At a campaign stop in 2006, the former Senator (R-VA) was repeatedly referring to a young man of Indian descent–who was volunteering for Allen’s rival Jim Webb–as “macaca.” Webb won. Allen’s videotaped “macaca moment” may have cost him the election.

Allen’s “gaffe” was serious–the term is a racial slur.

Still, with video cameras rolling at events large and small, from the beginning of a campaign to the end, we should take candidates’ gaffes with a grain of salt, because political campaigns shouldn’t be won or lost with the single slip of a tongue.

However, the ubiquitous video cameras on the campaign trail do more than catch gaffes.

They also show how politicians change their messages in front of different audiences.

That’s particularly important, nowadays.

Fewer journalists are assigned to trail political candidates, which makes it harder for us to know how candidates are fine tuning their stump speech and talking points as their campaigns progress.

This past electoral season here in Colorado, GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck was caught on video early in his campaign making statements that arguably later led to his narrow loss to incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet.

But Buck’s video-taped statements weren’t slips of the tongue. They weren’t “macaca moments.” They were policy positions that appealed to conservative voters in the GOP primary.

Republican primary voters were deciding between Buck and his Republican rival Jane Norton. Norton was viewed as more of an establishment Republican, while Buck was embraced by Tea Party groups.

With backing from the GOP’s  far right wing, including social conservatives, Buck narrowly defeated Norton.

But after Buck won the Republican Party primary, videos of Buck’s right-wing statements came back to haunt him.

They were used both by national groups and state campaigns to paint Buck as “too extreme” for Colorado.

In assessing his Senate bid after his loss, Buck told The Denver Post that Democratic trackers recorded video of him at 600 public appearances and took his words out of context.

A review of his statements, however, shows that videotapes of Buck mostly illuminated straight-forward policy positions that voters in the general election, as opposed to conservatives in the GOP primary, found disagreeable.

Many of the videos that hurt Buck weren’t shot by his opponents at all, but by his supporters, eager to spread the word about Buck’s ultra-right conservative views.

The statements that damaged Buck in these videos for the most part weren’t  gaffes but policy statements, which may never have come to light had they not been recorded on the campaign trail.

Video clips showed Buck telling various conservative audiences that Social Security is a “horrible policy,” the Veterans Administration and big chunks of the federal government should be privatized, and the Department of Education abolished. He also questioned the federal separation of church and state and the federal student loan program.

One clip aired repeatedly in TV ads showed Buck telling a Tea Party group during the primary: “I am pro-life, and I’ll answer the next question. I do not believe in the exceptions of rape or incest.”

The passion in his voice on the video contrasted with his statements later that he wasn’t campaigning on social issues, like abortion.

So campaign-trail videos, at least in Colorado’s U.S. Senate race, helped bring to light Buck’s policy positions–and also illustrated his heart-felt dedication to them.

That’s a role that journalists used to play in covering a campaign. They’d write about these kinds of policy shifts and nuances from start to finish. But with their ranks depleted, more of that role, especially in the early part of a campaign, is left to individuals, holding small video cameras near candidates in church basements or back-yard picnics.

I’d rather see professional journalists doing this. But at least we’ve got cameras on the candidates–even if some of them are operated by paid political operatives.

This op-ed was distributed by the Other Words syndicate.

Scott McInnis likens his gubernatorial disaster to a sting by a honey bee that he got in his youth, according to a front-page Denver Post article today.

And he apparently believes the ouchy bee is The Denver Post, which he mostly blames for his meltdown this year.

Unfortunately, the Post doesn’t bother to defend itself in its front-page article today, but Post Editor Greg Moore, you’ll recall, published a column in July pointing out that the story was reported fairly and that his newspaper doesn’t have a political agenda.

As for McInnis’ claim that the Post’s reporting is responsible for his downfall, anyone with a brain knows that McInnis himself is to blame–though today’s Post doesn’t offer this perspective.

But McInnis is almost undoubtedly correct that this story would have never seen the light of day had not been for the Post. First, it asked all the gubernatorial candidates to release their tax returns, as part of the newspaper’s usual process of asking for financial disclosures from state candidates. McInnis initially refused. But facing public embarassment about this, McInnis eventually released portions of his tax returns to the media. This revealed income of $150,000 from the Hasan Family Foundation, a fact that was first reported in the Post. Later McInnis told KHOW that the money was used to write water articles, and the story evolved from there culminating in The Post publishing the evidence of plagiarism.

