Ari Armstrong’s media analysis has apparently led Jane Norton to completely and unequivocally endorse Amendment 62, the Personhood measure, which would grant zygotes the legal rights of U.S. citizens.

The Grand Junction Sentinel reported May 10 that “all of the top-named GOP candidates for governor and the U.S. Senate” support the ballot question. 

You’d certainly think from reading Norton’s website that she’d endorse Amendment 62, but her campaign had never officially confirmed this to GJ Sentinel reporter Charles Ashby, despite his request to do so over a week ago, Ashby told me. (The campaign lapse could be explained by staff changes, however, Ashby points out.)

During the last two days, Norton’s campaign would not provide confirmation of her support for Amendment 62 for Ari, either.

And, as Ari pointed out in his blog, there were small but serious differences (and political ramifications) between Norton’s website statement on abortion and the text of Amendment 62.

Today, Norton’s Campaign confirmed that Ashby’s article was correct. She supports Amendment 62.

In any case, as Ashby told me, the major point of Ashby’s article was never in question, namely that in 2008 none of the GOP candidates would touch the personhood amendment and today they’re running toward it.

A few months ago, I documented the near absence of direct quotations in The Denver Post from Senate Candidate Jane Norton. At one point, The Post went 23 weeks without printing words passing from Norton’s mouth to a reporter’s ears in a two-way conversation. Other candidates, like Sen. Michael Bennett, were interviewed much more often.

The situation has improved, according to my latest bean count below. This time, I included Ken Buck in my quote tally, in light of his recent upsurge in attention. So I’ve got data for GOP candidates Buck and Norton, as well as Dem candidates Bennett and Romanoff.

Denver Post news articles with quotes from U.S. Senate candidates (Sept. 15, 2009 …• May 10, 2010)

Candidate……….Direct+………….Spokesperson++……….Statement+++

Bennet*………….11…………………..14………………………………6
Buck……………….7…………………….4………………………………4
Norton…………….5……………………13……………………………..5
Romanoff………..20……………………7……………………………..2

+ Articles with a direct candidate quote uttered during an exchange with a reporter
++ Articles with a quote from a campaign spokesperson
+++ Articles with a candidate quote from a news release, speech, or statement

*In his capacity as U.S. Senator, Michael Bennet has been quoted in additional articles. On Senate issues during the same time period, he’s been quoted directly an additional 15 times, via spokesperson two additional times, and via statements 11 additional times.

Reporters still need to quote Norton more often. Her Democratic opponents have been quoted in twice (Bennet) or four times (Romanoff) as many articles. The public interest isn’t served by quoting spokespeople and written statements. We rely on journalists to ask candidates tough questions directly, with follow up queries, if needed. Not only are Norton’s own words too often missing, but we see fewer quotations from Norton’s campaign than from any candidate’s campaign except Buck’s, who’s arguably the least likely to win.

There’s no shortage of important issues hanging out there to ask Norton about:

… On what basis does she think that the “rights of terrorists are more important in this administration than the lives of American citizens“?
… Why does she favor the elimination of the Department of Education? (A campaign spokesman declined to discuss this with The Post in December, telling a Post reporter that Norton would address the issue after Jan. 1. That’s over five months ago, and it appears The Post hasn’t followed up.)
… Why does she support a national sales tax and flat tax, and why does she think a “simplified flat tax with exemptions for mortgages and charity” would be more viable than a pure flat tax?
… Why does she think it’s more realistic to cut funding for the new health care law than to repeal it?
… Why does she insist she was never a lobbyist when, in fact, she was head of the lobbying department of Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) from 1994-1999?
… In her campaign announcement, why did Norton plagiarize a line for former President Gerald Ford?
… Why does she say she cut the Department of Health budget when in fact she did not, according to local media analyses?

The Post mentioned some of these issues(ponzi scheme, Dept. of Education, Obama’s favoritism of terrorists over Americans) in a general article discussing Norton’s recent swing to the right, but they merit a response from Norton, especially given that we’ve heard so little from her directly in The Post.

I mean, she’s talking about eliminating a major federal department, re-writing the tax code, accusing the President of caring more about terrorists than Americans, and more. Her views should be illuminated…-along with those of other candidates.

