You can’t win if you’re Rep. Ken Buck and you go on Tea-Party radio, just after you’ve voted to retain Tea-Party anathema John Boehner as Speaker of the U.S. House.

You’ve already been called out for treason on Facebook, and you have to say that’s wrong. On the other hand, you have to show that you understand why liberty listeners hate Boehner so much.

Under tough questioning by guest-host Nancy Rumfelt on KFKA last week, here’s how Buck threaded the needle.

Buck (at 12:40): “I want to face people.  And especially the people that thought they were being cute in putting ugly things on my Facebook.  You know, if you want to say something nasty to me, say it to my face.  Don’t put something on Facebook.  What happened yesterday was just a disgrace.  You know, go to Trey Gaudy’s town hall meeting and call him traitor. Say that he committed treason. It’s just ridiculous.  And yes, we voted for John Boehner.  We thought it was the best path forward, but it is not an act of treason.  And it’s just silly to use those terms.”

But don’t even think Buck will slide toward the middle:

Buck (at 6:50 below): “Speaker and the leadership team know that they cannot count on me when they move to the middle, that I will be voting against leadership’s efforts in certain areas, especially is true when it comes to the fiscal issues, the appropriations bills and the regulatory issues. And I include Obamacare in that. But absolutely. The people in the 4th Congressional District can count on Ken Buck to be with the conservative votes when it comes to the bills that are coming up in the future.”

Listen to Ken Buck on KFKA’s Amy Oliver Show, Jan. 7, 2015, guest hosted by Nancy Rumfelt.

Whether you’re a leftist blogger, a right-wing talk-radio host, or a sad-eyed dog, you know by now that a government shutdown would be a blow to the economy.

So if you hear of a politician saying he’d risk shutting down the government by voting against bipartisan budget legislation in Washington, you should ask for his thoughts about the well-known damage from such a vote.

But Fort Morgan KFTM radio host Jon Waters didn’t question former state Sen. Greg Brophy, U.S. Representative-elect Ken Buck’s new spokesperson, today when he stated that Buck would have voted against the Cromnibus bill.

BROPHY: Ken has said he wouldn’t have voted for it. I think he said that publicly on a radio show, so I’m not speaking out of school. I’ve got to be a little careful because I’m not speaking for myself. But, I mean, the whole thing represents absolute failure by Washington [D.C.] to work, and you have to put the blame squarely on Harry Reid’s shoulders….

WATERS: You mentioned that, right at the end, ‘governing by crisis,’ and passing legislation to avert crisis at the eleventh hour, which has been standard operating procedure for a number of years, now.

BROPHY: It has, and I think they like it that way back here, frankly, because it lets them put stuff into a bill that they otherwise may not be able to get passed. It’s a lack of leadership. And so, when there is no clear leadership, and there’s no clear lines of authority, bad things have happened throughout history. And, you know, when you don’t have regular order, you’ve got disorder. And that’s what we’ve had back here, and that’s what the Cromnibus and all the previous omnibus bills represented. And, you know, the Republicans have tried to stop this stuff, and most of the time the media blame them then for shutting down the government. And heck, it’s really Harry Reid and Barack Obama’s fault, but our team takes the blame. So, it’s made some of them gun shy, and that’s arguably why a bunch of the guys voted for the Cromnibus bill. And I think, you know, that maybe some of them are thinking, “Let’s just get this garbage behind us so that we can get on to starting fresh and doing things right, come January — show the people of America what real leadership looks like, what a government that’s here to work for them actually looks like. And it will be transparent and it will be done on time, and it won’t be crisis after crisis, which is where bad things happen. You let people jam stuff through, just because it’s a crisis, and you have to do it.

Before being elected to Congress four years ago, Rep. Cory Gardner, who’s now running for Senate against Democrat Mark Udall, backed off campaign promises to ban abortion, much like he did agai Frniday when he un-endorsed the personhood amendment.

But, as documented by the Ft. Collins Coloradoan, Gardner subsequently broke his promises and co-sponsored multiple anti-abortion bills, including legislation banning abortion outright. Gardner’s history raises the question of whether Gardner’s latest twist of his abortion stance can be trusted.

In 2010, just after winning the GOP primary to run against Rep. Betsy Markey, Gardner promised journalists at the Ft. Collins Coloradoan that he wouldn’t introduce anti-abortion legislation, despite promising to do so at a campaign event.

The Coloradoan posted audio of a meeting between Gardner and Coloradoan editors in 2010:

Coloradoan Editorial Page Editor Kathleen Duff: You say you’re not running on social issues, so you’re not, for instance, planning any legislation.

Gardner: Correct.