A particularly damaging piece of the story was KMGH’s interview with Rolly Fischer, the octogenarian researcher whom McInnis said was the real copy cat. Yet, McInnis isn’t blaming channel 7.

In any case, the news media definitely spotlighted the plagiarism story, as they should have, but they don’t deserve blame for the series of events that led to McInnis’ early exit from the gubernatorial race.

The Denver Post reports today that we can expect an intermittent or constant flow of political ads starting now and ending who knows when. Not surprising, but it’s something people should know

In some parts of the country, like Scranton, the post-election political ads already hit the airwaves, according to a professor quoted in the Post article.

The anti-union and anti-environmental group sponsoring these ads was clever to realize that their first-TV-ads-after-the-election-FLOOD would get noticed by ad-hating reporters, like the one who wrote today’s Post story, and they would get even more publicity, an earned-media bump, as it’s called.

It seems that I’m in a tiny minority who admits to liking the ads, even though I hate them, of course, for what they do to our political culture, which is basically kill it.

Still, if we’ve gotta have them, I’d rather see a political ad than an ad for used cars or something.

During the election, and I should have pointed this out previously, 9News actually posted a how-to guide to do your own political “truth test,” like the kind 9News does, fact-checking political ads.

The guide offers basic parameters for evaluating a political ad and an organization sponsoring it, including websites for tax information about charities, campaign finance figures, congressional votes, and such.

You gotta hand it to 9News for taking the time to put together the guide. I mean, any and all efforts to empower people to get involved in politics is obviously in the public interest. As 9News’ Adam Schrager has told me, fact-checking an ad is not so hard to do.

In a post-election analysis story last week, The Denver Post quoted conservative political analyst Katy Atkinson’s views on Tom Tancredo’s future.

“He’s always going to have an audience. He is a really great communicator,” said conservative political analyst Katy Atkinson.

I would have liked one more sentence explaining why she thinks this. So I asked her.

“Have you ever heard Tom Tancredo speak?” Atkinson kindly replied via email. “I’ve known the guy for 30 years and his enthusiasm is contagious. Combine enthusiasm with passion, sincerity and the ability to make complex subjects comprehensible, sprinkle on a sense of humor and you get a great communicator. You don’t have to agree with him all the time, or any of the time, to admire his abilities.”

I admire Atkinson’s abilities, but I’ve criticized The Post in the past for quoting her and other familiar pundits too often. So when I queried her, Atkinson added, “I’ve just been relishing the irony of you asking for my opinion.” (Nowadays, I think there’s a wider variety of pundits quoted in The Post’s political stories, which is a good thing. But I’ll do a bean count at some point to see if this is true.)

In any case, Tancredo is clearly great at getting media attention, and he is a good speaker, but he’s not so great as a communicator, because he goes off message too often, and it’s not clear what he’s trying to achieve…-except to draw attention to himself.

Extreme media stunts, like the kind Tancredo is famous for, can work for extremists as long as they are on message, but Tancredo too often goes over the cliff.

For example, when he says the U.S. should bomb Mecca in retaliation to a terrorist attack, and Tancredo’s agenda is to foment anger against illegal immigrants or Islam, he’s gone too far because his message about immigrants gets lost in the outcry about bombing a religious site and the ramifications. The ensuing debate does not focus on immigrants or Islam per se.

But when Tancredo says Obama is more of a threat to America than Osama Bin Laden, and Tancredo’s agenda is to tear down Obama, he’s actually succeeded in injecting his message into the mass media. The ensuing media discussion centers on how bad Obama really is.

Still, you’d never guess that strategic communications occupies Tancredo’s thoughts very often, but that’s how it goes with bomb throwers. And he’s a great one.

Bob Kinsey came really, really close to becoming Colorado’s version of Ralph Nader this year.

As Colorado’s Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, Kinsey got 2.1% of the vote Tuesday. Bennet beat Buck by a 1.1% margin, with 97% of precincts reporting.

Kinsey says many of his supporters wouldn’t have voted at all, and others might have voted for Buck. Still, if Green Party voters here reflect the Green Party voters in Floriday for Ralph Nader in 2000, then Kinsey took more votes from Bennet. Had the race been close enough, this could have swung the election to Buck.

Does Kinsey have regrets?

“Well you know what, Bennet is in favor of increasing military spending. Neither one [Buck or Bennet]  is going to challenge the military any more than Obama is. No I have no regrets. I have no regrets that I tried to get this country to talk about the military.”

