Excerpt of an interview with gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis on the KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show, April 26, 2010. (hour one, located at 21 minutes, 15 seconds)

Silverman: Hey, listen, just one lawyer to another, now that you’re looking for another job, I see this Hasan Family Foundation fellowship 150 grand. How does a lawyer get in on that?

McInnis: No. No. No. No. What that was was a water. I wrote a series of in depth articles on water, Colorado water. And so, that’s what that was about. And so I was pretty excited to do it. It was the first time in my life I got paid to write about a subject that I, one, knew a little something about but, two, actually, I always like to tell, hey look at water look at history. So that’s what that was about.

Silverman: Sure

McInnis: It was like, what do you call it when you work for, what do you call it,

Silverman: A fellow. You’re a fellow.

McInnis: A fellow is a little more academic than I probably am.

Silverman: Well, no, you can’t hide it. You have a Juris Doctorate. And, ah, the Hasan Family is a prominent family in southern Colorado, but they also, as mentioned in the paper, I don’t know if you saw it.

McInnis: I didn’t.

Silverman: Part of their family foundation is, ah, better understanding between the Americans and the Muslim world. Were you involved in that at all?

McInnis: No. My, ah, assignment, what they retained me for was water write on water and The Hasan Family, to the best of my knowledge, and I was not a part of the foundation, they are really intent on Colorado, the history of Colorado. As you know they are probably the largest contributors to the Pueblo junior college, not the junior college but the CSU extension, the business college, the opera, and water’s a big issue. When I got out, we were having a conversation and they said we’d be interested in doing this if you’d be interested in helping put together some articles at some point, could be used in a series for education on water in Colorado. So that’s what that was about. And I was thrilled to do it. I got paid to do it. That’s pretty sweet. And it was a family that cares intensely about the state of Colorado.

Pseudo-journalists like talk-radio hosts should pin political candidates down when they make vague, chest-thumping pronouncements.

Especially when they’re talking to candidates, like Scott McInnis, who’s been refusing to be interviewed by serious journalistic entities like The Denver Post. And declined another interview request from The Post today.

We’ve seen over and over how talk-radio hosts let their favored candidates off the hook, but still, this is an extreme example given the topic and the show.

It happened this morning on KHOW’s Peter Boyles show, and the topic was immigration.

Boyles let gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis rant about illegal immigration, and make it sound like he supports Arizona’s new law, but he didn’t bother to pin him down on what specifically he’d do and what he favors.

Instead, Boyles just listened and said stuff like “Yeah,” “hmm,” “alright,” and “Oh,” and agreed with McInnis.

Yet McInnis didn’t say much that was meaningful, stating of the Arizona law, “I’d do something very similar.”

What does McInnis mean? We have no idea, because Boyles, who presents himself as Mr. Immigration-Detail-Guy, didn’t bother to ask. McInnis spokesman later told The Post that McInnis favors the provision of the law that immigrants carry identification, but thanks to Boyles, we haven’t heard this from McInnis.

Here’s the exchange this morning, 7 a.m. hour at 35 min. 20 seconds on the podcast.

35 min. 20 seconds.

Boyles: Now, Jan Brewer in Arizona. I’m going to wave the magic wand. You’re governor.

McInnis: Yes.

Boyles: What would you do?

McInnis: I’d do something very similar. I’ll tell you the situation. The federal government has refused to act and finally some governor stood up and said we’re stopping the retreat, no more retreat. Federal government, if you’re not going to do it, we are going to do it because it has impacts to all of the parties involved in the state of Arizona. Now I’ve looked at a lot of material that’s come out in the last 24 hours on that, and by the way, if a person has a driver’s license or a  government ID there’s a presumption of citizenship. That’s not the issue. The issue is, the government refuses to acknowledge that illegal means illegal.

Boyles: hmm.

And here’s a governor that stood up to it and said, Look if you have a system that’s going to work you have to have some kind of repercussions or some kind of circumstances or consequences when somebody steps outside the system illegally.

Boyles: Yeah.

McInnis: And so I think this governor, I know she’s catching all kinds of flack,

Boyles: Oh.

McInnis: Most of it is unfair, most of it is race guard. Most of it is all this kind of stuff, but the fact is somebody finally stood up and said the federal government needs to do what they are required to do. And the federal government is just not doing it. And I think, what, they have a poll just yesterday that said 75 percent of the people in Arizona said it’s about time somebody and said, “come on government.” Get this taken care of.

