I’ve been hoping that journalists, being writers and all, would take more interest in the fact that gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis managed to cut a deal with the Hasan Family Foundation, paying him $150,000 to write a “series of in-depth articles on water” that could be used in a “series for education on water in Colorado.”

Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen, having toiled as an editor and writer in Colorado for more years than most living journalists in the state, knows the going rate for freelance writing better than your average congressman.

So I wasn’t surprised that the $150,000 received by McInnis for writing the water articles got Quillen’s attention. He wrote in a column yesterday:

“So $150,000 divided by zero disseminated words works out to something like infinity. Thus, Scooter must be the best-paid writer in our state. And if he doesn’t get elected governor, I want to engage him as my literary agent, since he knows how to cut some sweet deals.”

Since so many reporters hope to break out of the daily grind by publishing novels or something, I’d suggest they contact McInnis, too.

Meanwhile, one of them should ask McInnis to make his water articles available or, at least, to tell us why no one who knows anything about water in Colorado seems to have seen them. McInnis’ campaign won’t tell me.

It’s good to see The Denver Post stand up for itself and not allow gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis say inaccurate things about its reporting.

You may recall from my previous post today that McInnis said on the Jim Pfaff show that The Post had gone through his congressional votes and found that all of them were anti-abortion.

The Spot reported a little while ago that The Post never made a claim to have gone through his congressional votes.

In fact, the Post should have pointed out that in November, The Post reported that in Congress, McInnis “earned a reputation as a moderate and a maverick on the [abortion] issue.”

The November Post article continued:

He voted against some abortion measures, supported others and once chaired the national Republicans for Choice….

The Rocky Mountain News in 1996 called McInnis a maverick on abortion.

He long had opposed partial-birth abortions and backed parental notification. But he opted to allow for privately funded abortions at overseas U.S. military hospitals, to let federal employees choose health insurance plans to cover abortions and to preserve federal funding for family-planning programs.

In 1995, NARAL tracked 21 roll-call votes. McInnis sided with their issues seven times. In contrast, Democrat Pat Schroeder of Denver supported NARAL’s position all 21 times while Republican Joel Hefley of Colorado Springs voted against NARAL’s position every time, the Rocky reported.

On the Jim Pfaff radio show, McInnis claimed to have a zero rating by NARAL.

The Spot also reported in its piece today that McInnis was wrong when he stated on the Jim Pfaff show, cited in my piece today, that The Post asked for his high school transcripts. The Spot reported:

Untrue. The Post in February asked the candidate for his college and law school transcripts as part of our routine background research.

 

Some say I’m beating my head against a church wall when I ask social conservative talk-show hosts to act more like journalists and ask tough questions of conservative candidates whom they interview on their shows.

But here’s Jim Pfaff, pro-life activist and talk-show host, doing a little bit of what I’d hope others of his ilk would do May 17 on his Jim Pfaff show on KLZ radio, 560-AM. (The segment begins at 26 minutes, 45 seconds on the podcast here.)

But overall he lets his own cause and the public down.

He’s discussing a Denver Post editorial stating that Scott McInnis has “factually challenged explanations” to various details in his history, including the fact that his name was listed on the board of an organization called “Republicans for Choice.”

McInnis dismisses political flip flopping, saying, “The critical views are where are your views today, and where have your views been recently.” He adds later: “The critical issue is where have you been in the last few years…. Scott McInnis was at one time pro-choice. That’s right. In fact, there’s Republicans, you know, that used to be Democrats or vice versa, way back when.”

What I hear McInnis saying here is that he could care less about politicians who flip flop, as long as it hasn’t been in the last “few years.”  And what’s really important is what they say “today.” But Pfaff, the anti-abortion foe, didn’t ask the obvious question: does this mean that McInnis thinks it would be okay if he flipped and became pro-choice after a few years, perhaps during his second term as governor. And what if he flips on other issues after a few years? would this be ok?

Unfortunately Pfaff also did not ask McInnis, at the end of the interview, what the difference is between a candidate who advocates a “social agenda” and one that advocates a “conservative approach in regards to social issues.” McInnis did say that winning conservative candidates will have “not just conservative economic values but have conservative social values.”

Here’s the partial transcript:

Pfaff: How did your name end up on that letter, explain that first?Let’s start at the very beginning by saying I’m pro-life. I’ll be a pro-life governor. And when I become governor I will do lust exactly like Gov. Owens did and that is we will defund the funding that Ritter and Hickenlooper would keep in place in regards to Planned Parenthood. So there’s no question about that.

