Fake News: Desperate Stapleton Calls In Trump After His Smears Backfire

Stapleton PAC fakes headline in “pathetic, desperate move” as new poll shows him down 11

Walker Stapleton is doubling down on a disgusting smear of Jared Polis in order to do something, anything to make up ground on Jared Polis, and reporters in Colorado are calling him out for it.
Why? Because the PAC supporting Stapleton for governor “fabricated a news headline, slapped a 9news logo on it, and mailed it out to voters.” It gets worse. The group is run by the business partner of Stapleton’s campaign manager.
Kyle Clark of 9news ripped into the PAC’s mailer and said “the stuff from the pro-Stapleton folks is a special kind of desperate.” In a fact-check, Clark called the fake news headline a “pathetic and desperate move.”
It’s yet another bumbling, ham-handed attempt to get Stapleton’s campaign moving in a positive direction – something they have yet to achieve.
At a debate in Pueblo on Monday night, Stapleton attacked Polis’s young children while arguing against using marijuana taxes to fund education.
As a new Colorado Health Foundation poll released today shows, Coloradans are not buying any of it, as Polis expanded his lead to 11 points.
And the Trump endorsement Stapleton received today is not going to help, as 57% of Coloradans disapprove of the President.
“If Walker Stapleton has any sense of decency, he would call on his allies to stop with the disgusting smears and fake news,” said Democratic Governors Association Deputy Communications Director David Turner. “Taking a page out of Donald Trump’s playbook is odd when voters overwhelmingly disapprove of the President, but when you’re down double digits, unable to draw crowds, and floundering in debates, I guess you’ll take support wherever you can find it.”
Watch Kyle Clark calling out Stapleton’s PAC HERE:
 

Kyle Clark: “There wasn’t a single media outlet in Colorado willing to publish a misleading attack being pushed by supporters of Walker Stapleton. So, a PAC, backing Stapleton, just fabricated a news headline slapped a 9NEWS logo on it and mailed it out to voters. It is a pathetic and desperate move by the group supporting Stapleton for Governor.
The 9NEWS logo on this mailer sits above a blaring headline falsely claiming that Jared Polis assaulted an employee. Actually, you know that we fact checked that claim, and explained that police and prosecutors decided that Polis was the victim in that 1999 case. Voters aren’t fooled, they tipped us off to this misleading mailer. It comes from the pro-Stapleton group, “Better Colorado Now.” It’s run by Andy George; whose business partner is Stapleton’s campaign manager.
The pro-Stapleton folks were really mad when I debunked their assault-smear. And you know, that’s fine, we’re adults. My job as a journalist it to tell the truth and stand by it. Their job is to take rich people’s money, burn through it with misleading ads and then whine about journalists when their candidate is still trailing in the polls. That’s just how the game is played. It’s also why we can’t do a thing when they take a clip from our air and use it out of context in a TV ad.  But at least then, political operatives aren’t fabricating whole news headlines.
The stuff from the pro-Stapleton folks, it is a special kind of desperate; bashing journalists when it suits them, faking news headlines with our logo when they can use our credibility. They are so desperate for credibility, I almost want to lend them a little … almost.