Boyles: Overwhelming. Greater than 70 percent. So that would mean a lot of Democrats. A lot of Latinos. I mean, Al Sharpton rallying from New York.

McInnis: People want a system that works, and people understand that if you let people go outside the system or you kind of become politically correct, and that’s what’s entered this whole picture. It’s too much political correctness. Let’s just kind of turn our eyes the other way. And the states can’t take it because they’re the ones that get stuck with the burden of it. They’re the ones that have the costs, the communities, etc, etc, etc. So I think the governor stood up and a lot of people said it’s about time we stopped the retreat. Federal government, do what you are supposed to do.

Boyles: All right.

Two weeks ago Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis told Fox Radio News in Loveland that he’d take a “beating” if he released his income tax returns. And the hosts didn’t bother to ask him why.

Today, he’s on the Caplis and Silverman show, on KHOW (hour one), and the questioning is ever so slightly tougher, but McInnis slides out of the interview with basic follow-up questions floating around unasked.

Co-host Craig Silverman gets credit for at least asking him the key question, about why he only released two pages of his income tax return: “Just two pages? It’s like a tease. Why not show us the rest of it?

McInnis’ response:

“Because as you know, Craig, of course, the rest of it involves not just my wife and I. The rest of it then discusses detail of other people, who are not–including the boys’ ranch, how the different shares are held in the ranch, how the ranch is structured.  Same thing with my family. You know I have five brothers and sisters. And I have businesses with my brothers and sisters. And we have had for years. And we disclosed the names of those and their net worth and so on. That changes from day to day now. It used to change more from year to year. But these people aren’t running for Congress, I mean for governor. And so, that’s why.”

Not asked was why he doesn’t release other parts of the income tax return, like his payment for sitting on the boards of large corporations and such, that have nothing to do with other people.

Craig pushed McInnis a bit: “Why not disclose your charities, Congressman? After all, you more or less challenged me and Dan and you said, I’ll disclose it to anybody. It was the subject of Chuck Plunkett’s opinion piece in The Denver Post today. Why not, especially since it seems to me that you’d gain a political advantage since John Hickenlooper won’t release his. Why not show us yours?”

McInnis’ response:

Huh. As you guys know, a request by the papers is not, ah, to help you with your political advantage. It’s to use something-I mean, you know what this is being used for. I mean it was interesting. I know I’ll answer your question more specifically. When I was in Congress, if you wanted to check out financial disclosures, anybody was welcome to go in there. You could do it, but you had to sign your name and identify who you were with. And if you were to go to the Republican disclosures, the only real people checking it out was the Democrats, the Democrat National Committee, because they wanted to use it against you. Or on the Democratic side, the only one looking at the Democratic disclosures, was the Republican National Committee. So the only purpose– the average person on the street, Craig, doesn’t really care what I make. They care why they’re not making anything, where their jobs are. That’s where they’re at. Now let me answer your question.

Craig didn’t question McInnis about the different reasons that average people might want to know about his financial interests, even if regular people don’t go chasing down financial documents. Craig told McInnis to “focus on the charities.”

McInnis responded:

 Well, on the charities. This is also a misnomer. People think that, well, we’ll be able to determine what you give, pay for charities by what you disclose on your income tax return. Now, I think you’re probably aware of this, Craig. I know you are, Dan. But on your tax forms, what you show are charitable contributions that are deductible. They are not deductible if they are not a 501c3 or whatever. I don’t know the technical classification. So, the way we grew up, and the way my family, my dad, mom taught us…-this is a long time ago. We don’t…-our vehicle of charitable giving isn’t necessarily United Way or the March of Dimes or things. My folks taught us…-now we grew up in a small town…-that is, when some families, somebody’s in a car wreck, or somebody’s hard on their luck, or something like that, they don’t have 501c3s. Drop by, give them a thousand bucks. Or a couple years ago, we had a family that, ah…-I had an elk take. I went out and, ah, got an elk and had the elk processed meat and donated the processed meat to the family in need. That kind of…-one, I’m not sure…-I don’t think you should deduct for that. Two, they don’t have a 501c3. So the charitable chart is going, I think, in most of those years, is going to want to show Episcopal Church, or something like that, Lori’s church, and maybe, I’m not even sure, but it certainly doesn’t reflect ,even close ,the way Laura and I give charitable giving and a lot of people do it that right.

