El Paso County GOP airs rebuttal to anti-Schaffer radio ad

Two weeks after a Washington D.C. group began running anti-Bob Schaffer radio advertisements in Colorado Springs, El Paso County Republicans are fighting back with an ad of their own.

The El Paso County GOP ad was a direct response to an ad that started airing May 2 from the 527 group Campaign Money Watch that asks if Schaffer "look(ed) the other way" from forced abortions during his trip to the Northern Marianas Islands in 1999.

It also stated that "letting a front group for convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff pay for his trip to the Northern Marianas Islands was wrong." Schaffer has held he has never met Abramoff.

The El Paso GOP response ad, which began airing Wednesday, criticizes Campaign Money Watch's ad as "a bunch of bunk, spin, and half-truths woven in flowery language designed to make a good man look bad."

In the GOP ad, the narrator, taking a conversational tone, says Campaign Money Watch is affiliated with "super-rich liberal guy" George Soros.

"Seems he's doing everything he can to get good folks in our city to stay home and not vote on Election Day," the narrator continues, "Rich liberal George Soros, messing around with our election. Well, I believe George Soros should take a long walk off a short pier."

El Paso GOP Executive Director Nathan Fisk said the ad will air on many of the same stations as the Campaign Money Watch ad.

The ad buy, Fisk said, is reflective of the county party's recent fundraising success.

"For the first time, the county party's in a position to respond -- and we're going to continue to respond -- when someone comes in" with an ad attacking Republicans, Fisk said.

Fisk said the Campaign Money Watch ad "demonstrates how afraid and how scared the left is about the upcoming election.

"They're looking at their poll numbers, and (are saying,) ‘to be successful we have to start earlier than we've ever started before.'"

Fisk said while the party decided to focus on Campaign Money Watch itself in the 30-second ad rather than the specific allegations the group made against Schaffer, he took issue with many of the allegations made in the Campaign Money Watch ad - such as the questioning if Schaffer "looked the other way" on forced abortions.

"There is absolutely no evidence to back up this very weird concept" that Schaffer ignored forced abortions, Fisk said, adding that Schaffer, "from a political standpoint, would be highly motivated to expose something like that."

David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch, countered that "The truth must hurt."

" It must be hard for Republicans to hear that the candidate that they're backing is someone who has supported forced abortion and abuse of female workers in the Marianas islands," Donnelly said. "That's why they won't respond to the ad on the facts."

Asked if he believed Schaffer supported forced abortions and abuse, Donnelly said that Schaffer supported "systems that allowed forced abortions to happen."

"His response was, ‘I didn't see any forced abortions,'" Donnelly said. "What was he expecting -- someone was going to show him one? How can you come back and not have met with victims of this kind of abuse on the island?"

Asked about the claims in the El Paso County GOP ad that George Soros was behind the Campaign Money Watch ad, Donnelly replied," It has been widely reported that George Soros did not fund the advertising that we aired in Colorado. He has made a contribution to our organization and we are willing to accept money from individuals who support our mission."

Soros made a $100,000 donation to Campaign Money Watch in 2006, according to the Rocky Mountain News.