Second, in regards to my record, which is the beauty of what I have…my record is pro-life. When I was in Congress, I had a zero rating by NARAL….

1998, I think was the date stamp or something on some letter. I don’t know when the letter was dated. I think the letter pre-dated that.

Two things come up. Did I meet with this group called Republicans for Choice? And my policy was always as a Congressman was, you represent the people. Now you may not agree with them but if you can meet with them people have a right to come in and express their points of views….

Apparently, there’s a letter where they list me as an advisory. Yeah, there’s an advisory. Hank Brown is on that for example. And I haven’t visited with Hank about this. The Denver Post calls up and says, did you, I said, man, how many years ago was that? It was a lot of years ago. I don’t have recollection. I told them that. I mean, I was pro-choice when I was younger, of course, when I got out of college. I struggled with it….

Pfaff: You did take a very clear pro-life track while you were in Congress, but you did hold a different position at one time and pro-lifers are going to be very concerned about that and they are an important constituency. So explain how that changed. I think that’s the best way for them to understand what’s going on.

McInnis: You know I went into office in 1982. So almost 30 years ago. So, yeah, views I held almost 30 years ago, 20 years ago, yeah. The critical views are where are your views today, and where have your views been recently. And, you know, when the Denver Post, for exmaple, originally wanted to do an interview on this stuff, I think they even asked for my high school transcripts. And in my high school transcripts, it probably shows I wasn’t a great student in algebra, although I liked math, and things like that. So they are going to reach back….

The critical issue is where have you been in the last few years. And in this article, not in the thing today, but in the article the other day that came out and said we’ve discovered a piece of stationery, not Scott McInnis stationery. There’s a group out there, we’ve discovered this stationery. Scott McInnis was at one time pro-choice. That’s right. In fact, there’s Republicans, you know, that used to be Democrats or vice versa, way back when. The key issue is, where’s the proof in the pudding. And in this article in the last sentence they said they had gone through and done an extensive look through the Congressional Record and could not find one pro-choice vote. The reason is, because he’s pro-life. So the critical issue is today, yesterday, a year ago, ten years ago,five years ago, whatever, I was pro-life, and I will govern as a pro-life governor….

Pfaff: What legislatively could we do in this state to make this a more pro-life state? Obviously we have Roe v. Wade that we have to deal with, but what can we do right here in the state?

McInnis: Great questions. We gotta win seats. We have to put up candidates that can win these seats have those values and those principle values. Not just conservative economic values but have conservative social values. I am convinced that the social agenda, excuse me, the conservative agenda, let me correct that, the conservative aganda. I am absolutely convinced that the pro-job, don’t-raise-the-taxes, the conservative approach in regards to social issues, is the path for prosperity for the state of Colorado.

KFKA talk-show host Amy Oliver maligned journalism and an unnamed reporter on a recent show. Maybe this doesn’t surprise you, but she goes too far in repeating  off-the-record comments by a reporter bashing the Post on the radio. She said:

“The Denver Post, especially their capitol beat reporting, has been, as far as I’m concerned, an enormous disappointment. I know these guys wouldn’t say it on the record but at least one of their reporters is not excited or not thrilled about the coverage that that person has had to do regarding the state of Colorado and what’s been happening at the state legislature.”

If she’s disappointed with the Post’s coverage, she should be specific and point to the stories or issues that are disappointing her.

And she shouldn’t discuss off-the-record comments by reporters. When reporters talk to Amy “off the record,” they do not expect their comments to be announced on the radio. It’s not completely impossible that a reporter told Amy she could broadcast the gripe on the radio, but I doubt it. And if she had been given the green light to air the off-the-record comment, she should have said so.

You can here the comments on the May 13 podcast of her show here.

When someone gets $150,000 from the Hasan Family Foundation to write a series of in-depth articles, you’d think journalists, being writers themselves, would want to see what was written.

Especially if the writer is Colorado gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis.

Yet, as far as I know, no Colorado journalist has asked McInnis to see the fruits of his writing labor.

I wrote previously that when Craig Silverman and Dan Caplis had McInnis on their KHOW talk-radio show, McInnis said he wrote a “series of in-depth articles on water” when he was a senior fellow at the Hasan Family Foundation. But the hosts didn’t ask to see the writing on this big CO issue. The foundation’s attorney told me that McInnis could release the articles if he wanted to, but McInnis’ spokesperson didn’t have time to get back to me last week.

So I’ve continued to try to fill in the journalistic gap and locate the articles.

