In case you missed it, political outsider, successful business leader, and Republican nominee for U.S. Senate Joe O'Dea's campaign today sent a Cease & Desist Letter over a false and intentionally misleading TV ad from Michael Bennet's Campaign. The letter was sent to the following station managers at TV stations in Denver demanding they pull this false ad:KCNC CBS
KDVR FOXBennet’s ad deliberately attempts to use a tragic personal story to mislead Colorado voters about Joe O’Dea’s position on abortion in a vareity of ways.Several of the provably false claims in Bennet’s ad include: “Joe O’Dea said he would support a nationwide abortion ban.”
Joe O’Dea does not support a nationwide ban on abortion. As explained on O’Dea’s campaign website, O’Dea supports the nationwide ban on “late-term” abortions; not a ban on abortions entirely. Rather, this is a limitation of a woman’s right to access an abortion after a predetermined amount of time. That said, even with the limitations in place, O’Dea still supports exceptions to late-term abortions in cases of rape, incest, and to protect the life of the expectant mother, which creates a clear path to access of abortion services. Which is further explained in The Colorado Sun article U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea believes abortions should be legal through 20 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions after.
“Joe O’Dea went as far as to say, ‘…you’ll see me help move the pro-life movement forward.’”
This clip is the height of dishonesty and distortion. The clip the Bennet campaign used is from a conversation between talk radio host Dan Caplis and O’Dea. O’Dea told Dan he supported abortion rights, and then went on to say he would move the cause of pro-life voters forward by working with them on expanding adoption. The quote “you’ll see me help move the pro-life movement forward” is directly related to O’Dea’s commitment to championing adoption in the U.S. Senate. This is personal to O’Dea he is adopted. The letter demanded the the TV stations cease airing the false statements from Bennet, which the O’Dea campaign believes violate Colorado election law barring candidates for office from making false statements. “You have the responsibility to exercise independent judgment to not only protect the American marketplace of ideas, essential to the health of our democracy, but also to avoid willful or negligent defamation of private persons. Such obligations should not be taken lightly,” wrote O’Dea campaign attorney John Zakhem. “Based on the documentation provided, and given the errors and misstatements of fact and Sen. Bennet’s apparently deliberate attempt to mislead viewers, [KCNC/KUSA/KMGH/KDVR] should not hesitate to take down such a stunningly false and deceptive attack. The O’Dea campaign and Joe O’Dea are prepared to pursue all available legal remedies under state and federal law in the event compliance with this demand is not evidenced by the close of business tomorrow.”"Michael Bennet's entire campaign is a fraud," said Zack Roday, O'Dea campaign manager. "On issue after issue he distorts or outright lies about Joe. This is what desperate politicians do when their power is threatened.”
Learn more about Joe O’Dea’s campaign here.
Original source can be found here.