Kinsey, who got about 2% of the vote when he ran for U.S. Senate in 2008, was almost invisible in the Denver media this election cycle. His name appeared once in The Denver Post over the past year. He said he got some decent coverage statewide, but not much, even by left-leaning outlets like KGNU radio in Boulder. I asked him what the media missed in not covering him.

“My major focus is foreign policy,” he said. “I want to cut the military budget by 75% and use that money to create jobs. If you include in miliatrey spending the drug war, Homeland Security, the CIA, and other agencies, that’s over a trillion dollars a year. The AFSC calculated that you could provide every unemployed person with a $50,000 job and the U.S. would still spend more on the military than any other country in the world.”

In 2008, Democrats worried that Kinsey could tip the election away from Mark Udall. They worried again this year. But Kinsey will be one Green candidate they won’t have to worry about when Udall is up in four years.

“I am 73-years-old,” Kinsey told me when I asked if he’d run again. “Next time around for Senate, I’d be 77. What I plan on doing is trying to get the Green party to get some other good candidates and build a party. I don’t think so. I’ve done it three times, once in the 4^th Congressional [2004] and twice for Senate, and  I gave people the opportunity to vote against militarism, and I got 35,000 votes.

I don’t have the energy at 77 to do it again, but I will continue to speak out against militarism.”

Even though Walker Stapleton has been elected State Treasurer, The Denver Post shouldn’t forget to make sure he turns over, at some point, the police report from his 1999 DUI arrest in San Francisco.

In an interview Oct. 27 on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show, Stapleton said he ordered the report and promised to deliver it to The Post’s Tim Hoover as soon as he gets it.

Last week, I criticized The Post for not interviewing one of two woman whose cab Stapleton hit when he drove his car through a red light and into their taxi. An interview with this victim was published in the Colorado Independent.

In the KHOW interview, Silverman seems to have made a mistake (uncorrected by Stapleton) when he said on the air that “as recounted by you, the accident wasn’t even your fault.”

In fact, Stapleton said told Silverman:

“What happened is, I had been drinking, and I had been under the influence of alcohol at the time, and I was hit by a taxi cab. And it was at an intersection where I had a blinking red and the taxi had a blinking yellow light. It caused my car to spin, to do a 360, and there were two people in the back of the taxi at the time.”

To me, it appears that the accident was Stapleton’s fault, even if the taxi hit him.

One of the women in the taxi also said Stapleton’s car ran a red light.

This victim also said something that Stapleton has denied, namely that he tried to flee the scene, but his car was cut off by other cars, possibly taxis.

The police report may clear this up, to some extent, as could documents requested by the Independent, which has raised questions about possible drug use by Stapleton.

When Stapleton turns over the report to The Post, a full story…-including an interview with the victim…-should be run to clear up the air or pollute it, depending on what the record shows.

Partial transcript of interview with Walker Stapleton on the Caplis and Silverman Show

10/27/2010 HOUR 4

Silverman: This involves a DUI conviction. Isn’t that something that the voters should know and determine whether it’s important to them or not.

Stapleton: Sure. Absolutely. And that’s why I admitted to this transgression 12 years ago. I was 25 at the time. It was a mistake that I’ve owned up to, that I’ve been honest about. In fact, the first time I was asked about it I was honest about it in a very public forum, and I’ve taken full responsibility for it. I served my community service as a result of this. It’s not something I feel great about. It’s not something that needs to be put into a political attack ad where the facts are twisted and distorted to make it look like things happened that simply didn’t happen. That is disingenuous to voters and it’s also insulting to voters…-as if voters would vote on issues like this and not issues that pertain, policy issues, which pertain to the job of being state treasurer of Colorado.

Silverman: Sure, good people can get DUIs. There was an accident involved, and some people were shaken up. There was an issue about whether those people were in a taxi or on foot, and whether you left the scene of the crime or not. Why don’t you explain what really happened?

