Thank you to Democrat Senate District 22 candidate Paula Noonan for taking the time to respond to my post on her heated election campaign with some clarifying comments. I responded to some of her remarks in the comment box.
Additionally, some of her claims could not be independently verified and may deserve further scrutiny (e.g., I can find no evidence that Sheriff Ted Mink has withdrawn support from Mike Kopp’s campaign). Of course, it is a little late for the purposes of this election to unearth these claims, unless one of my readers has a source.
Or what does anyone think about invoking the name of Ted Haggard to attack Mike?
Noonan’s lack of integrity is absolutely amazing. Saying Kopp has been arrested is a flat lie. He has never been arrested in his lifetime. I can’t believe she is trying to spin a $16 check that bounced while Mike was serving his country into an arrest.
I also cannot find any evidence to support her claims about Mink. And given her propensity to lie about other things it wouldn’t surprise me if she would be willing to lie about this as well.
She claims that Mike lacks integrity, but why has she kept quiet about the pettiness of her own supporters. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/elections/article/0,2808,DRMN_24736_5121392,00.html
I am curious if she supports campaign finance reform. It seems silly to me that I cannot donate more than $400 to Mike Kopp. On the other hand, she thinks she can buy her seat with $207,000. It is absolutely rediculous that my freedom of speech is limited but hers is not. But I doubt we will ever get an answer, after all, she hasn’t been willing to answer any questions thus far unless they come from her extreme liberal cronies.
Editor: If you want to find out where Ted Mink stands – that is, how he actually voted–why don’t you call him? That’s not too tough. Kopp was convicted of a misdemeanor for bad check writing: People of the State of No. Carolina v. Kopp, case # 88CRO35405. And the point is not the misdemeanor – it’s that he LIED on his Rocky Mountain News questionnaire about that. Why????
Kopp also misused the check from Health One claiming Health One endorsed him – at the end of this, I’ll post Health One’s letter telling Kopp to retract and apologize.
I do believe there should be finance reform. If there were, maybe I wouldn’t have had to plunk down so much of my own money to get elected. And stop griping about that – how much will Beauprez plunk down when it’s all over, and how much did Republican Benson spend for his campaign? And by the way, Kopp spent $7 plus for each vote in the primary, and for me to get up that high, I’d have to spend well over $300,000. Did he “buy” his primary victory?
Finally, I am a straightforward, honest, moderate, independent person. And I hope you’ll vote for me for that reason. Paula Noonan – see Health One letter below:
Subject: HealthONE email
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2006 18:49:26 +0000
>
> I appreciate your feedback regarding this disturbing election mailing. It is true that HealthONE sent Candidate Mike Kopp a PAC fund check near the time of the primaries. He had never voiced any anti-gay
sentiments at that time, and our lobbyists recommended we support him.
>
We first learned about this mailing when Paula Noonan called me late last week. I was very surprised that we would be listed on a mailing without our permission – and that it would be associated with sentiments that we would never condone, nor advocate.
>
Please be clear on this: HealthONE supports equal opportunity and civil rights, we have a significant population of gay employees among our 9,000 employees in metro Denver, and we were among the first large
companies in the state to offer domestic partnership benefits for employees.
>
We have asked the Kopp campaign to apologize and cease using our name with his campaign. We also expressed our displeasure with the Republican Senate leadership. Unfortunately, their responsiveness has not been quick or satisfactory.
>
We will continue to try to right the record. It’s unfortunate that our good name has been dragged down in this dirty campaign season.
>
> Linda Kanamine
> VP Public Affairs
> HealthONE
I appreciate Ms. Noonan’s clarification on the HealthONE issue. Readers can judge for themselves.
We can go tit-for-tat on self-funded candidates & all the rich folks buying elections in Colorado. (I think a look at all the records will show that Tim Gill & Pat Stryker are spending at least as much as anyone on the Republican side.) There is nothing at all wrong with a state senate candidate contributing $200,000 to her own campaign, but the voters deserve to know about it.
Perhaps at some other time we can resume a debate about campaign finance reform, since I’m not sure specifically what types of reform Ms. Noonan would advocate. Frankly, I’m against limitations on political speech – both McCain-Feingold at the federal level and Amendment 27 at the state level have rigged the electoral playing field with dangerous, unintended consequences.
Says Noonan: “I am a straightforward, honest, moderate, independent person. And I hope you’ll vote for me for that reason.” Well, I don’t live in her district, but those of my readers who do can weigh what has been presented to them intelligently and fairly.
A look back at my original post that started this conversation will reveal a number of questions left unanswered – questions which if answered might clearly define Ms. Noonan’s liberal stances on a number of issues. Readers can also take that into account.
