, pleaded with lawmakers to stop the President and his supporters in Congress from walking away from their federal responsibility to fund Medicaid.  Voting to put a moratorium on the President’s proposal is “critical to avert significant disruptions in coverage for vulnerable populations,” he wrote earlier this month.

Tweet
Share