Stapleton: Well, you know quite well from your experience as an accident attorney that a lot of things take place in an accident. What happened is, I had been drinking, and I had been under the influence of alcohol at the time, and I was hit by a taxi cab. And it was at an intersection where I had a blinking red and the taxi had a blinking yellow light. It caused my car to spin, to do a 360, and there were two people in the back of the taxi at the time. I didn’t even know that there were two people in the back of the taxi, wasn’t even told about it until my insurance company contacted me and said that both of these two individuals had applied for and received back massages. Liberal interest groups tried to drum up this story by saying that I had hit a number of pedestrians. That did not happen, and it was confirmed that it did not happen by the San Francisco Police Department. But they still did not drop the story even though The Denver Post spent the time and got a categorical denial from the Office of Public Safety of the San Francisco Police Department that pedestrians were not involved in this accident. When I explained that I had pulled out of traffic to the San Francisco Police Department, they dropped the hit-and-run charge. You know, from being a lawyer, that just because you are charged with something and you go through the legal process, now 12 years old, doesn’t mean you’re guilty of it-.

Silverman: I agree. A lot of good people can have a DUI. And as you recounted, the accident wasn’t even your fault. And I could see how that could happen. But there are DUIs and then there are DUIs. Some people have a .082 blood alcohol content, which gets them in trouble in Colorado right now under with DUI. Heck if you’re over .04 you can be charged with driving while ability impaired. And  you sometimes seepeople with huge blood alcohol content and, what was yours? Did you take…-

Stapleton: The answer is, I don’t remember. It was well under .2, I can tell you that. And, just as evidence that I have absolutely nothing to hide, and Tim Hoover of The Denver Post can confirm this, as soon as the Kennedy campaign, in an effort to smear me, brought this issue up again, I immediately attempted to order the police report from the San Francisco Office of Public Information, at which I will deliver a full report to Tim Hoover at The Denver Post as soon as I receive it. Unfortunately, there are bureaucratic circles involved with receiving such a report. But I have told Tim at The Post that I have absolutely nothing to hide with this accident. I have owned up to my mistakes-.

The Denver Post is missing a major element in its reporting on State Treasurer candidate Walker Stapleton’s 1999 DUI arrest, specifically that a victim’s eye witness account of the incident, reported in the Colorado Independent, directly contradicts portions of Stapleton’s version of the story.

During a KBDI debate, Walker admitted that he got the DUI, according to a Spot blog post Sept. 30.

The Post reported that after the debate, Stapleton confirmed that he got the DUI after 1) a taxicab hit his vehicle and 2) he drove about a block away and pulled over. Stapleton told The Post that police dropped a hit-and-run charge after he explained to police how the accident occurred.

Then, on Friday, the Post reported that ColoradoPols posted court documents stating that Stapleton hit two pedestrians and tried to drive away from the scene of the accident.

San Francisco police told The Post that the court documents were at least partially wrong, that no pedestrians were involved, but the police wouldn’t elaborate further.

Other details about the case, including 1) if the taxicab hit Stapleton’s car or if Stapleton ran a light and hit the cab and 2) whether Stapleton tried to drive away and was stopped, could be revealed in the police report, which Stapleton has requested, according to the Post. The Colorado Independent has reported that the charges indicate that Stapleton may have been using other drugs.

Trouble is, we already know from a story in the Independent on Monday that one victim’s version of the story contradicts portions of Stapleton’s, and The Post hasn’t reported this in yesterday’s story on the topic or in Friday’s piece.

On Monday, the Colorado Independent published an interview with a woman who was in the taxicab involved in Stapleton’s crash. She was one of two victims listed in court documents.

The Independent reported that she was in the taxicab and saw Stapleton’s car run a red light and hit the cab. It also quoted the victim saying:

“When the cab stopped spinning, I looked out the window and saw his jeep or whatever, a big car, pull to the side of the road down the hill. Then I saw his car start to move again. He was going to leave but two cabs came up the road…• I think it was two cabs…• they blocked him in. One went in front of him and the other went behind him, so he couldn’t drive away.”

(The name of the victim is not a secret, but Independent reporter John Tomasic told me the victim asked him not to use it, so he didn’t.)

I emailed Post reporter Tim Hoover and asked if he tried to contact the woman who was in the cab that Walker Stapleton allegedly hit. I also asked, if he hadn’t been able to reach her, why, in reporting on the topic, he didn’t at least refer to the Colorado Independent’s interview with her.

The victim’s version of the story is critical, because it partially corroborates the court documents and it provides an important perspective for voters who are trying to figure out whether to believe Stapleton’s story. A victim is a totally legitimate source for voters to hear from. If she has a hazy recollection of the incident, which does not appear to be the case, then The Post could simply report this.

I did not immediately hear back from Hoover.

If you’re a Republican, and you look at Ken Buck’s troubles, you can’t stop your mind from wondering back to the comforting image of-.Jane Norton.

