Election Year Dance to Hide His True beliefs from Coloradans

DENVER – Bob Schaffer is continuing his election-year dance craze – the Schaffer Shuffle. Coloradans can learn the moves to the Schaffer Shuffle today, as they watch Bob Schaffer's fancy foot work while he takes the stage with John McCain and tries to dance away from calling John McCain "destructive" last year.

As reported in today's Rocky Mountain News, last year Bob Schaffer implied that he finds life-long conservative Republican John McCain's "views on America … somewhat destructive." He went on to say that he could not "campaign boldly and proudly in tandem with anybody who thought that severely restricting the First Amendment rights to free speech is a good idea" – again referring to John McCain.

Now that his polling shows he needs to support McCain, Bob Schaffer will take the stage with John McCain to dance away from those comments at a high-dollar fundraiser in Denver. Will he say that he is campaigning "boldly and proudly" with John McCain?

"For Bob Schaffer to attack John McCain, a rock-ribbed, conservative Republican, tells Coloradans everything about how extreme and out of touch he really is, even with conservative Coloradans," said Colorado Democratic Party Chair Pat Waak. "Bob Schaffer cannot, time and again, say one thing and then frantically dance away from it when the polls tell him he has to. Coloradans will see right through the Schaffer Shuffle."

The steps of the Schaffer Shuffle are easy to learn. First, you spend years staking out a record far from the mainstream values of Coloradans. Then, when the polls show Coloradans won't vote for that record, you start dancing away from it as fast as you can.

Bob Schaffer clearly hopes the Schaffer Shuffle will keep Coloradans from noticing that he has gone too far too many times. It's not the first time that Schaffer's showed some fancy footwork, and likely won't be the last.

A couple weeks ago the Bush administration announced they would ignore the concerns of Coloradans and continue with their plan to expand drilling on the Roan Plateau. While officials and citizens across the state spoke out in protest, Bob Schaffer stood silent.

After five days of watching which way the political winds were blowing, Bob Schaffer was ready to take the floor with the election-year Schaffer Shuffle, dancing away from his Big Oil record in hopes that no one will notice.

A week before that, Bob Schaffer's campaign manager – and personal dance instructor – acknowledged that Bob Schaffer wasn't ready to talk about his immigration stance because he was waiting to see what position would best help him in the Senate race.

"Exactly how the poll - and the shifting national debate - will steer GOP candidates' talk about the issue remains to be seen. Wadhams, who is also the campaign manager for Bob Schaffer, the party's candidate for U.S. Senate, said his candidate wasn't yet ready to talk about his immigration stance." [http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_8552360]

And last fall, when President Bush vetoed SCHIP legislation that would have given thousands of Colorado children healthcare, he used the Schaffer Shuffle to dance away from reporter questions about how he would have voted. Nifty moves, but Schaffer's record shows he voted for a budget that CUT the number of children covered by SCHIP when he was in Congress. [ Denver Post, 10/18/07; HCR 353, Vote #79, 3/20/2002]