First, I emailed Craig Silverman and asked if he’d make up for his interview lapse and ask McInnis, next time he’s a guest on Craig’s talk-radio show, if he’d make his water articles public.

Silverman emailed me back that he appreciated my suggestion, but he wouldn’t commit to asking McInnis about the water articles.

So I moved on.

My friend heard a rumor that Pueblo Chieftain publisher Bob Rawlings might have helped fund McInnis’ work on the articles…-or at least he might know where his writing is.

“I don’t know anything about that, Jason. I’m sorry,” he answered. “I’ve very involved in water issues but I haven’t funded any studies for Scott McInnis.”

Have you ever seen any articles he’s done on water?

“Well, I’ve never heard of them, but my memory isn’t as good as it used to be,” Rawlings said. “Our water guy here [at the Chieftain] is Chris Woodka, and I think probably he’s the best one to answer your question.”

So I called Woodka, who’s a well-known water wonk, but he’d never heard of articles by McInnis on the topic.

Woodka told me that John Orr is one of the few people  who reads more arcane stuff about Colorado water than he does.

I knew about Orr, because he’s the writer and editor of the highly regarded Coyote Gulch blog, a regular stop for most everyone who tracks water issues in Colorado.

“I don’t have any recollection of a water series by him so it may have been before 2003 when I started paying close attention to the issue,” Orr told me. (McInnis was a Hasan fellow from 2005  to 2007.) Neither had Orr seen any single article by McInnis.

Orr suggested I try Loretta Lohman, editor of Nonpoint Source Colorado.  She had never seen anything, either. Neither had the head archivist at Colorado State University’s Water Resources Archive.  Nor the Water Congress. Nor the editor of the High Country News.

I tried the Colorado River District, which has this slogan on its homepage: “Protecting Western Colorado Water since 1937.”

Perfect, I thought.

The receptionist put me in touch with Jim Pokrandt, Communication & Education Specialist. He’d never seen any articles by McInnis and neither had his colleague, Manager of External Affairs Chris Treese.

But Pokrandt told me that McInnis had been a keynote speaker at the CO River District’s annual seminar in Grand Junction in 2005. McInnis’ expenses had been covered by the Hasan Family Foundation, but, unfortunately, no written record of his speech was available, he said. However, he found the title of McInnis’ keynote address: “Washington in the rear-view mirror.”

Maybe this formed the basis for something in depth?

If so, it seems odd that none of the water experts mentioned above know about it. In talking to the various water experts I contacted, it became clear to me that it would be quite strange for McInnis or any serious researcher to write a stealth paper on Colorado water, not to mention a stealth series. It seems like Colorado water researchers and policy people consult each other on the technical details of this complicated topic.

I emailed the McInnis campaign, asking again for a response or to see the articles, and heard nothing back.

So I left hoping that Craig Silverman finds his inner journalist and queries McInnis about this, since Craig is the guy who’s apparently come closest to asking McInnis about it.

Or The Denver Post should push for an answer from McInnis, since a Post story first introduced McInnis’ $150,000 in Hasan income into the campaign debate. And, of course, The Post has taken the lead among news outlets in trying to get all of the gubernatorial candidates to disclose their income tax records for public review.

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.

Particularly because some Republicans are apparently referring to Rep. Paul Weissmann’s (D-Louisville) redistricting bill as gerrymandering, journalists might be tempted to equate the Democratic effort this year to the GOP “midnight gerrymander” in 2003. If they are compared, reporters should be careful to spell out the big differences. Otherwise, casual readers could be easily confused.

Expect news coverage this week about Weissmann’s House Bill 1408, passed out of committee Tuesday, to repeal a 2004 GOP law that dictated criteria that courts should use …• and the order in which the criteria should be weighed …• to map out Colorado’s congressional districts, if the Legislature does not agree on how to do so before the 2012 election. 

Congressional redistricting will occur in 2011, based on the results of the 2010 census.

The Republicans’ 2004 statute was passed after a 2003 GOP redistricting law was found unconstitutional by the Colorado Supreme Court. The court ruled that the GOP-controlled Legislature didn’t have authority in 2003 to pass an election-mapping law after a judge had already created new legislative boundaries after the 2000 census…-and an election had already occurred.

An April 22 Denver Post article sets up the discussion of Weisman’s bill this way:

In 2003, Democrats lamented a “midnight gerrymander” by the legislature then controlled by Republicans, a plan courts threw out. Now Republicans …• in the minority in both houses …• are complaining that Democrats are trying to ram through a plan to “rig” future elections by marginalizing voters in predominantly Republican rural areas of Colorado.