Co-host Dan Caplis’ response reads as if he should have been panting, but he wasn’t: “That’s right, Congressman, I think most people who vote will understand that and most people probably do it the same way, which is, you know, charity is not just limited to the groups that qualify for a tax deduction. And so I think most folks are going to understand that.”

Caplis should have asked McInnis to enumerate more of his good works, to get a handle on if McInnis is as old-fashioned generous as he says. McInnis killed the elk “a couple years ago.”  What’s he killed and given away since then? How many people dropped by the McInnis residence and left with $1,000? What else has this wealthy man given away?

As McInnis makes the rounds of the conservative talks-show circuit, and continues to avoid the Post, I hope the questioning gets tougher.

FOX News Radio, 600 KCOL

Mornings with Keith and Gail

April 15, 2010

Hour 4

Loveland

Begins at minute 15:30

Obtain the podcast here.

Keith: We are joined by Republican candidate for governor of the state of Colorado, Rep. Scott McInnis. Rep. McInnis, welcome again to Keith and Gale, always a pleasure.

McInnis: Good morning.

Keith: Let’s start this morning with the last question first, of sorts. We’ve followed the story The Denver Post ran saying that they had requested tax forms from gubernatorial candidates as has been the tradition, not the law or a requirement in Colorado, and that you up until this point have declined. And they followed with an editorial today saying that candidates are not required by law to make tax returns available. They understand that releasing private, personal information can be uncomfortable, but it is common both on the state and national level. And they say that tax returns show sources of income, charitable giving, potential conflicts of interest, use of tax shelters, other valuable information. And that your spokesperson, Sean Duffy, has indicated to them, when they reiterated the question, that you may now make tax forms available at some unspecified point in the future. Does that mean that you will?  At what point in time?  And what stands in the way of your doing it as soon as possible?

McInnis:  Well, let me say first of all that’s not very much of a complete picture of comments that they’ve [The Denver Post] made in there. Second of all, understand that during all the years I served in Congress and the State House, you have to make disclosures.  And in the State House of Representatives in Colorado, and I think in every state in the country and in the United States Congress, they do not require disclosure income.  However they do require financial affidavit. It’s the same thing if you’re a candidate in Colorado. So I have made more disclosures on my financial background than any other candidate in this race and probably any other candidate for a long time simply because of length of service, number one.

Number two, we’ve told The Post we’re happy to let people know what I made, although that’s private information and I’m certainly not required to do it. And I’m more than willing to tell when I tell them what I made also tell them what I paid as a percentage of tax or give them the actual amount of tax I paid because I want people to know that I don’t have a tax shelter out there. I’m not one of these people that frankly make a living and go out and not pay any taxes. I pay my share of taxes, which I think is too high like many of your listeners.

The third thing, this is not common place, and my income tax returns, by necessity because of the family business, you know we’re in a family business, have disclosures of private individuals just like Mayor Hickenlooper has refused to disclose, I guess, his blind trust, which of course he has a lot of things in, and he’s also refused to disclose his partnership agreement. And frankly I don’t criticize him for that because what he says is what I say. Look, there are people, for example my kids, who are not running for Governor of Colorado. There are other people, my brothers and sisters, that are involved in our family enterprises whose information, whether it’s social security numbers or forward are included in those documents.

The key here is what I made, and what I paid and that’s what we’ve agreed to give to The Denver Post and I note that it’s somewhat uncomfortable. Keep in mind that their job is to make my job as uncomfortable as possible.

Gail: [laughs] And that’s just how the game is played.

McInnis: Yeah. And they say it in the newspaper. I mean, they put it in there. So I’m not going to invite myself to my own beating.  I mean, let em [garbled words] I’m going to give what I think the people want, not what The Denver Post wants.

Gail: You have no interest…-

McInnis: What the people want. And I think they’re entitled to, what did he make and what did he pay. We want to make sure he’s carrying his fair burden and that’s a very legitimate request.

Gail: No interest in being complicit in your own self destruction. I think that’s a healthy perspective.

McInnis: Yea. [Laughs] Somebody calls you on the phone and says, Scott, stop by. We’re going to beat you up, on your way home from work.

