how we just changed an entire Governor's race in 48 hours--without any fingerprints

From:michael@huttner.org To: michael@huttner.org Date: 2010-07-15 16:20 Subject: how we just changed an entire Governor's race in 48 hours--without any fingerprints

Dear Investors & Key Advisors, Wanted to send you a quick update... As you may have heard with the hard work of the folks at ProgressNow Colorado as part of Colorado¹s ³communication hub² they dug up weeks ago and carefully passed on information to the mainstream media on how the leading GOP candidate for Governor, former Congressman Scott McInnis plagiarized a report he provided on water policy for a foundation in Colorado. In the past 48 hours, McInnis and the entire Republican party of Colorado are in free-fall. There are now calls even within the Republican party for McInnis to withdraw. The best part is that ProgressNow Colorado nor any of our allies had their fingerprints on any of the excellent behind-the-scenes work to develop and then break this story. This has led to three straight days of front page Denver Post coverage as well as the editorial below and statewide media, a share of which is linked to below. If you want to discuss how PN can be of further help to you in other states, please let me know a good time and number to reach you. Best, Mike 303-931-4547 cell EDITORIAL McInnis should throw in the towel After revelations of plagiarism and other cases of questionable judgment, it's clear the GOP candidate is not fit to be governor. By The Denver Post POSTED: 07/14/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT Revelations of extensive plagiarism in work that gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis claimed as his own call into question his fitness for public office. The lifted work, examined in The Denver Post, constitutes inexcusable intellectual thievery. It is so damaging that we believe McInnis ought to drop out of the race. Colorado's next governor should be a person of integrity, a trusted hand to lead the state through difficult times. The Post revealed in Tuesday's paper that McInnis was paid to write essays on water in 2005 and 2006 yet turned in writings that had been plagiarized. Now we learn he did the same thing in a 1994 op-ed in the Rocky Mountain News. We were astonished Tuesday to hear McInnis, in an interview with 9News, call the revelations over his water essays a "non-issue." Later, he did tell us he had made a mistake and that he should have checked the material. Yes, he should have. The Hasan Family Foundation paid McInnis $300,000 over two years to give talks on water issues and write original, monthly articles on the topic. The plagiarism detailed by Post reporter Karen E. Crummy is extensive. McInnis says he hired a consultant to serve as an expert for the writings. Yet the foundation hired McInnis as the expert, and McInnis' work never mentioned the help of anyone else. It was presented as his own. The written work he submitted to the foundation included numerous instances of passages that were copied, with few changes, from scholarly work originated by Gregory J. Hobbs, who is now a Colorado Supreme Court justice. The former congressman was paid handsomely for work that he said was "original and not reprinted from any other source." It was McInnis' obligation to ensure that was true. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we've had questions about McInnis' judgment. During his final term in Congress, he paid his wife $37,000 to be his campaign manager ‹ even though he already had decided he wasn't going to run for re-election. As we said in 2004, the arrangement "smacks of bad judgment." More recently, we were taken aback by McInnis' refusal to release tax forms, even though Colorado's gubernatorial candidates since 1998 routinely have done so. What is he hiding? McInnis' financial records are pertinent information. Detractors have characterized him as a "lawyer-lobbyist," and we think voters have a right to know how he has made his money. We've also been puzzled by McInnis' inability ‹ or refusal, it's difficult to know which ‹ to provide detail on his philanthropy even though he claims to have been generous to individuals down on their luck. The best specific example he could come up with was having given the meat of a dead elk to a family in need. Equally odd was his failure to recall being a member of an advisory board for a pro-choice GOP group. The plagiarism and other issues have cumulatively so damaged McInnis' credibility that we do not believe he can be an effective governor. Even though McInnis acknowledged he made a mistake, he still spent part of Tuesday blaming a research assistant for the failure to credit the work. If you put your name on something and take money for it ‹ a lot of money in this case ‹ it is your responsibility to make rock-solid sure it is bona fide, original work that will stand up to scrutiny. The state's chief executive must be someone Coloradans can believe in as the state suffers a stretch of tight budgets and a struggling economy. If Scott McInnis cannot be trusted to turn in what amounts to an overpaid term paper ‹ without plagiarizing someone else's work ‹ there is no way he can be relied upon to guide Colorado through these complicated times. Storm over possible plagiarism in McInnis writings escalates By Karen E. Crummy The Denver Post <mailto:kcrummy@denverpost.com?subject=The%20Denver%20Post:%20Storm%20over%2 0possible%20plagiarism%20in%20McInnis%20writings%20escalates> POSTED: 07/14/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT UPDATED: 07/14/2010 06:42:36 AM MDT <http://www.denverpost.