Boulder Democrat Jared Polis was slammed by opponents Thursday after releasing a television ad blasting corporate “war profiteers” in Iraq — including two companies in which the congressional candidate owns stock.
Within hours of the ad’s release, an opposing campaign pointed out that Polis is invested in some of the companies whose names scroll across the screen as he laments lining “the corporate pockets” of war contractors.
Polis countered that his opponents for Congress — former state Senate president Joan Fitz-Gerald and Boulder conservationist Will Shafroth — also own stock in mutual funds including some of the same companies.
Polis, an Internet entrepreneur and former chairman of the state school board, said he wasn’t “much of a trader or investor” and did not deliberately invest in any of the companies profiting from the war. He called his investments in mutual funds no different than Fitz-Gerald and Shafroth’s “asset strategies.”
Fitz-Gerald’s campaign, though, called him out on hypocrisy.
“I don’t believe either Will or Joan has a TV commercial up on the air at the present time” criticizing companies they invest in, said Fitz-Gerald campaign manager Mary Alice Mandarich.
Polis’ financial disclosure form filed with the U.S. House said he earned at least $15,000 from Tetra Tech in 2007, at least $200 from General Dynamics and from $100,000 to $1 million from Raytheon Co.
Raytheon was not listed in Polis’ commercial but is among the top 100 Iraqi war contractors, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
Polis pointed out that Fitz-Gerald’s mutual funds include stocks in Halliburton and General Dynamics.
Polis’ ad — showing him putting on a flak jacket in Baghdad and standing near a wall while an armed soldier walks nearby — also caused a dust-up because he originally said his Thanksgiving trip to the Middle East was not a political stunt.
Shafroth called it “especially troubling that Mr. Polis has not been open and transparent about his trip to Iraq. The voters in the 2nd Congressional District deserve answers about how Mr. Polis’ trip was funded and who provided his personal security in Baghdad.”
Polis said Thursday that his campaign never meant to imply the trip had nothing to do with his campaign, only that it wasn’t a “stunt.”
Jennifer Brown: 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com