The Post article goes on to accurately describe how the procedures and tactics being used by Democrats today are different from those used by the GOP in 2003. But you have to read the story carefully to grasp the magnitude of the difference.

To avoid confusion, reporters should lay out a few facts for readers, when Republicans equate the events of 2003 with Weissmann’s legislation:

• Weissmann’s bill is technically called a “late” bill, but it was introduced about a month before the session ends. In 2003, the GOP introduced the gerrymander bill in the State Legislature three days before the session ended, suspending rules and circumventing committees to ram it through in three days.
• Weissmann’s bill has been the subject of one hearing so far, and Republican views are being incorporated into the bill, according to Denver Post’s Spot blog. (Republican Rep. Carole Murray voted for the Weisman bill in a committee vote.) In 2003, debate on the GOP bill was curtailed repeatedly, as the legislation was rammed through without any Democratic support or input.
• Weissmann’s bill would make statutory changes in advance of the 2010 census. In 2003, the GOP passed its bill after the census count occurred, after reapportionment had occurred, and after an entire election had gone by.

Reporters should be clear about the differences between the redistricting debate occurring today and what’s now widely viewed as the gerrymandering that we saw in Colorado in 2003.

Chronology according to the Dec. 2, 2003, Rocky Mountain News:

Jan. 25, 2002: District Judge John Coughlin redraws congressional map after lawmakers can’t agree on one.

May 9, 2003: Gov. Owens signs redistricting plan into law. Democrats file challenge.

Dec. 1, 2003: The Colorado Supreme Court throws out GOP map. (GOP federal appeal was denied in June 2004.)

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.

At the end of March, The Denver Post reported that a GOP donor sent Republican congressional candidate Cory Gardner a $1,000 check with a note, “You can thank Betsy Markey’s vote [for the health-care law] for this check.”

This anecdote was repeated in a subsequent Spot blog post and then the Washington Post, without the context that the donor, Fred Vierra, was a major GOP contributor, giving over $400,000 to GOP candidates nationwide since 1998, including big money to lots of big name Colorado Republicans. I wrote about this previously.

Unfortunately, this story of incomplete information gets even worse, but this time The Post should be congratulated for providing context, not omitting it, and for publishing the information that was absent previously, namely that Vierra was “regular contributor to Republicans,” even if the size and scope of his donations was still absent.

The Post revealed yesterday on its Spot blog that on Jan. 13, more than two months before Markey voted for the health-care law on March 21, Vierra had already given Cory Gardner $2,000, making him among Gardner’s top individual donors and bringing him close to the maximum an individual is allowed to give ($2,400 per election). 

Here’s why this is important, though it’s pretty clear in The Post piece:  When Vierra handed Gardner his $2,000 check on Jan. 13, Vierra could not have included a note, like he did later, saying how pissed he was at Markey for her health-care stance, because at that time she had only voted against the health-care bill. (She voted against an earlier version November 7, and she had made no indication that she would switch her vote.)

After Markey switched her position, and voted for the law, Vierra gave an additional $400 to Gardner, bringing his donation to the $2,400 maximum allowed. So how did he make a $1,000 donation without breaking the law? His wife, Roxanne Vierra, gave $600, as the Spot pointed out this afternoon.

The Spot reported that neither the Gardner campaign nor Vierra mentioned the previous $2,000 donation, when interviewed about it in March: “What Vierra didn’t say …• and neither did Gardner’s campaign …• was that the retired Cherry Hills Village resident had already donated $2,000 to Gardner.”

This information was not available on databases, like Vierra’s extensive donations, until last week when quarterly fundraising reports were posted. So there’s no way The Post could have known about the $2,000 unless told by someone.

Chris Hansen, Gardner’s campaign manager, told me yesterday morning before The Post’s piece was published, “We did not mislead anybody on anything. I think I should make that clear. I mean, we don’t need to.”

Asked if he told The Post about Vierra’s $2,000 donation in January, Hansen said, “Basically the conversation was a long conversation, with me reading off all the different notes. At a certain point it got kind of redundant. I probably have a pile of 30 or so. After that, she [The Post] asked for some numbers of people, and I gave them over to her. Truth be told, that was about a month ago. I don’t exactly remember the conversation. ”

“The reality is,” he said, “if you want to substitute Fred Vierra for any of our many other dozens of notes, the story would still have been there.”

And if Hansen makes these names available to journalists, reporters should, among other things, check their donor histories and ask them when they last gave to Gardner.