Being that it’s football season and all, Sen. Mark Udall’s campaign has come up with what it calls the “Gardner Tough Question Playbook” for Republican challenger Cory Gardner.
GOP Congressman Cory Gardner is challenging Democratic Sen. Mark Udall’s bid for a second term. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
No one yells “Omaha!” Instead, Team Udall claims, the Gardner strategy is to “deny and distract” when the congressman is asked about his record.
But several hours after Team Udall on Monday issued its news release about the playbook, Republicans took Udall to task for about a carbon tax Udall supports.
Team Udall pointed to Gardner’s interview with 9News’ Gary Shapiro about last year’s government shutdown during the first 16 days in October. Gardner said there was no vote on shutting down the government, which is technically correct. The vote was whether to fund government.
Shapiro: What was the vote?
Gardner: There was a vote we passed to fund the government. We passed several budgets to fund the government. To keep it open.
Shapiro: OK, but your result, the result, you know the result was to shut down the government. It turned out not to be very popular.
Gardner: Well I did not support the government shutdown. I voted on every measure we could to re-open it including being one of the few Republicans to re-open the government.
The Democratic-controlled Senate passed a resolution to fund government in the new fiscal year. The Republican-controlled House included in its votes on the funding resolution provisions that would defund, delay or alter the Affordable Care Act, although it knew the Senate would reject such measures. Gardner voted at least three times for that kind of resolution, and during the shutdown continued to support measures that included Obamacare provisions.
He did ultimately vote to end the shutdown.