Gail: What time? What time do you want me there? Where do you draw the line as far as, because we’ve gotten into an interesting side conversation with many of our listeners about this. Where do you draw the line as a candidate as to what the voters should be aware of and what they shouldn’t be aware of, as far as personal information goes in making their decision?

McInnis: Well, I think the voters are entitled to financial disclosures. And you know this kind of debate has been carried on extensively at the state level and at the federal level. What really is fair? What really goes kind of beyond the privacy? On the other hand, you are a public official. You are elected to serve the people, and they need to know some of your background.

So for 22 years, I was in office for 22 years. I filed disclosures all of those 22 years. And I can assure you the second I file them, not many of my constituents looked at them. The people that check them out, and in Congress, very interesting, you have to put your name, when you look at them, you check them out, and it’s all full of Democrats, the Democratic National Committee, the Chair of the State Democratic Committee, those are the people looking at that.

I think the voters have a right to be assured their representatives, one, pay taxes and pay a fair amount of taxes, in other words, their fair obligation, two that they haven’t skipped, that they are not in arrears on paying their taxes, in other words they’re not a tax evader. And beyond that, I don’t think the voters are entitled to every detail of where every dime that you spend.

I don’t think the voters are entitled to, not the voters, but primarily the press and the Democrats, because we know what they are going to use it for, to look at my kids, to look at my parents, to look my parents, my parents are still alive, to look at my brothers and sisters and so you have to draw a line.  

You know we went through this debate with personal lives, and I don’t have to worry about any of that. I’m happily married and have been for a long time, but people said, you know, there’s a certain line that you just probably don’t go across. But we really care about [garbled]. People don’t really care about what my brother and sister made or what that says on my income tax returns. What they care about is their job. What are you going to do for policy and so on? Now we do want to know. Scott, that you carried your fair share, that you haven’t been a tax evader. That’s understandable. But tell us what you’re going to do for Colorado, what you’re going to do for us, what you’re going to do for our jobs.

So I, that’s kind of how I see the direction. But it’s always debated and it’s generally brought up by, ahh, the press or by the opposition party. It’s rarely brought up by the average citizen on the street. Gee, Scott, I want to know some of that information.

Keith: Let me see your tax form.

McInnis: Yeah. Let me see. Nobody. And there’s nobody out there. And by the way, it’s not common place, like they like to say, across the country. They make it sound like every elected official. I’d doubt seriously, I’d say that 99.9 percent of the elected officials in the United States are not expected to file income tax returns nor do they.

Keith: Are not expected to file income tax returns? Not expected to divulge them

McInnis: That’s, well, I mean income tax returns with the press. Not with [laughs].

Gail: And that goes to some extent–

McInnis: No, no, no, we’re all expected to file with the IRS.

Keith: Laughs.

Gail: Laughs.

McInnis: We’re not expected to do a simultaneous filing with The Denver Post or with somebody else.

Keith: Understood. Understood.

Gail: You know, and that goes in large part to whether people feel they’re paying too much tax or just about the right amount. The ones that aren’t paying any tax are like, Yeah, works for us.

McInnis: And that’s about half the population, unfortunately. And it’s a very unfortunate predicament we’re in. You can’t have in my opinion a society that thrives very long where half of your society pays and the other half does not. There’s a huge inequity there.

You wouldn’t call many talk-radio hosts “journalists.” They’re mostly entertainers. But, still, what talk-radio host with any integrity sits in silence while a political candidate says he’d take a “beating” if he made his income tax returns public and doesn’t ask the most basic follow-up question in the book, “Why?”

But that’s exactly what happened April 15 on Fox News Radio, 600 KCOL in Loveland. (See the Keith and Gail page on the KCOL website, April 15, hour 4, beginning at 15 minutes 30 seconds.)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McGinnis told hosts Keith Weinman and Gail Fallen, “So I’m not going to invite myself to my own beating. I’m going to give what I think the people want, not what The Denver Post wants.”

McInnis was on the radio after having apparently just read a Post editorial,  published that morning, calling on him and fellow Republican Dan Maes to “follow Hickenlooper’s lead and agree to make their returns public.”

The Post argued that releasing income tax returns “shows that a leader who seeks the public trust is committed to transparency at all levels,” adding that “[t]ax returns show sources of income, chronicle any charitable giving, and reveal potential conflicts of interest, use of tax shelters and other valuable information.”

