Crank, Rayburn face off on talk radio

UPDATED 4:19 P.M.

A day after a dispute over a secret agreement between 5th Congressional District candidates Jeff Crank and Bentley Rayburn was made public, the two candidates took a notably more hostile stance towards each other on the airwaves Tuesday morning.

Rayburn and Crank held a mini-debate on "The Richard Randall Show" on KVOR-AM in Colorado Springs. Crank also spoke for 20 minutes (Rayburn spoke on the show Monday for the same amount of time).

Up until now, the two candidates have both focused primarily on ousting incumbent U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado Springs); Crank said Tuesday that he and Rayburn have talked since June of 2007 "about making this a two-way race."

But such camaraderie wasn't evident Tuesday, as Rayburn asked Crank, "Point-blank, am I a liar?" and Crank asked Rayburn to tell his 10-year-old son why it was OK to break an agreement.

In the agreement, initially signed May 27 and re-signed May 28 following some changes, Crank and Rayburn agreed to jointly commission a poll to be completed by the May 30 CO-5 GOP assembly; the candidate who polled less would have to drop out, under the deal.

However, only 106 people were polled by the May 30 deadline -- causing the Rayburn campaign to "lose confidence" in the poll, said Rayburn manager Mike Hesse.

The poll continued the following Sunday and was concluded by June 5; according to Crank's campaign, Crank beat Rayburn in the poll by 17 percentage points.

During Tuesday's radio show, Crank said his campaign had "accomodated (Rayburn's campaign) in every sense of the word" and continually questioned Rayburn's word for no longer following the agreement.

"Had I lost the poll, I would’ve lived up to it," Crank said, "I would’ve gotten out of this race, and I would’ve endorsed Bentley Rayburn had I done that."

"Bentley’s never given me the assurance that he would’ve gotten out of this race and endorsed me," Crank continued. "And so I guess I question whether he ever intended to uphold this agreement even if it had been done to the absolute, absolute letter of that agreement."

Crank told Rayburn that his 10-year-old son Joel had asked him "Well Dad, how do you get out of an agreement that you signed?”

"What would your answer to my son be about why you signed an agreement and are now getting out of that agreement?" Crank asked Rayburn.

Rayburn said he would respond that "sometimes agreements don’t get completed.

"So if I sign something and I say that I’m going to build you a house and then I only build a house that has a foundation and a couple of walls, but I don’t complete the agreement as it was originally written, then I’d say Joel, sometimes things change," Rayburn continued. "Either because of the actions of other people or because of somebody else’s lack of keeping their part of the word things change, and you’re not bound by your word to hold a promise to something that you didn’t promise."

Rayburn also took issue with a release the Crank campaign issued Monday saying Rayburn "contradicts his own commitment to integrity."

"I just ask Jeff point-out, point-blank: am I a liar?" Rayburn asked Crank.

Crank responded, "I don’t believe you’re a liar; I believe you’re a man of integrity, and that’s why I signed an agreement with you."

"This is exactly what we were trying to avoid," Rayburn said later. "We were trying to keep this campaign on a very positive thing, talk about the issues. And yet now we’re down, pulled down into talking about, you know just attacking people on their character and on their integrity when it just never needed to be." 

Later Tuesday morning, Democratic CO-5 candidate Hal Bidlack released a statement saying he was "disappointed" with the candidates' "bickering."

"It's situations like these — backroom dealings, corruption and controversy — that make people distrust their government," Bidlack said in the statement. "This election is about right and wrong, and bringing change and trust back to our government. Right now both Crank and Rayborn (sic) are wrong."

A Bidlack spokesperson clarified that the mention of "corruption" wasn't a reference to the situation between Crank and Rayburn but was rather just a general statement of the types of political gamesmanship Bidlack is trying to move away from.