Marvin vs. Polis

Jay Marvin is Denver’s only local progressive talk show host on commercial radio. You can hear him on AM 760 in the mornings. That’s the Clear Channel Station that carries some Air America programming.

The news media love it when progressives fight each other, just like they love it when conservatives fight among themselves. So when Marvin and congressional candidate Jared Polis got into an argument in mid July, it made news. The Rocky covered the spat and subsequent radio interview here and here.

I heard most of Marvin’s interview with Polis, and I liked it. Aggressive questioning makes for good entertainment, and it’s informative. It makes much better radio than an on-air love fest among progressives on AM 760.

But I had this question for Marvin, which I emailed to him last week:

I must say it was odd that you elected to be so aggressive with him, after being so gentle with the others. Do you have any thoughts on this, for possible use in my column or blog?

Here’s Marvin’s response:

“Sure I do. Things would not have gone down the way they did if he had not come on so strong with myself and my producer John Turk. We told his press people three times the time slot was after 9am. They kept badgering us to put him on earlier. We said no. Then, Polis himself shows up, uninvited, to the station and that puts us in a spot. So John goes down to talk to him, and when he tells Polis we were going to do two hours on child poverty in Colorado he reacted in a negative manner about it. Like it was more important we get him on than the subject we were going to do. So when he came on I asked him to apologize to John, and he wouldn’t. In fact he said he was glad to come on and get my show some publicity! So he wouldn’t say he was sorry he just kept going over the publicity line. When I asked him direct questions he wouldn’t answer them. Then when I hit him with the Swift Boat donor information he didn’t say it was wrong. He said he had turned those people liberal. I checked with two other people running for office, and both said they would have returned the money. In fact he tried to suggest that Udall and Pearlmutter had taken money from  people who gave to the Swift Boat campaign. That got him a blast from Congressman Peralmutter and Senator John Kerry. The easy and right thing to do would have been to say he was sorry, and to say he’d return the money given him. Then his press flack Becker tells the Daily Camera I’m in Joan’s pocket and that it’s all political. I don’t even live in that district, and I do like Joan. But I’m not sure who would be better Joan or Will. I do know this: Polis has got an attitude that just won’t quit and an ego as large as his district. I also think he is trying to buy the election. In short, Polis doesn’t care about anything but himself. Sad.
 

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