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentIte mRelationshipId=3105811> "Voters don't really care about this issue. They care about jobs, getting back to work." Scott McInnis told 9News (John Prieto | The Denver Post) RELATED * Jul 14: * Foundation wants $300,000 it paid McInnis back <http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15508805?source=pkg> * Littwin: Got a nonissue? Get a nontissue <http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15509428?source=pkg> * Jul 13: * Researcher blamed for plagiarism says McInnis 'responsible for it' <http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15506732?source=pkg> * McInnis' articles for foundation lift ideas, words from 20-year-old essay <http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15502025?source=pkg> * Jul 11: * McInnis' record shows slow steps to the right <http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15488060?source=pkg> * Gubernatorial candidate McInnis' voting record inconsistent on abortion <http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15487982?source=pkg> * Jun 16: * McInnis confirms two-year salary as foundation fellow <http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15305575?source=pkg> * Jun 15: * McInnis got paid $300,000 for water fellowship <http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15301810?source=pkg> * McInnis reaped $150K for stint at foundation <http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15298017?source=pkg> A new example of possible plagiarism by Scott McInnis surfaced Tuesday as the Republican gubernatorial candidate faced calls to repay $300,000 he received for plagiarized essays on water that he submitted as "original works." A Denver Post review of McInnis' floor speeches and columns published during his congressional career found striking similarities between a 1995 speech and 1994 column by McInnis and a previously published Op-Ed in The Washington Post. "There is a growing popular belief in South Korea that the North has outmaneuvered Washington and marginalized the South's role," wrote Richard V. Allen and Daryl M. Plunk in a Washington Post Op-Ed published Nov. 9, 1994. Six weeks later, McInnis wrote in the Rocky Mountain News: "There is growing South Korean sentiment that North Korea has outmaneuvered Washington and marginalized the South's input into this issue." A month after that, he made the same statement on the House floor with only minor alteration. McInnis has declined interview requests from The Denver Post since the paper first reported that the "Musings on Water" articles he submitted to the Hasan Family Foundation as "original works" included passages that were similar to or copied directly from a 1984 essay by now-Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs. Sean Duffy, spokesman for the McInnis campaign, declined to comment on the new findings Tuesday afternoon, saying that the two hours he had to look into The Post's comparison was not enough time to discover how the similarities may have occurred. "We got faulty research" McInnis on Tuesday declared the plagiarism of the water essays a "non-issue" that Colorado voters don't care about. Although his campaign manager put out a statement late Monday saying McInnis believes the "buck stops" with him, McInnis spent Tuesday asserting that he failed only in that he did not monitor his research assistant closely enough. "We got faulty research," McInnis told 9News. "This is a nonissue if it's not a political year. Voters don't really care about this issue. They care about jobs, getting back to work." McInnis also told 9News he expected there were numerous other problems with the water essays he submitted as his own work. Rolly Fischer, a former engineer who McInnis said was responsible for lifting paragraphs and at least four full pages from work written by Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs, denied the charge. "Scott's responsible for it," he said to the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, and then declined to comment further. Contacted by a Denver Post reporter at his home Tuesday, Fischer declined to comment, saying, "I don't trust the press." In a statement released late Monday, Hasan Family Foundation board chair Seeme Hasan, a Republican, said: "At no time was it brought to our