Duff: And you haven’t crafted anything.

Gardner: [laughs] Correct. No. No.

Coloradoan Executive Editor Bob Moore: Although I’ve been at Tea Party events where you were at where you were specifically asked if you would introduce legislation on abortion, and you did say yes.

Gardner: Bob, I don’t recall that.

Moore: Yeah. At one, you even mentioned some legislation you had already introduced in the state legislature, too.

Gardner: I don’t recall that.

Moore: I can go back and dig it out. [He did. He posted the audio here.]

Gardner: Be that as it may, I am running to balance the budget…

After this exchange, Moore called out Gardner on his flip flop, in an article headlined, “Despite tea party pledge, Gardner says he won’t carry abortion bill.”

And later, Moore called out Gardner again, after he went to Congress and broke his promise not to focus on social issues or introduce anti-abortion legislation.

Moore reported Feb. 4, 2011:

During the 2010 campaign, Gardner sought to downplay abortion and other social issues, though he readily described himself as pro-life.

In a September meeting with the Coloradoan editorial board, Gardner said he wouldn’t introduce any legislation on social issues.

“I am running to balance the budget, cut spending and get this economy back on track,” he said.

Since being sworn in a month ago, Gardner has co-sponsored two abortion-related bills – [Rep. Chis] Smith’s bill to further restrict federal funding for abortion, and a bill aimed at Planned Parenthood that would bar federal family planning grants to any organization that performs abortions.

Smith’s bill aimed to save money by no longer allowing federal dollars to be spent on regular old “rape” but only for “forcible rape.” After an outcry, the proposed redefinition of “rape” was dropped.

Unfortunately, Moore had already left the Coloradoan when Gardner went further, with his co-sponsorship of federal personhood legislation, called the “Life at Conception Act,” which would ban all abortion, even for rape.

So, to recap, Gardner had pledged at a Tea Party event in 2010 to introduce federal legislation to ban abortion, but before he did it, he promised he wouldn’t.

The Coloradoan’s documentation of Gardner’s multiple flips and flops on abortion issues shows how journalism serves to hold politicians accountable for what they say at different times to different audiences.

In the alternative reality constructed each morning on KNUS’ Peter Boyles show, they’re busy reliving the glory days of the recall campaigns.

Recall spokespeople Laura Woods and Jennifer Kerns have been on the show re-telling stories about how “grassroots” Republicans fought off establishment Republicans and won.

One of Boyles’ favorite things to do is to point out that most of the Republicans who’ve risen up in recent weeks weren’t the ones getting down and dirty during the recall effort.

On Tuesday, for example, Boyles asks Woods for the names of specific Republican candidates and elected officials who were with her:

Woods: Well, I just want to preface by saying, as a candidate [for SD 19] now, I’m not endorsing these guys, but I’ll put on my recall hat and I’ll talk to you about who was out there on the lines with us. We clearly had Victor Head. He wasn’t a candidate then, but he is now. And then we had senator candidates Tim Neville and Tony Sanchez walking the streets, knocking doors, gathering petition signatures. Tom Tancredo was out there, as was Greg Brophy. We had the sheriff candidates, Jim Shires, Jeff Schrader, John Berry, all out there at times. Ken Buck was in the office at times. And Owen Hill was sitting in our office making phone calls. So, there were a lot of candidates, none of whom were involved in this back room deal—other than Ken Buck to move, you know, from the Senate race to the House race.

The good old recall days are gone, and the good old folks are threatened, in Boyle’s mind, by back-room-dealing evil-doers, like Bob Beauprez, Cory Gardner, and Ryan Call.

But on Boyles’ radio show, regardless of what’s happening in the real world, the heroes are still Woods and Tancredo, and the like, and nothing can change that, unless the show is abruptly canceled by Salem Communications Inc., which is as inevitable as a gaffe from you know who. Or someone flipping the bird at you.

On KNUS’ Kelley and Company a few weeks ago, Rep. Cory Gardner said:

Gardner: “I would gladly bring Barack Obama and take him around the state of Colorado, introduce him to the 335,000 Coloradans who lost their health insurance thanks to Barack Obama’s bill that Mark Udall passed.”

Gardner would have a tough time with these introductions because 335,000 such people do not exist. It’s not true that 335,000 Coloradans lost their health insurance thanks to Obamacare.

I wondered how Gardner could make this egregious mistake, because The Denver Post reported that the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) wrote a letter specifically to Gardner, informing him that 335,000 Coloradans were sent letters stating that their health insurance policies were cancelled. They were advised of other health-insurance options, one of which, for 92 percent of these people, was to renew their existing policies or choose from other options.