Speaking of other candidates, I should add that while the trend for quoting Norton is positive, with her last direct quotation appearing in The Post on May 2, Bennet’s last direct quotation on a campaign topic appeared seven weeks ago. He’s been quoted directly twice as much as Norton…-or more if you count his Senate related quotes…-so I’ve focused this blog post on Norton. But reporters should seek interviews regularly with Bennet.

In my post yesterday about Fox 21’s mini profile of  Jane Norton, I didn’t mention that Fox committed a journalistic lapse when it failed to ask Norton why she believes that Faisal  Shahzad, who’s now admitted to trying to blow  up a car bomb in Times Square, should denied basic due-process protections given to all Americans.

“If they treat him like a criminal, rather than a terrorist, I think that’s wrong,” Norton told Fox. “You don’t keep America safe by reading terrorists their Miranda rights.”

Fox should have gotten Norton’s response to the kind of argument supported by Glenn Beck on this topic. Beck said,  “He’s [Shahzad] a citizen of the United States, so I say you uphold the laws and Constitution on citizens,” adding, “He has all of the rights under the Constitution,” and “We don’t shred the Constitution when it’s popular; we do the right thing.”

If you’re a reporter, and you’re writing a few sentences about U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton’s career, what do you leave out from list below?

• 1986-1987 — Norton served in the Colorado House of Representatives.
• 1998-1993 — Norton worked in the Department of Health and Human Services under Presidents Bush and Reagan.
• 1994-1999 — She was Head of the Office of Strategic Partnerships at Management Group Management Association (MGMA).
• 1999-2002 — She was Executive Director, Colorado Department of Public Health.
• 2002-2006 — She was Colorado Lt. Governor under Gov. Bill Owens.
• 2007 — Named executive Director of the Denver Police Foundation.

Fox 21 in Colorado Springs described Norton yesterday this way:

Norton served in both the Reagan and first Bush administrations. She was also a representative in the state Legislature before becoming Colorado’s first woman Lieutenant Governor under Gov. Bill Owens.

Even for a short TV profile, descriptions of Norton should include her jobs that occupied the longest period of her work life (her years at MGMA and in Washington DC), as well as her noteworthy position as Colorado’s Lt. Governor. Both her private and public sector history should be spotlighted. That’s the most even-handed way to describe Norton.

In the example above, Fox 21 selected a few of Norton’s jobs from random periods in her career. If the random approach is used, we should hear about her five years in the private sector with MGMA as well as her public service.

Reporters want to keep things simple, and you can predict that many people will have no clue what Norton did when she headed MGMA’s “Office of Strategic Releationships.” So a reporter might ask, why confuse people? Well, here’s what MGMA’s Office of Strategic Relationships is: the lobbying department. Norton headed up MGMA’s lobbying department–a fact readily confirmed by the folks at MGMA.

As for MGMA, it’s an association of medical professionals.

Fox 21 isn’t the only Colorado media outlet that’s failing to describe Norton’s career fairly. There’s plenty of time for reporters to give us a full picture of Jane Norton, even in the most truncated of bios.

Here are the titles used by The Denver Post in March and April (as well as recent examples from The Spot) to introduce U.S. Sen. Bennet in news stories or blog posts:

• Michael Bennet
• Sen. Michael Bennet
• U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet
• Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet
• Incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet
• Incumbent U.S. Senator Michael Bennet
• Appointed Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet
• Appointed incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet
• Appointed incumbent Michael Bennet
• Incumbent appointed Democrat Michael Bennet

There may be more combinations, but these are the kinds of titles you’ll find if you’ve got bean-counting time on your hands.

 The most common titles are simply “U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet,” “Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet,” or “Sen. Michael Bennet.” These were used to introduce Bennet in more than half the 50 articles I reviewed.

“U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet” and “Colorado Sen. Michael Bennett” are my own preferences, in part because multi-word titles like, “Incumbent appointed Democrat Michael Bennet” are clumsy to read, and I waste time pondering their meaning.

But mostly I prefer a title like “U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet”  because that’s what he is. He was appointed in accordance with our laws, and his title is “U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet” or “Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet.”