Except it’s not so comforting, of course, because you wake up and see Ken Buck trying to talk about rape and incest, and you know Norton would have faired much better than Buck on numerous fronts, like the flip-flop front and the women-front, to name a couple.

This discussion, of whether Norton would have been a better candidate, will undoubtedly emerge in the media after the election.

At least that’s the way it used to be, before the advent of blogs.

Nowadays, the public soul-searching, among respected commentators and partisans, begins before the election.

For example, on the topic of Norton versus Bennet, one conservative, the prolific Rossputin blogger, Ross Kaminsky, has already weighed in.

In an Oct. 18 post that looks a bit like it was written by the Michael Bennet campaign, Kaminsky laments that Norton isn’t the GOP nominee because she’d be doing better:

Kaminsky: But I can’t help remembering the heated online discussions I had with the Buck faithful when I supported Jane Norton, my argument being essentially that “these two are almost identical on policy, but Norton will be much harder for the Democrats to demonize in the general election than Buck will be and therefore, I’ll back the person I think more likely to win the general election.”  Those words still ring true, even prescient, to me.

He went on to deliver some harsh words about Ken Buck. To be fair, Kaminsky wrote that he’s still planning on voting for Buck, and he emphasized this again in a subsequent blog post.

Still, this is some pretty harsh stuff coming from a conservative like Kaminsky:

Kaminsky: Ken Buck needs to stop putting his foot in his mouth and stop saying ridiculous things which turn him into a caricature of the narrow-minded bible-bound old white guy which Democrats use with great success against the GOP.  Sadly, when Republicans say things like Ken Buck said on Meet the Press, it’s hard to argue that that caricature is far off the mark.

Kaminsky doesn’t labor in obscurity. He shares a radio show with former CO Senate President John Andrews. His blog has a national audience, and he’s a fixture on the most prominent conservative blog in Colorado, the People’s Press Collective. He carried the conservative torch on The Denver Post’s blog for a number of years, outlasting his liberal counterparts who failed to post much toward the end.

Even though Kaminsky writes that he sees the GOP as imperfect, seeing it as the only serious vehicle to implement his favored policies, he’s actually good weather vane for the Republican establishment. For example, during the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, Kaminsky gave reluctant support for the bailout, which was supported by a Republican president, the Republican nominee for president and vice president (yes, Palin supported the bailout), the Republican Treasury Secretary, and by Republican members of Congress. Then, within days of supporting the bailout, Kaminsky reversed himself.  To be fair, Kaminsky was up front that he was changing his position, but it came almost immediately after we were hearing noises in the conservative intelligentsia that Republicans should oppose the bailout and use it for political leverage down the road.

That’s why when I read posts from him critical of Republican candidates, I have to wonder if he’s channeling the thoughts and feelings of Republican power brokers who would never dare air them in public.

So, when Kaminky starts wishing for Jane Norton, it means something.

In the days before blogs, uncomfortable conversations among respected commentators like Kaminsky would have taken place over the kitchen table.

But today, the speculation about what could have been begins now…-and in public.

Tough follow-up questioning is so much more fun to watch than the wimpy kind…-and it makes for better informed voters besides.

Case in point: CBS4’s Gloria Neal’s exchange Saturday night with Ken Buck over the question, “Will you really make a raped woman carry a child to full term?”

Fair question, but Buck didn’t answer it, prompting Neal to ask it again.

Buck responded by arguing that “we need to stay focused on the issues that voters in this state care about, and those are spending and jobs.”

Neal responded:

“Social issues are important to the voters in this state. I am one of them. So I need you to answer that question, because in addition to votes and jobs and all of that abortion is very important, and when you start talking about rape and incest, that is important to the voters. So, please, answer that question.”

Buck then said:

“I am pro-life, and I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape and incest.”

As a debate moderator, Neal gets credit for noticing that Buck said voters don’t care about social issues. It’s a lot harder than it looks to realize that, yes, Buck had just said voters don’t care about social issues, like choice.

Was Neal right to tell Buck that voters do care about social issues? Absolutely. Plenty of polls show that voters, especially women, care about these issues. Otherwise, you can bet Bennet wouldn’t keep harping on them.

Was she right to say that she is one of those voters who cares about social issues? Yes, she’s entitle to say this, as  a journalist representing the public.

Neal just needs to be fair to both candidates, which she was.

Under media scrutiny for saying in 2006 that a jury might believe an alleged rape victim had “buyer’s remorse,” even though her attacker admitted raping her, Ken Buck has responded, in part, by telling reporters he subsequently “started” a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE) program.