I thought, maybe The Post got its facts wrong about the letter to Gardner. So I contacted DORA, and Communications Manager Vincent Plymell confirmed that DORA sent Gardner a letter stating that “92% [of 335,484] were offered the opportunity of early renewal and continue their plans into 2014.”

Just to make sure I wasn’t missing something in Gardner’s logic, I asked Plymell what “early renewal” meant:

Plymell: “‘Early renewal’ meant that instead of renewing their policies when the policies expired, they could renew early.  These would have been non-ACA compliant plans.”

Asked via email about the price for the renewals, Plymell wrote, “Some may have been at the same price, but as is common with renewals of policies in general (early or not), many would have been for higher premiums.” He added:

Plymell: Remember that for people receiving cancellation letters, they were required to be told by the carriers about all of their options – early renewal, if it was a possibility (and for 92% it was), other plans from that carrier, switching to another carrier, or Connect for Health Colorado.  If people didn’t like the renewal price, they had other options for coverage in 2014.  Also remember that prior to the plans for 2014, people with individual plans (as opposed to employer plans) did not tend to explore those options, because they did not want to have to apply again and go through underwriting, which could mean they could be denied or have their particular conditions excluded.  Going into 2014, they could realistically explore those options because they could not be denied for health reasons or have their pre-existing condition excluded from coverage.

So it looks like The Denver Post got it right, while KNUS and Gardner somehow missed the boat.

House Speaker John Boehner announced last week that Republicans probably won’t do anything on immigration reform, because “there’s widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws.”

This prompted Sen. Charles Schumer to suggest that Congress pass an immigration bill this year, with the stipulation that it not go into effect until 2017, after Obama leaves office. It was a creative idea, but Boehner rejected it, leading to ridicule by Comedy Central’s John Stuart. See below.

On KFTM radio last week, Colorado’s own Rep. Cory Gardner sided with Boehner about being unable to trust the president to enforce U.S. law, but he added a new twist. It was a relationship issue.

Gardner: I think there is need for reform but the bottom line is the President has to show a willingness to make sure that the law is enforced and to be able to work with Congress. And really, it’s unfortunate that the fact, this president put no effort into building relationships with Congress over the past four years on either side of the aisle. It’s really starting to hurt his policy efforts now.

Listen to Gardner discuss immigration KFTM 02 10 2014

Omitted was any consideration of the ideas that the relationship-management issues involved in immigration reform had more do to with the relationship between the Tea Party and establishment Republicans, not between Obama and Congress. Especially in light of the fact that the Senate already passed a bipartisan immigration-reform bill.

KFTM should bring Gardner back to find out which relationship strategies might have worked on him.

On KNUS radio last week, Rep. Cory Gardner was pressed on whether he’d try again to block an extension of the debt limit to stop Obamacare. His answer surprised me:

Gardner: “I don’t think threatening with the debt limit is a good idea. I think that has proven to not work.”

Afternoon KNUS host Steve Kelley, who was interviewing Gardner, seemed to think Gardner should go down the debt-ceiling-government-shutdown road again, and not blink this time. So I thought Kelley would remind Gardner how fierce an advocate he’d been for using the debt ceiling in the past.

Kelley may not be a regular listener of KFKA’s Amy Oliver Show, but I am, and I remember when Oliver asked him (on Jan. 8):

Oliver: I want to ask you Congressman, are you willing to vote no against a raise in the Debt Ceiling if it doesn’t include significant spending cuts? 

Gardner:  Well, “Absolutely,” is the answer to that.

Gardner made similar comments to Kelley himself in January, saying, “We are not going to imperil the future generations of the country.  It is immoral.  It is wrong.” And on conservative KFTM, Gardner said that blocking the extension of the debt ceiling was an “opportunity to reduce the size and scope of government, and how we can require opportunities to look for savings, look for cuts, and what we’re going to do to grow the economy through common sense tax reform.  I think there’s great opportunities for us to get back on track.” (Listen here.)

So If I were Kelley, I’d wonder why Gardner’s moral outrage about the debt ceiling was so easily undermined by a tactical loss.

Same question would go to U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck, who said on KLZ Grassroots Radio Colorado Aug. 27:

Buck: I’m “absolutely against raising the debt limit, period, end of story”

Is Buck ready to give up the fight on the debt ceiling, like Gardner is? Kelley should consider asking him.

In college, I led a petition drive to put an question on the student-council election ballot asking students if they wanted the university to stock suicide pills for optional use by students in the event of nuclear war.

The media had to take this seriously, because kids were actually voting on it, and it had its own internal logic, given the Cold War nuclear craziness around us at the time. But what college would stock suicide pills? Obviously, our core goal, even if we were also serious, was to promote our anti-nuclear agenda.