Still, the fact that Bennet was appointed to be our U.S. Senator is relevant information for readers, because he’s in fact an unusual type of U.S. Senator, given that he was appointed. So if I were a Post reporter, I’d use the word “appointed” occasionally, in a parenthetical context, but not routinely, like it’s used in this Post article April 18:

Appointed Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet already has raised millions and will benefit more from PAC and party support. Bennet receives money in $5,000 and $10,000 increments, for example, from trade group PACs and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Calling him “incumbent Sen. Bennet” or “appointed incumbent Sen. Bennet” needlessly spotlights the fact that he’s an incumbent. If he’s “Sen. Bennet” he’s by definition an incumbent. I mean, it’s redundant. Senators are incumbents. Stringing together “incumbent” with “Senator” looks like Republican propaganda in a year when incumbents are not popular. And even if “incumbent” wasn’t in the GOP attack lexicon, there’s no need to use it, like this in The Spot April 14:

Romanoff also hit other points he has emphasized on the campaign trail so far, where he is trying to gain support against appointed incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet for the primary nomination in August.

In fact, once Bennet is identified as “Sen.” in an article, there’s no need to emphasize again that he’s an incumbent. I’m not saying reporters should never write the word as part of a longer story that benefits stylistically from referring to Bennet in different ways, but the use of the word “incumbent” should be fairly rare.

I sent my views on this topic to Denver Post staff writer Michael Booth, and he emailed me a thoughtful  response below:

The goal is to give as many readers as possible the most relevant information in a given story. We have considered all of these modifiers, talked about them in the newsroom, and reconsidered them after the usual relentless pushback from various campaign interests.

First, I’d say there is a fundamental difference between the way you are reading the paper or Spot blogs, and the myriad ways our hundreds of thousands of readers might see the same information. We’re constantly balancing the desire not to bore political junkies — god love ’em, our hits are big and growing — with repetition or redundancy, and the realization that so many other people are barely paying attention to the Senate race at this point in the season. Given how Americans perform on many current events test questions, how many Colorado readers do you think remember, or ever knew, how Michael Bennet became a Senator, when that happened, who made the decision, whom he replaced, what job he held before . . . or for that matter, whether “senator” means U.S. Senator or Colorado State Senator.

There is no laminated cheat sheet sitting above our computer keyboards that delineates how Bennet and Romanoff will be referred to in all cases. You may think it’s redundant to say “incumbent Sen.,” and technically it is; in the reality of quick-read news, it might be helpful to readers who get confused among former senators, state senators, U.S. Senators and Senate primary challengers; former U.S. Rep. McInnis and former Colo. Rep. Romanoff. We use it occasionally in case people seek or need the reminder that Bennet has the seat, Romanoff is the challenger for the party nomination. Your assessment — that it could be a Republican plant to remind Washington-haters that Bennet is the targeted incumbent– was a new one on me. I hadn’t considered it and don’t find it a compelling reason to stop. Just because people are setting traps all around us doesn’t mean we have to act like rabbits. There may be just as many voters who attribute great power and advantage to Colorado having an incumbent Senator that they feel deserves to retain power and grow in office; should we avoid the word so as not to inadvertently please that group?

To the question of “appointed.” Again, we use it when we think it’s relevant, and in this campaign, I believe it will likely be relevant fairly often. First and foremost because we are writing for a public too busy or disinterested to always remember why and how Bennet got to be a Senator. How and why Bennet got the appointment is still an issue with many Romanoff supporters. People are still fascinated by why Ritter picked Bennet. There is not an extensive track record of short-term appointees trying to hold office in an anti-establishment wave. I could go on. The Bennet campaign has already suggested we stop using it. Romanoff might love it if we used it every time. Traps waiting for rabbits.

I hope you will go through this exercise with other candidates, while remaining cognizant as you usually do that you are approaching the questions from a Democrat-defending point of view. What modifiers are Republican campaign stories getting loaded down with? Are they biased? Purely informational? Might they mean different things to campaign insiders and political news junkies vs. readers who haven’t always read the last 10 campaign stories?

I appreciate the questions and encourage you to keep exploring them.

