HBA repudiates poll results, agreement in CO-5

In a release first published by Colorado Pols, the HBA (the Colorado Springs Housing and Building Association) has issued clarification of the position of both campaigns in the dust up regarding the "poll/non-poll" conducted jointly by the Jeff Crank and Bentley Rayburn campaigns in CO-5 to determine whether one or the other candidates should drop out.

Over the last month, on again and off again talks led to an agreement by the Crank and Rayburn campaigns that if one side or the other showed significant advantage in a jointly conducted poll, one side or other side would drop out. The HBA, which favors anyone but incumbent freshman US Rep Doug Lamborn agreed to help broker the process.    

"Unfortunately, the implementation and the process for this effort were flawed," says Kevin Walker, Chair of the HBA Political Action Committee in the HBA release "so we agreed that the results of our efforts and the problems in its implementation invalidated any agreement that had previously been in place."

To a large extent Walker's version of events agrees with the Rayburn campaign's version of events.

"Unfortunately, the implementation of this poll was a disaster," wrote Mike Hesse, manager of the Rayburn campaign in a press release at the time.  "Interviews were not completed in the timeframe agreed on by all parties.  By Thursday evening, only 106 interviews were completed and the call center was instructed to stop polling until further notice.  All parties were expected to talk again on Monday to discuss how to proceed."  

On the other hand Crank campaign manager Alan Philp told PolitickerCO on June 16th: "It sounds like what has happened here is they made an agreement, (but) they only intended to abide by it if they want," Philp said. "And the data's come back clearly indicating that Jeff is the strongest candidate. And so they've changed their mind, and they've gone back on their word."

Clearly the HBA disagrees with Philps' interpretation.