First off, keep in mind that the fact that someone has a good answer for a question does not make the question invalid. Because if the question was not asked, the answer would not be forthcoming.
Ok, so we have Joan Fitz-Gerald's campaign hammering Jared Polis' with questions. Questions on the Iraq trip, questions on donations, questions on... well just those two. And many Polis supporters calling foul, that the questions have nothing to do with the campaign or are mud-slinging.
I think every question I have heard so far is very legitimate to be asked. And in this questioning and the answers from the Polis campaign do teach us more about Jared Polis, his positions, and how we think he would operate as a Representative. All both legitimate and useful.
So lets look at these questions.
1) Should Jared have made the trip (with Joan's answer being no)? I put a longer answer here but the short answer is that most everyone who has spoken to this runs the gamut from "good idea" to "all candidates should do this." Jared clearly learned a lot (a picture is worth a thousand news articles) and he brought Iraq front and center to the campaign - both of which are very valuable.
2) What entity is paying for the Iraq? At present the answer is "my lawyer will figure it out." Bad answer. Ok, the final bookkeeping will almost certainly be legal. But this is like Al Gore's "no controlling legal authority" answer that while legally correct, gave the impression of pulling a fast one. And this means this question will be left hanging out there.
This is dumb as there is no upside to this approach and lots of downside. If Jared had made an initial statement like "I feel the most proper way to handle the expenses of this trip is I will pay for this personally and then declare it an in-kind donation to my campaign." That would have left no grounds for anyone to get upset - it's not campaign donations paying for the trip but it is all being declared as a campaign expense.
3) Should the United Way have been involved? This is another one that smells and yet was totally avoidable. I get the feeling based on the initial press release and how it was played at first that exactly what the purpose of the trip officially was evolved both from Jared's end and how it played out here. But it left the actual United Way connection in limbo.
And with the statement from the United Way, it just brings up one more negative. And again, a clear clean unambiguous statement at the start would have avoided this being an issue. Everything stated was vague enough that the Polis team can fit most anything to it - but the contortions make it a continuing news story.
4) Should Jared have accepted contributions from Cranberg and other Swift Boat contributors. This is an interesting question. If it was one of the Swift Boat creators the answer would almost certainly be a hell no. If it was less than $100.00 it would be who cares. At $2,500.00 it sits in that gray area.
Add to that Cranberg strongly supports vouchers and it gets worse. When it comes to vouchers the teachers union has one thought (over our dead body) and if you want to win a Democratic primary you usually need if not the support of the teachers, at least not violent opposition. (Personally I wish this was not true, but wishes are irrelevant in an election.)
But the bottom line is, once again no clear answer from the Polis campaign so this is also left continuing to get media play.
What really bothers me about this is it seems like amateur hour in the Polis campaign. Items (2) and (3) above never would have even been whispered if there had been forethought in how the trip was framed. And to date, they remain unanswered, at least to a level that eliminates them as a story.
Item (4) is a tough one, it's understandable that this was unexpected although they should have been ready to speak to the contributions from voucher supporters at least. But again, no answer to bring closure to the issue. For political issues speed is everything in killing stories - that's why the Clinton campaign had the war room.
I think part (but only part) of the problem here is that Jared's background is different from an experienced politician. Maybe this is because I've spent most of my life in the start-up world as Jared also has - but it's a different approach used there that works very well there. And that is to try 10 things and you know half or more will fail. Stick with the ones that work and go try 10 more things.
Now this has problems in the political realm. Some are substantive problems like being saddled with a badly written amendment until '08. Some are more issues of perception like "my lawyer will figure out how to bill the trip."
There are benefits to the political realm to bringing some of this start-up approach to politics. But just some. The question is can Jared bring a good balance between the two. At present he's still working with a start-up level of failures to successes and in a campaign I don't think that ratio will be successful.
But the bottom line about these questions is they all teach us something about Jared. The Iraq idea - brilliant. The political framing - poor. Response speed to negative questions - slow. I think voters will consider Jared if he learns to do better on the framing and response speed. But if not I think he's in a lot of trouble.
On the flip side, all the CD-2 news recently has been about Jared and only Jared. And there is an old Hollywood saying - I don't care what you say as long as you spell my name right. If all most people remember is "Jared Polis something something" then this all may not be that big of a deal...