This highly regarded program trains hospital personnel to provide special care for rape victims.

But Buck did not start a SANE program.

Buck’s Weld County District Attorney’s Office was one of the agencies in Weld County that began participating in a SANE program, after a Larimer County hospital began operating one, according to SANE officials in Colorado.

Yet media outlets report that Buck’s campaign has claimed that Buck actually started a SANE program, even implying that he led the effort:

The Politico reported Oct. 11:

Buck’s campaign also notes that as a prosecutor, he started a multiagency sexual assault review team and sexual assault nurse examiner program to provide care to victims and collect evidence in criminal cases.

ABC’s The Note reported Oct. 12:

[Buck spokesperson Owen] Loftus pointed out that as district attorney, Buck started a program for victims of sexual assault and helped raise funds for a specialized nurse program to help treat victims of sexual abuse.

KRDO television in Colorado Springs asked Buck for comment on the rape case, and he “declined comment.” But his campaign issued this statement Sept. 21 to KRDO:

“As a prosecutor, I have dedicated my life to protecting people from heinous crimes like rape and incest. As District Attorney of Weld County, I have implemented several programs such as SANE and SART, to help victims and ensure that perpetrators are put behind bars.

“Before becoming District Attorney of Weld County, women who were sexually assaulted had to wait long hours in waiting rooms before being examined. I started SANE, the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program, to provide compassionate and trained nurses to help victims of sexual assault. SANE ensures that victims are examined as soon as possible in a private environment. The program provides compassionate nurses who are trained in sexual assault examinations and qualified as trial witnesses to examine victims right away.”

In each of these cases, reporters should have stated that Buck did not start a SANE program.

“There is no SANE program in Colorado that was single-handedly initiated by a district attorney,” Val Sievers, Colorado SANE Director, told me.

“Sexually Assault Nurse Examiner programs are nurse-based practice programs that are typically associated with a hospital so they can see patients, provide them care, provide them medication, and provide them support,” she said.

“In the 15 years that I’ve been providing the SANE education to nurses and physicians in Colorado, SANE programs have been initiated and developed at hospital facilities with the support of social services, law enforcement, and district attorney’s offices. These hospitals typically submit an application for initiating a SANE program, which says we are going to have these components in place.”

It turns out that no hospital in Weld County has a functional SANE program, so rape victims in Weld County are transported to Loveland Medical Center of the Rockies, in Larimer County, for the specialized care provided by SANE-trained personnel, according to Susan Webster, SANE Coordinator at the Loveland Medical Center of the Rockies.

According to Webster, Buck had nothing to do with starting the Loveland SANE program, which serves Greeley, Ft. Collins, and Loveland, Longmont as well as all of Larimer County, Weld County, and portions of Boulder County.

Webster and an advisor started the program in Poudre Valley in 1997, she told me, and when it moved to Larimer County in 2008, the service was offered to surrounding counties, including Buck’s Weld County.

“Law enforcement agencies in Weld County have supported our effort by bringing their patients to our program, instead of having them go to the emergency room in Greeley, where there is no SANE program, and where patients may have to wait in the lobby if they go there,” Webster explained to me. “Law enforcement responds, and they are brought here after they have been medically cleared by an ER doctor.”

So it looks as if the SANE program would have come to Weld County, with or without Buck, though his office has been supportive of the effort.

And even if Buck only played a nominal role in getting the program off the ground, the fact is that rape victims in Weld County are better off for it.

Still, it’s disturbing that multiple media outlets allowed Buck to exaggerate his role in starting the program, apparently without checking in with SANE officials who were the real initiators of the effort in northern Colorado.

Buck’s office did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment on this blog post.

One of my unanswered questions is why Buck would support, much less tout, a program like SANE that provides Plan B to victims of sexual assault, if they choose it.

Plan B is designed to stop ovulation and the implantation of fertilized eggs in the uterus, with the aim of stopping pregnancy.

Buck believes that life begins at conception, when the egg and sperm meet to form a fertilized egg, and he’s opposed birth control methods that potentially threaten fertilized eggs; such birth control methods would include Plan B.

If he really had started SANE, to be consistent with his hard-line position on abortion, Buck would have insisted that SANE not offer Plan B to raped women, and more raped women would likely have gotten pregnant. And Buck opposes letting them choose abortion.

Reporters should consider asking Buck about this.