attention that Mr. McInnis used information not cited or unethically used work that was not his own." She continued: "All work was represented to be original and final. . . . If the allegations are proven to be true, we will demand Mr. McInnis return all monies paid to him by the Foundation." Dr. Malik Hasan, a foundation board member, also has said McInnis should return the money. "All the articles are original" McInnis has not disclosed whether he paid Fischer, how much he was paid and during what time period. McInnis also did not definitively answer questions about whether he would repay the $300,000. "We'll make it right," he told 9News. The Hasan Family Foundation paid McInnis $150,000 a year for a 24-month fellowship from 2005 through 2006. McInnis wrote 23 articles totaling 150 pages on water and public-land issues. In a memo to Seeme Hasan, he said: "All the articles are original and not reprinted from any other source." He also said that the foundation had "the final form of the series." McInnis now says he didn't intend the articles to be published until after he edited them one more time. They were not posted online by the foundation until after McInnis began his run for governor. The new example shows clear similarities in both ideas and language between McInnis' 1994 column and his 1995 floor speech and the Washington Post piece. Allen and Plunk in the Op-Ed refer to an agreement between the U.S. and North Korea as "the beginning of the end of a perilous nuclear crisis." The identical language is found in McInnis' column and floor speech. A search of the Nexis news database finds that the phrase was not used anywhere else in print beyond the Post and McInnis columns. The Washington Post Op-Ed calls for the "North to resume substantive, high-level talks with Seoul immediately." That exact phrase is also used in McInnis' column and floor speech. The 150 pages McInnis wrote during his fellowship also contain exact phrases first published two decades earlier. Earlier Tuesday, House Speaker Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, called on McInnis to immediately drop out of the race, saying he "lacks the integrity" to be governor. Duffy, the McInnis campaign spokesman, said the speaker is simply trying to distract voters from more important issues. "If I were Speaker Carroll and I had the legislative record that he had in terms of raising taxes and killing jobs, I'd want to change the subject too," he said. Bar discipline possible McInnis' opponent in the Republican primary, Dan Maes, said McInnis should take responsibility for the plagiarism. "If your name is on it, you have to take ownership of it," he said. Speaking with the Denver Post Editorial Board in advance of his State of the City address, McInnis' potential Democratic opponent, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, said that while he didn't know all the facts, the reports of plagiarism "create a cloud." McInnis, a former congressman and a lawyer on leave from Hogan Lovells (formerly Hogan & Hartson), could face discipline from the Colorado Bar, said legal ethics professor Rebecca Aviel at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation." "The rule covers attorney conduct even when it does not pertain to a client or particular case," she said, noting that the rules are "under enforced." Library director Vickie Makings, political editor Curtis Hubbard and staff writer Sarah Horn contributed to this report. Karen Crummy: 303-954-1594 or kcrummy@denverpost.com Other Articles: McINNIS PLAGAIRISM SCANDAL McInnis Talks To CBS4 About Plagiarism Accusation <http://cbs4denver.com/local/McInnis.plagiarism.governor.2.1803154.html> Scott McInnis Apologizes For Plagiarism <http://cbs4denver.com/local/McInnis.plagiarism.governor.2.1802195.html> Expert: 'Non-issue' could end McInnis' campaign <http://www.9news.com/rss/article.aspx?storyid=143552> Storm over possible plagiarism in McInnis writings escalates <http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15509569?source=rss> Voters Weigh In on Candidate Scandals <http://www.kjct8.com/news/24250821/detail.html> We're going to fix it and move on : McInnis Responds to Plagiarism Allegations <http://www.nbc11news.com/home/headlines/98390199.html> Candidate admits to plagiarism <http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/candidate_admits_to_plagiarism> Foundation wants $300,000 it paid McInnis back 2 <http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_15508805> Spotted This Morning: DP editorial board says McInnis ³not fit to govern² <http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2010/07/14/spotted-this-morning-dp-edit orial-board-says-mcinnis-%E2%80%9Cnot-fit-to-govern%E2%80%9D/11781/> Editorial: McInnis should throw in the towel 13 <http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_15508403> Littwin: Got a nonissue? Get a nontissue <http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_15509428> ------ End of Forwarded Message