In a news story on the same day, The Post reported: “Since at least 1998, all but one Colorado major-party gubernatorial candidate …- Republican Marc Holtzman …- have released their tax forms to the media. And in the past 14 years, all major-party U.S. Senate candidates in Colorado have released their tax returns.”

Against this backdrop, after listening to McInnis April 15 on “Mornings with Keith and Gail,” many other questions spring to mind that the hosts should have asked, starting with: What, exactly, is in your tax returns that would result in the expected beating by The Post?

But instead, host Gail actually tells McInnis that it’s a “healthy perspective” to have “no interest in being complicit in your own self destruction.”

McInnis’ KCOL interview April 15 is a case study in how talk-radio hosts can let us down, apparently in the interest of soothing a public figure, even though talk-radio hosts occupy a pseudo-journalistic position that could allow them to advance the public interest on daily basis.

On the day McInnis’ was on the radio, McInnis’ spokesperson, Sean Duffy, was cited in The Post  indicating that McInnis might in fact release his tax returns on an unspecified date. But Duffy’s boss, McInnis, is on the radio saying he’s “not going to give what The Denver Post wants.” What gives? This wasn’t asked.

McInnis also told Keith and Gail, “So I have made more disclosures on my financial background than any other candidate in this race and probably more than any candidate for a long time simply because of length of service, number one.” The missing follow-up:  “Okay, those narrow disclosures were good, but now, what’s in your tax returns that would invite the unwanted beating by The Post? Why can’t we see the broad information in your returns?”

Elsewhere in the interview, McInnis says, “Keep in mind that it’s their [The Denver Post’s] job to make my job as uncomfortable as possible.” In the interest of defending journalists, Keith and Gail should have pointed out to McInnis that making his job uncomfortable is a side effect of the basic job of The Denver Post, not the goal of the enterprise: The Post wants to report the facts about a candidate. If candidates or public officials are what they say they are and do their jobs right, a newspaper won’t make them uncomfortable…-or certainly won’t give them a “beating” over typical income tax returns.

McInnis told Keith and Gail that he’d release his income, but, as The Post pointed out, income tax returns reveal much more than just income, but also stuff like board compensation for his recent spot on the board of equity firm KSL Capitol Partners. Keith and Gail clearly knew the difference between releasing only total income and releasing broader income-tax information, because they referred to The Post editorial explaining this at the beginning of their show. But neither Keith nor Gail pressed McInnis to explain why the release of his total income would be sufficient, when so much more information is contained in his income tax returns.

McInnis repeatedly said on the radio that releasing his returns would compromise the privacy of his family. But he wasn’t asked about, at a minimum, releasing the portions of his returns that apply to his personal income.

At various points in the interview, McInnis stated that it’s the press and Democrats who want to see his tax returns, not the people. At one point he said, “People don’t really care about what my brother and sister made or what that says on my income tax returns,” adding later: “It’s rarely brought up by the average citizen on the street. Gee, Scott, I want to know some of that information.”  Here again, Keith and Gail missed the opportunity to defend journalism a bit, even though they rely on it so much for the content of their show, failing to point out to McInnis that The Denver Post is representing the people when it asks for the disclosure of information. That’s what journalism is about, to represent the guy who doesn’t have time to hound politicians like McInnis for this type of stuff.

Keith and Gail said they hoped to have McInnis back on the show next month. They’ve got a lot of material to go back over.

Back on March 19, on KCOL radio in Ft. Collins, Cory Gardner told host Brad Jones that there’s a natural overlap between Gardner’s State House duties and his activities as a candidate for U.S. Congress:

 Brad Jones (at five minutes 15 seconds, March 18, hour 4) : One issue on the campaign trail even before the caucuses this week has been your ability to balance your duties down at the State Capitol with the very rigorous demands of being a candidate in one of the most high profile congressional races in the country.  How have you been able to strike that balance? And what kind of job do you think you’ve been able to be doing at that?
Cory Gardner: You know I’ve given up sleep. It’s over-rated.
Brad Jones: Laughs.
Cory Gardner: And so we’ve been working very hard representing the people of eastern Colorado. My house district is basically the entire eastern plains of Colorado already, which is all within the 4^th Congressional District. With the exception of a portion of Adams County, the rest of it is within the 4^th Congressional.  And so we’re able to work for the people of Colorado, for the people of House District 63, fighting for water, agriculture, rural Colorado, at the same time as we stand up and fight for this country.