This story was originally reported in a copyright story on the famous DumpBachmann blog:
http://dumpbachmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/who-lied-michele-bachmann-or-star.htmlMichele Bachmann has been caught lying redhanded—again. This time it’s about her support for the 2008 “Legacy Amendment”—the constitutional amendment passed overwhelmingly by Minnesota voters that raised the state sales tax by .375 percent to provide a dedicated fund for the outdoors and the arts.
Bachmann has used Tarryl Clark’s State Senate vote to put the amendment on the 2008 ballot as evidence that Clark “loves taxes” and voted to raise taxes on State Fair corn dogs and deep-fried bacon. The charge is the basis for Bachmann’s latest ad that claims Clark also voted to raise taxes on color crayons for kids.
But as first reported on the Dump Bachmann blog, Sept. 6, Bachmann herself supported the corn-dog-tax-raising amendment. Respected Star-Tribune outdoor writer Dennis Anderson stated in his Oct. 23, 2008 column:
“Lawn signs advocating the campaigns of candidates for various offices are strewn across Minnesota in these concluding days of the election cycle.
Perhaps none imply a more incorrect message than those of Sen. Norm Coleman and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann when they are grouped, side by side, with signs advocating "Vote no" on the proposed Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.
--snip--
The combination of signs suggests that Republicans Coleman and Bachmann, both of whom generally support low taxes, oppose the amendment (the amendment, if approved, would increase the state sales tax three-eighths of 1 percent).
In fact, Coleman and Bachmann support the proposed amendment, as do most, if not all, of the Minnesota congressional delegation...”
Anderson continues:
“Coleman, Bachmann and Franken spoke in August at Game Fair in Anoka of their support of the Clean Water amendment. Coleman and Bachmann also displayed blaze orange "Sportsmen vote yes" placards in their Game Fair booths …”
But in the September 12 St. Cloud Times, Bachmann mouthpiece Sergio Gor flatly denied that Bachmann supported the Legacy Amendment:
“The Clark campaign said this week that Bachmann also supported the sales-tax amendment, citing a newspaper article from 2008. But Bachmann spokesman Sergio Gor said she never supported the tax.”
When informed that Bachmann claimed he was lying about her support for the amendment, Anderson responded in an email:
"I'm telling the truth, as a thousand or so other people can attest. She expressed her unqualified support for the amendment over the PA system at Game Fair in August 2008. (Star-Tribune outdoor writer) Ron Schara was the interviewer … Of course, that doesn't mean she didn't tell other people just the opposite.”
Once again, the truth and Michele Bachmann appear to be perfect strangers.
A footnote: The Legacy Amendment garnered 217,501 votes in the 6th Congressional District in 2008, while Bachmann herself received only 187,814 votes. In other words, 29,687 more 6th District voters voted to raise taxes on themselves than voted for Bachmann.
If anyone has photographic or audio evidence of Bachmann expressing her support for the 2008 corn-dog-tax-raising Legacy Amendment, feel free to forward it to DumpBachmann.
Then the mainstream media picked up on it:
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/102923419.html?page=3&c=yWASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, one of the GOP's leading anti-tax champions, scored political points in a recent ad accusing DFL challenger Tarryl Clark of voting to raise the state sales tax on corn dogs and just about anything else covered by Minnesota's 2008 conservation "legacy" amendment.
But the attack came as a surprise to a number of leading sportsmen's groups whose leaders had long counted Bachmann as a supporter of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment, a measure overwhelmingly approved by voters two years ago.
The so-called Legacy Amendment -- which raised the sales tax by 3/8 of 1 percent -- is now the subject of a bitter dispute between Bachmann's campaign, which says she opposes the measure, and a number of leading outdoorsmen, who say she publicly endorsed it in appearances before the Game Fair in Anoka, one as recently as last month.
Clark's campaign says it's either the "ultimate flip-flop," or Bachmann has turned her back on many of the same sportsmen who supported her in 2008.
Bachmann aides say there's been no change of heart.
"Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has made it clear that she did not support the Legacy Amendment," said spokesman Sergio Gor. "In fact, during her time in the state Legislature, she voted against a similar measure."
Bachmann aides say that as a member of the state Senate, she backed a measure to dedicate a portion of the existing sales tax to conservation.
But a number of outdoors writers and others who attended Game Fair in August 2008 say Bachmann told the annual gathering of hunting and fishing enthusiasts that she supported the constitutional amendment to raise the sales tax, later approved by 56 percent of voters, including a majority in Bachmann's district.
Ken Martin ran the Vote Yes Minnesota campaign in support of the Legacy Amendment and said he heard Bachmann's remarks at Game Fair. She "indicated her strong support" to enthusiastic applause from the group, he said. Martin's group then trumpeted her apparent support as evidence that, despite some Republican Party opposition, the measure had bipartisan support in the Minnesota delegation in Congress.
"It's bizarre that now that this whole thing has come up, she's trying to have her cake and eat it too," Martin said.
Paul Austin, executive director of Conservation Minnesota, which also backed the amendment, said Bachmann's expression of support was "widely discussed" among sportsmen's groups. "We thought, wow, that's great," he said. "If she was offended, she didn't say so."
Campaign ad
The issue was raised indirectly in a Bachmann campaign ad during last month's State Fair featuring "Jim the Election guy," a fictional character who criticized Clark, a state senator, for raising taxes "on your corn dog, and your deep-fried bacon and your beer."
The charge was based in part on Clark's vote in the Legislature to put the Legacy Amendment on the ballot. But the ad appeared shortly after Bachmann returned to the Game Fair in Anoka last month and, say the sportsmen, backed the Legacy Amendment.
"She brought it up," said "Minnesota Bound" TV host Ron Schara, who interviewed her over a public intercom. While he could not recall her exact words, Schara, a retired Star Tribune outdoors columnist, said she "inferred again her support for what this has accomplished."
Game Fair organizer Chuck Delaney said that while he didn't hear Bachmann's remarks, her presence at one of the nation's largest sportsmen's events was taken as tacit endorsement of the amendment. "These people are asking for the votes of sportsmen," he said. "So I'm sure they wouldn't come out here if they're against anything that sportsmen are for."
Schara and others say Bachmann was more explicit in her support at the Game Fair in 2008, when the Legacy Amendment was going on the ballot.
"As clearly as I remember anything, I remember Michele speaking in favor of the constitutional amendment," said Schara, who was hosting a public candidate forum that year as well. "I don't remember her exact words, only that she supported the effort because of her family. They do hunt and fish and enjoy the outdoors."
Schara noted that Bachmann's booth at the 2008 event displayed a blaze orange "Sportsmen vote yes" placard, and that he "vividly" remembers the congresswoman wearing a "vote yes" button prepared by Sportsmen for Change, which led the campaign to pass the amendment.
Garry Leaf, the group's executive director, said he also recalls the placard and Bachmann's button. Until now, Leaf said, he had believed Bachmann supported the amendment, which he called "the Number 1 issue for hunters and anglers in the past decade."
'She had a sign in her booth'
"I don't understand why there would be a dispute about it," said Don McMillan, president of the Minnesota Outdoor Heritage Alliance. "She had a sign in her booth supporting it."
But Gor said the placard was a misunderstanding. "A lot of times people just come up and throw stuff on our tables," he said. "If we don't take it off in time, someone can ... snap a picture or see it there."
Accounts of Bachmann's support for the Legacy Amendment were published before the 2008 election in Outdoor News and other Minnesota publications, including the Star Tribune. Outdoor News writer Ron Hustvedt Jr., who works for Game Fair, said his report was never challenged by Bachmann or anyone else.
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