If you find Marilyn Musgrave a crappy congresswoman, here is what not to do:
Do not deposit a dung-filled dossier on her doorstep.
The cops say Kathleen Ensz did that. They say Ensz, a retired French professor from the University of Northern Colorado, filled a Musgrave re-election campaign mailer with dog feces and left it at the representative’s Greeley office.
Ensz didn’t return my phone calls Friday to talk about a misdemeanor charge of criminal use of a noxious substance.
Whoever dumped the messy missive on Musgrave only helped the congresswoman’s cause. Folks may think Musgrave’s politics stink. They may think her budget votes have cut money from vital programs that affect schoolchildren and veterans. They may think Musgrave’s contention that the American family will be destroyed if the U.S. doesn’t constitutionally ban gay marriage is self-serving and unsubstantiated.
Thing is, it’s hard to ever cast Musgrave as more extreme than excrement.
When I called the congresswoman’s office to find out the political content of the mailer that so moved a critic, a staffer mistakenly faxed me a photograph of the evidence in the criminal case.
Trust me: Scatological commentary probably isn’t protected by the First Amendment. But should Ensz or anyone else succeed in making that case, the message will be received in the same spirit with which it was offered.
Musgrave can legitimately play the victim in this incident. She can deflect debate on much more important issues. Instead of talking about her opposition to embryonic stem-cell research, she gets to talk about a steaming pile.
Musgrave’s opponent, Democratic state Rep. Angie Paccione, called the
feces-stuffed mailer “detestable.”
“I had absolutely nothing to do with it,” Paccione said. “My campaign had nothing to do with it. I don’t condone that kind of behavior. In fact, I denounce it. I don’t think those kinds of actions help the candidates at all. I want people to focus their frustration with Marilyn in a much more constructive way – like helping me defeat her.”
Even before the soiled mailer landed at the Greeley office, Musgrave’s campaign manager, Shaun Kenney, told me he was worried that the 2006 campaign would get as dirty as the 2004 campaign.
“There’s a right way to do this,” said Kenney.
The right way might actually be the most effective way, no matter which candidate you back.
The 2004 race featured attack ads on Musgrave by a 527 group called Colorado Families First, which was paid for in part by rich liberals Tim Gill, Jared Polis and Pat Stryker. These so-called issues groups are the designated mudslingers of modern politics. Who will ever forget the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? The 527s have few fundraising limits and no conscience.
One of the Colorado Families First ads showed Musgrave stealing a watch off a corpse because she voted against a law that prohibited nursing homes from billing the dead. Another had the congresswoman picking a soldier’s pocket because of her vote against veterans benefits. A third showed her trying to block stem-cell research.
All of the 2004 ads featured shots of an actress playing Musgrave from the rear. She was a broad-beamed, bobbed blond in an overstuffed pink suit.
Neither candidate in the 4th Congressional District can totally control such sleaze. But they can condemn it. What ought to matter in this election are things like the national deficit, the Iraq war, immigration reform, tax cuts and health care.
That’s the straight poop. It is enough to provoke a lively, provocative, but civil debate. Paccione started that debate Friday with a clever sound bite that should set the tone for her most rabid supporters:
“I don’t want to see Marilyn Musgrave in a pink suit,” Paccione said. “I just want to give her a pink slip.”
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