Same with the secession “movement.” At it’s heart, given the impossible odds of it happening, it’s, duh, a media stunt, offering right-wing conservatives the chance to bash moderate Democratic legislation.

But, it’s true that 11 counties will be voting to secede from Colorado, and so you can’t blame reporters for feeling as though they have to take the stunt sort of seriously, without overdoing it like The Denver Post has done.

But taking it seriously means finding out if serious conservatives actually support it. This week, the New York Times covered the secessionists, quoting county-level GOP organizers and Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper as saying he takes it seriously. But, really, what else can the Democratic governor say?

More interesting is what serious Republicans like Rep. Cory Gardner would do on election day. As a resident of secessionist-hotbed Yuma County, he’ll be voting on it next month. And if you take secession seriously, Gardner would eventually be voting on it in Congress, too, if it’s gong to pass. Plus Gardner has long-standing ties to secession-organizer Sean Conway.

Will Gardner vote yes? (So far he’s been vague.) What about the GOP gubernatorial candidates? Where do they stand?

When something smells like a crazy media stunt, and reporters still have to take it seriously, they should at least give readers enough opinions on the matter so they can try to understand what’s really going on. In this case, getting the specific positions of Republicans, whose audiences goes beyond the way-right crowd in the secessionist counties, is key to offering a fair and accurate picture.

Rep. Mike Coffman said that too big a deal was made of his line about Obama is not an American “in his heart.” But reporters were right not to think so.

Here’s another case of over-the-top extremism that deserves to be picked up by the press, because it’s fundamentally disrespectful.

On KFKA’s Amy Oliver Show Friday, Rep. Cory Gardner leveled this attack on Obama:

Gardner: This is a president who is doing everything he can to make this nation no longer abide to the rule of law.

Oliver: Wow. What does that do to the rule of law?

Gardner: It weakens it tremendously.

Listen to Gardner on KFKA 10-4-13

I guess Gardner would advise me not to let people like Obama hang out with my teenage son? Unless I want anarchists hanging around the house?

Admittedly, it’s hard to know sometimes when the extremism threshold has been passed. But reasonable reporters should agree that this is an example.

Activists led by Personhood USA yesterday submitted over 50,000 more signatures than the 86,000 required to make the 2014 election ballot, making it likely voters will cast ballots next year on a measure that would add “unborn human beings” to the definition of a “person” and “child” in Colorado’s criminal code.

Backers and opponents of the measure disagree on whether it would affect abortion rights, but the fact is that supporters of the amendment, including its designated representative and a spokesperson for Colorado Right to Life, have referred to it as “personhood.”

So this means it’s likely that political candidates will face questions next year about their views on the personhood concept, under which all abortion would be banned, even for rape and incest, as well as common forms of birth control.

In 2010, the last time a personhood amendment was on the Colorado ballot, all Republican candidates for Governor and Senate supported the measure.

This year, most top-line Republican candidates are on record supporting personhood (See below), while no Democrat has done so publicly. The Colorado Statesman’s Peter Marcus has sought comments from this year’s crop of candidates, but he’s faced some resistance.

Coverage of the yesterday’s signature submission, including informative pieces by CBS4’s Shaun Boyd and the Colorado Independent’s John Tomasic, didn’t provided a tally of personhood support among top candidates. So I will supply it below:

Governor

State Sen. Greg Brophy endorsed personhood in 2008 telling 7News at the time, “Clearly it’’s always the right time to take the stand for the sanctity of life.” Colorado Right to Life writes on its blog that Brophy “supports personhood” and is “pro-life with no exceptions.”

Secretary of State Scott Gessler is apparently not on record on personhood.

Former lawmaker Mike Kopp “supports personhood” and is “pro-life with no exceptions,” according to the Colorado Right to Life blog.

Former Rep. Tancredo supports personhood.

U.S. Senate

Sen. Randy Baumgardner is “100% pro-life with no exceptions” and “supports personhood,” according to the 2012 Colorado Right to Life blog.

Weld Country DA Ken Buck withdrew his support for the personhood amendment in 2010, but stood behind is position against abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest.

Sen. Owen Hill is “pro-life” and “supports personhood” according to CRTL in 2012.

U.S. House

Rep. Mike Coffman is listed by CRTL as a personhood supporter, and he has been held up by Personhood USA as a model personhood-supporting candidate. He’s against abortion for rape and incest.

Rep. Cory Gardner supports personhood.

Rep. Doug Lamborn supports personhood.

Rep. Scott Tipton is not on record as a personhood supporter.