Booth makes some good points here. It’s clearly a difficult job to write for mass audiences, and he’s right to try to provide basic, relevant information to people. I don’t want to see Booth acting like a rabbit. But if The Post wants to add redundant information, you could argue that something like, “Sen. Michael Bennet, who wants to represent Colorado in Congress,” would be better than “incumbent Senator”, to clarify things for uninformed readers.

The Denver Post’s Spot blog gave GOP state chair Dick Wadhams a bullhorn yesterday to bash Vice President, who’s visiting Denver April 30, for being accused of plagiarism in 1987. (I must note that when The Spot last week announced Sarah Palin’s May 22 visit to Denver, State Democratic Chair Pat Waak wasn’t asked to comment. In fact, no Democrat was asked, but that’s the way it goes.)

Anyway, the Spot reported yesterday:

Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams couldn’t resist a jab at Biden, who on the presidential campaign trail in 1987 and in law school was accused of plagiarism.

“I understand Vice President Biden has personally written a special speech for this auspicious occasion and that the opening line is: …Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth. . . . ,'” Wadhams said.

The Spot should have used this opportunity to ask Wadhams what he thought of Republican Jane Norton’s own plagiarism of Gerald Ford. She plagiarized Ford during the announcement of her camaign.

The Spot impressively uncovered Norton’s plagiarism but hasn’t asked Norton about it.

In an otherwise excellent article about the recent fortunes of U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck, who’s battling Jane Norton (and Tom Wiens and others) for the chance to go up against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, The Post wrote today that the National Republican Senatorial Committee has endorsed Norton. This isn’t true.

The Post wrote:

The fund [Senate Conservatives Fund] has given money to those in competition with candidates endorsed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, like Norton.The fund has given $343,000 to Marco Rubio, the Tea Party candidate polling ahead of Crist in Florida’s Senate race.

It’s actually understandable that The Post would think Norton was endorsed by the NRSC. She has deep ties to and financial support from the Washington GOP establishment, including Lobbyists and politicians there, as The Post reported back in October in an article stating that “Norton also is presumed to have the support of the National Republican Senatorial Committee….”

Before she launched her campaign officially, The Post reported: “Her entry would bring the field to six declared Republican candidates, although Norton is expected to get the backing of the national senatorial committee and most of the state’s GOP power brokers.”

Also, before Norton launched her campaign, the NRSC registered two domain names for Norton: nortonforsenate.com and janenortonforsenate.com, creating a backlash from Tea Party activists, like Buck.

But a spokeswoman from the NRSC confirmed to me this morning that the NRSC has not endorsed Norton.

Michael Bennet announces his plan to petition his way onto the Democratic primary ballot, and The Denver Post’s Spot blog rushes to GOP chair Dick Wadhams for a comment, which is reportedly one word, “Wow.”

This insightful utterance is then placed by the Spot in the opening paragraph of its post on Bennet’s decision:

Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dick Wadhams could only say, “Wow.” That’s it, one word.

After this opening graf, the rest of the article, titled “Bennet move surprises Republicans, Romanoff,” quotes Romanoff and Bennet spokespeople, and explains the process for petitioning on the ballot. A later Spot post, on the same day, has the title “Bennet wants to meet more voters,” and this time, thankfully, the Republican attack quote is not included.

Fast forward to yesterday when Jane Norton announced that she would be petitioning her way on the Republican primary ballot.

The Spot’s post on Norton’s decision not only didn’t lead with the Democratic response to Norton’s move, but it didn’t quote a Democrat at all.

Instead, the piece focused on internal GOP politics, quoting Republicans, which is what you’d expect. After all, Republicans are the most important players in a story about the Republican primary. Just as the Democrats are the most important players in a story about the Democratic primary.

I know that The Spot is supposed to be conversational, and a good quote or quip can count for a lot.  Still, it was tacky to give Wadhams such a platform, as if he were a celebrity or a guru or something, for his shallow “Wow” attack quote.

And it was wise of the Spot not to make the same mistake twice and put the Democratic equivalent of “Wow” in paragraph one of Norton’s story yesterday.

In my post yesterday about Ross Kaminsky’s radio interview with Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton, I made an oversight in not pointing out that the IRS will not, in fact, hire 16,000 IRS employees to enforce the health-care bill.