To the editor: I’d like to know what questions I haven’t answered. I think I have demonstrated my openness and willingness to address anything that comes my way. I am not afraid to answer any issue or question. What I do mind are spurious attacks on my integrity, which I have held dear my whole life. And I would like to know where, specifically, you find that I have been inaccurate in my representation of my views or Kopp’s views. I have been meticulous to use Mike’s own words – and words have implications. When a person says, “I oppose gun control, Period,” those words have implications. That means that anyone can get a gun, anyone can carry a gun anywhere, and anyone can buy any kind of weapon. How else is one going to construe those words? So what is false in my campaign’s representation of Mike’s values and statements?
Mike is against stem cell research that involves a blastocyst. That is the most promising stem cell research – other research can’t come close. I say that based on my discussion with David Patterson, head researcher at the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute with the University of Denver. I’m not making this up. I do my research. If anyone wants to know more about the promise of this kind of stem cell research, then you should speak to the experts also.
I support public schools and charter schools and options within both. I think public school systems need to do more to engage the hearts and minds of all students – so kids stay in school and receive the kind of education that will allow them to succeed in 2040 as well as today. I think we need to apply the best research in the education world to achieve this goal – I do not believe that draining millions of dollars out of the public school system will achieve this objective. But people can disagree with that – but please show me the statistics that prove that charter schools, as a whole, do better than public schools, or that private schools do better than public schools, overall. And make sure you’re comparing apples to apples.
I’m not sure what other issues you want me to discuss. Let me know and I’ll do my best. But stop this baloney that I don’t address the issues. And where is Mike Kopp at this site? I don’t see him putting his views up here. Paula Noonan
One final issue. I think $400 is too little for individuals to give for these campaigns. I’m not sure what the right amount is, or if there should be a limit as long as there is transparency. But I do think this blog is reckless and intolerant when it extends a $200 check from the Jefferson County GLBT caucus as support for “a radical homosexual agenda and crossdressers.” Who cooked up that notion? It’s ridiculous on its face. I accept checks from decent, honest people, and I put the members of the Jefferson County GLBT in that category. If that’s offensive to some, then so be it. Paula Noonan
Ms. Noonan, I appreciate the time you have taken to articulate your views with passion. For example, you have defended well your position on stem cell research, but did not respond to the assertion that your campaign sent out mailers blurring your opponent’s record on the issue by failing to distinguish between various forms of the research.
I can’t speak for why Mike Kopp has not responded in this forum. I leave the candidates to take those issues before the voters.
Noonan wrote: “I do think this blog is reckless and intolerant when it extends a $200 check from the Jefferson County GLBT caucus as support for ‘a radical homosexual agenda and crossdressers.'” For clarification, that quote was not from this blog. I never made that statement. Though I did ask the question of the candidate’s stance on homosexual marriage, and never received a direct answer. There is a difference between compassion for, and even tolerance of, homosexuality and support for redefining marriage rights.
Nor did I find in her answer, or on her Web site – though I may have overlooked – a direct answer to the question of the candidate’s position on partial-birth abortions and government funding of abortions, as asked in the initial post.
Regarding his own stance on gun control, the ball is in Kopp’s court to clarify. But Ms. Noonan’s position on gun control remains obscure.
While she did indeed answer my other questions, these instances are more specifically what I was referring to when I said she had left questions unanswered. Of course, declining to answer is entirely within her prerogative, as it is Kopp’s prerogative to decide whether or not to respond on my forum.
As for her claims about education, since this is my area of expertise, I would be glad at a later date to extend a response – pointing her to a number of respected and detailed sources – to point out how she has expressed the issues in oversimplified terms. The record of CEA – which has substantially funded Noonan’s campaign – is clear enough in misdiagnosing the shortcomings of the existing public education system and in opposing reforms that now have become accepted as benefits to parents and students. This debate could be rehashed ad infinitum in more detail, but I believe she has stated her position with reasonable clarity.
Finally, I think it is important for me to clarify that I do not speak in any way for the Kopp campaign though I did receive information and tips from friends of the campaign. Readers are welcome to refute what I have written, as Ms. Noonan has done eloquently in a few cases.
Readers can judge for themselves whether what has been written here consists of “spurious attacks on [Noonan’s] integrity,” though it certainly was never intended that way. Nevertheless, I appreciate her responses.
Noonan also did not respond to the question about why she lied about Mike Kopp’s check incident. Mike Kopp has never been arrested, and does not have an arrest record. So why did she claim he was arrested?
Here is another question left by “confused” that she did not answer.
“Where does Noonan find a 1/4 of a million dollars to put in her campaign when she can’t pay a $160 to the bity of Littleton for a sanitation service last year, resulting on a lien on her and her husband’s house?”
I guess it doesn’t matter now. Mud and money couldn’t fool the voters. Congratulations Mike Kopp.