Controversy erupts in Colorado's hotly contested 8th Congressional District Race
Rep. Yadira Caraveo, the Democratic incumbent who represents Colorado's 8th Congressional District, accused her Republican challenger Gabe Evans of not sufficiently condemning an antisemitic post made by his political director. Evans fired Jessica Spindle, who also serves on the Weld County Board of Education, after learning about the posts from a story in the Colorado Times Recorder.
His campaign released a statement saying:
"Gabe fully rejects the offensive material contained in those social media posts. That's why he acted immediately upon learning of them."
The situation was a topic on this week's Left, Right, Center led by CBS News Colorado political reporter Shaun Boyd.
"So, Dick, is the statement enough?" Boyd asked CBS Colorado Republican political analyst Dick Wadhams.
"Yes," Wadhams replied. "I think Gabe responded immediately. He fired her. He condemned it, and that's plenty. This is just Caraveo trying to make a story out of it that goes longer."
Wadhams pointed out that most of the time candidates know the people they hire for their campaigns, even if background checks are not done. Spindle's election to the Weld County Board of Education was a time when these post could have surfaced, but didn't.
CBS Colorado Democratic analyst Mike Dino agreed that Evans handled the situation appropriately and quickly; and that it should be a non-issue at this point. Dino indicated that in the campaigns he's worked on most of the staff and volunteers are not vetted very thoroughly.
"You kind of go by word of mouth. I've had to let people go because of that. In one of the mayoral campaigns in Denver, our opponent ... we went back to one of his staff people who published a paper in college that had some stuff that wasn't great; and so, everything in a campaign can be fair game," Dino said.
Dino said that campaigns will likely never have enough money to do deep background checks on staff. Wadhams pointed out that they might have to now that social media is a factor.