On his next show, Kaminsky should inform his listeners of this serious misrepresentation delivered by Norton on his show.

According to the credible website, factcheck.org:

The IRS’ main job under the new law isn’t to enforce penalties. Its first task is to inform many small-business owners of a new tax credit that the new law grants them …- starting this year …- which will pay up to 35 percent of the employer’s contribution toward their workers’ health insurance. And in 2014 the IRS will also be administering additional subsidies …- in the form of refundable tax credits …- to help millions of low- and middle-income individuals buy health insurance.

The law does make individuals subject to a tax, starting in 2014, if they fail to obtain health insurance coverage. But IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified before a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee March 25 that the IRS won’t be auditing individuals to certify that they have obtained health insurance. He said insurance companies will issue forms certifying that individuals have coverage that meets the federal mandate, similar to a form that lenders use to verify the amount of interest someone has paid on their home mortgage. “We expect to get a simple form, that we won’t look behind, that says this person has acceptable health coverage,” Shulman said. “So there’s not going to be any discussions about health coverage with an IRS employee.” In any case, the bill signed into law (on page 131) specifically prohibits the IRS from using the liens and levies commonly used to collect money owed by delinquent taxpayers, and rules out any criminal penalties for individuals who refuse to pay the tax or those who don’t obtain coverage. That doesn’t leave a lot for IRS enforcers to do.

Backbone talk radio host Ross Kaminsky told me today that for his interview http://backboneamerica.net/ with Jane Norton Sunday, “I expected to get harder questions for her, and I didn’t get them [from listeners].”

So he gave her the kid-glove treatment.

For example, Kaminsky said he asked Norton a “fairly tough” question about why she doesn’t talk about “her primary opponents more.”

This question gave Norton the chance to slam Michael Bennet, praise Ronald Reagan, and conclude by saying:

“But the fact of the matter is, you have somebody running a negative campaign against me, dumping $800,000 into a negative campaign against me in the primary. Though I believe in Reagan’s 11^th Commandment of never speaking ill about another Republican, certainly we have to set the record straight. Things like, when Ken [Buck] says I am for amnesty, that’s just flat out wrong and we need to address these things and set the record straight.”

No follow up questions were asked about the question, though immigration policy was discussed later.

Kaminsky did a bit better earlier in the interview when he asked Norton, what he termed “sort of a hard question:”

“The criticism most frequently thrown at you is that you are a party person. I don’t believe that of you, but I wanted to give you a chance to answer that directly.”

She then told Kaminsky that the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s purchase of URLs for her campaign was a “small issue” and that it was “nonsense” for anyone “to say that I’m, you know, hand-picked” because “you know that they know they [the NRSC] don’t endorse.”   

Asked by Kaminsky about repealing the health-care law, Norton said:

“Well, realistically, I don’t think you can repeal it, with the makeup we’re seeing right now, and even if we were able to put in place conservatives in all the seats, you wouldn’t be able to repeal it because of the President’s veto power. There’s two ways that you can approach it. One is not funding those 16,000 new IRS employees that it’s going to take to implement and then police this. And then, also, insuring that each component of that 2,700 page bill is indeed constitutional.”

Kaminsky did not ask Norton why it’s more realistic for the next Congress to delete funding for a portion of the health-care bill, effectively killing it, than it would be to repeal the entire bill.  Later, Kaminsky told me that he believes deleting funding for the bill through the Appropriations process would, in fact, be easier, even with Obama as President. So he had no reason to doubt Norton.

Also in the interview, Norton declared:

“Our principles and our civil liberties are being just jack hammered away. And if we don’t, we will lose this country forever. It’s not histrionics. Think about the situation we’re in. I mean, we have a government that is the problem. It is telling us that we have to buy a private product. It’s telling us what kinds of light bulbs we have to utilize, what kinds of homes we have to have.”

Not histrionics? Kaminsky failed to ask Norton what she meant by this, given that it sounds like she’s against municipal housing codes and zoning. Kaminsky told me in a subsequent interview that he didn’t ask Norton to clarify because he thought she was referring to the “so-called climate change legislation that does get federal involvement in building codes as well as moving to eliminate incandescent light bulbs.”