[Vision2020] Vaughn Ward . . . and The Rest of the Story (Part 1)

[Tom Hansen]

Hmmm.

Plagiarism . . . must be one of them conservative principles that Rex
Rammell keeps touting.

Courtesy of today's (May 14, 2010) Spokesman-Review.

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Ward’s statements have familiar ring
Betsy Z. Russell
The Spokesman-Review

Tags: 2010 election idaho elections idaho politics

BOISE – Five of the 10 position statements Idaho congressional candidate
Vaughn Ward has touted as his own on a campaign website are word-for-word
identical to statements on other candidates’ and congressmen’s sites.

The apparent duplications included a reference to “my roadmap
legislation,” which actually was introduced by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of
Wisconsin, whose campaign website contains an identical paragraph.

Others include Ward’s statement on tax relief, which is a repeat of a
statement on the campaign website of third-term U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis,
R-Kentucky.

Half of his statement on health care matches a Jan. 7, 2009, Wall Street
Journal article by U.S. Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia. And his entire
statement on “Definition of Marriage/Family Issues” matches a statement
posted on the website of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., with such minor
changes as substituting “I believe” for “Sen. Jim DeMint believes.”

Within a half-hour after a reporter called Ward’s campaign Thursday with
questions about the position statements, all links to them on his campaign
website were disabled. Ryan O’Barto, Ward’s campaign spokesman, initially
blamed the campaign’s Web vendor for the duplications. “Our Web vendor
just posted the wrong thing,” O’Barto told The Spokesman-Review. “The new
issues will be up today, and what it should have been. It was just a
technical error.”

Ward, in an interview, said, “You’re looking at something that is
completely raw. You’re looking at clippings of ideas that were spliced
into there, it was being edited. But the people that were editing it put
in the wrong stuff.”

He added, “It’s being fixed, the content’s moving over, the right stuff’s
getting on there.”

On the website, original position statements on business tax incentives,
limited government, guns, abortion and immigration were intermixed with
the duplicative statements on tax relief, jobs, trade, health care and
marriage. Asked who made the small changes – such as substituting “people
of Idaho” for “people of Wisconsin’s 2nd District” in the jobs statement,
and subbing “I will fight against” for “I have fought against” in a trade
statement that otherwise matches one from Wisconsin Rep. Ryan, Ward had no
firm answer.

“I don’t know how that occurred,” he said. “I have a team of people, these
are all volunteers, people take a look at stuff,” he said. “I say, ‘Hey,
guys, how does this sound to you? How does this grab you?’ ”

He added that he’s “always reading different thoughts out there, from Newt
Gingrich to the Heritage Foundation, a whole slew of people that I take a
look at all the time.”

Asked if the statements on his website for the past months actually
represented his positions, Ward said they did in content. “This is about
style vs. content,” he said. “I mean, how many ways can you say, ‘I
support Second Amendment rights?’ How many ways can I say, ‘I support
returning jobs back to small business and cutting waste and
over-regulation?’ ”

Ward said he hasn’t read Rep. Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future”
legislation, versions of which Ryan proposed both in 2008 and again this
year. In Ward’s statement on trade, which includes the reference to “my
roadmap legislation,” the first two sentences match statements on the
website of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska, while the rest matches Ryan’s
campaign website, including this sentence: “My roadmap legislation would
level the playing field for American-made goods and services in the
international marketplace.”

“Obviously I don’t have any legislation,” Ward said. “That was in a draft
status.”

Ward also said he’s not necessarily a backer of 2009 legislation to
establish “tax-exempt individual development accounts,” though that
concept was touted in his tax relief statement. He said he wasn’t familiar
with the bill.

In Ward’s issue statement on jobs and small business, one sentence matches
the website of GOP congressional challenger Sean Duffy of Wisconsin, who’s
running for the seat being vacated by retiring 7th District Democratic
Rep. David Obey; while nearly all of the rest matches a jobs statement on
the website of Wisconsin 2nd District GOP congressional challenger Chad
Lee.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown