For more than 20 years, gubernatorial candidate Marc Holtzman has told people across the country that President Reagan appointed him executive director of Citizens for America, a private group of Reagan supporters who lobbied for certain domestic and international issues.
Not so, says Ed Rollins, Reagan’s former political director.
“The president wasn’t involved in the appointment of any people to CFA,” Rollins said. “He had nothing to do with the management or appointments. It was an arm’s-length group.”
As Holtzman gears up for next year’s Republican primary, questions are being raised about his credibility – from claims that he guided the state’s technology revolution to questions about whether he doctored campaign photos so he would look taller.
In his campaign brochure, Holtzman says he is “widely credited with having guided Colorado’s evolution into a fully diversified technology hub.” Under his leadership as the state’s secretary of technology, he claims, “tens of thousands of jobs” were created and Colorado was “ranked first for having the highest percentage technology workforce in the nation.”
Not true, says Gov. Bill Owens, who appointed Holtzman to the position in 1999. They have since had a much- publicized falling-out.
“We were already No. 1 when Marc took over as secretary, and we have stayed there since he’s left,” Owens said. “There is no lone ranger, including myself, that should get credit for improving Colorado’s economy.”
On his website and in his campaign brochure, Holtzman has photos of himself with President Bush at a fundraising event and at the University of Denver. Some have criticized Holtzman, saying that it appears to imply Bush is supporting his gubernatorial bid.
Bush isn’t, says the White House.
“The president is not endorsing anyone in the primary and did not give permission for (Holtzman) to use his image,” said White House spokesman Allen Abney, who noted that White House attorneys would look into the matter.
On Holtzman’s website, two Bush photos appear under a “Get On Board” headline. Holtzman said he had no intention of insinuating Bush is endorsing him – “because he’s not” – and said he has not been contacted by the White House about the photos.
He also said that he was “proud to play a role” in advancing Colorado’s economy as secretary of technology and that he “tirelessly recruited enterprises” to the state. His former co-chairman on the Science and Technology Commission, Lew Wilks, backs him up.
“Marc put tremendous energy into raising awareness of the business community in both Colorado and nationally,” Wilks said. “Owens had the vision, and Marc executed the vision.”
As to whether Reagan appointed him to CFA, Holtzman, in an interview, changed his characterization: “Ronald Reagan asked (former U.S. Attorney General) Ed Meese to recruit me as executive director.”
Asked whether that was different from being appointed by the president – as he has asserted for the past two decades – Holtzman responded: “Sometimes when you’re running an administration, there are many voices involved.”
Political ethicist Robert Stern said it’s certainly nothing new for politicians to stretch the truth, or even rewrite history.
“Indicating that you may be something you aren’t isn’t unusual,” said Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a nonpartisan research organization in Los Angeles. “The problem is when there is a pattern of doing it. Then the public often takes a jaundiced view of the candidate.”
Since the mid-1980s, Holtzman has repeatedly referred to his connections to people in high places and has taken credit for things that were later disputed.
“Getting credit has never been an issue in my life because I share credit,” Holtzman said.
But in 1986, while running for Congress in Pennsylvania, Holtzman took credit for getting a visa for the Vietnamese mother of a naturalized American citizen.
“This is just one more example of the clout and extraordinary high-level contacts in Washington Marc can provide,” said his campaign release, according to a May 27, 1986, article in The Washington Post.
It turned out Holtzman’s “only role was to write a letter to Vice President Bush inquiring about the status of the case,” which occurred after the visa had been issued, The Post reported.
Lately, Holtzman has contended in his campaign literature that while secretary of technology, he led Colorado to be ranked first for having the highest percentage technology workforce in the nation.
“I may may be wrong about this, but I believe we became No. 1 in 1999,” Holtzman said.
However, the American Electronics Association found that Colorado had the largest number of tech workers per capita in 1998, a year before Holtzman became secretary.
This is not the first time questions have been raised about his campaign literature.
In separate photographs taken with Reagan and Bush, Holtzman appears a few inches taller in the copies used for his campaign brochure than in the original photos.
And in Holtzman’s biography, he states he was “born in the blue-collar coal country of northeastern Pennsylvania.”
This is technically true. What’s omitted is that his father owned Jewelcor, a national catalog sales company.
It was on Jewelcor’s private plane in the late 1970s that Holtzman, then a teenager, first met Reagan.
“Puffing or omitting information or inflating a résumé doesn’t necessarily mean you’re lying – it’s politics,” said Colorado College political science professor Bob Loevy. “In that case, the only real response is for someone to make a counter argument, and then voters have to make up their own minds.”
Holtzman chalks up the latest attacks as a smear campaign by people who are on opposite sides of November’s budget measures.
Holtzman has emerged as a leading critic of Referendums C and D, which ask voters to allow the state to keep $3.7 billion that would otherwise be refunded to them under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and allow the state to borrow $2.1 billion for various projects.
Owens was a key architect of the ballot measures and is the proponent’s chief spokesman.
“The governor is using this occasion to raise false charges about my credibility and background to divert attention from the real issue,” Holtzman said.
Staff writer Karen Crummy can be reached at 303-820-1594 or kcrummy@denverpost.com.
