The time-tested aphorism “politics ain’t beanbag” was reaffirmed today when liberal political blogger Raf Noboa resigned his less than week-old position on Jared Polis’ congressional campaign over a fiery, and unauthorized, blog post that criticized fellow CD-2 candidates.The post featured official campaign news from the Polis camp on the prominent national blog OpenLeft.com, as well as other sites. It was also interspersed with Noboa’s personal observations on what he viewed as the electoral shortcomings of Sen. Joan Fitz-Gerald (D-Clear Creek) and political newcomer Will Shafroth as well as frequent progressive blogger targets, Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. John Salazar.
A firestorm of controversy ensued in the press and on the blogs with Noboa announcing his resignation in a subsequent post soon thereafter.
The Polis campaign disavowed Noboa’s remarks in a press release issued early this afternoon:
The staffer resigned this morning after violating internal policies that plainly state nothing is sent to the public without being cleared by Wanda James, Polis’ Campaign Manager. On top of the unfortunate negative comments, the blog entry contained numerous factual errors.
“The tone of the blog post was clearly not the philosophy of our campaign” states James. “Jared has had a long standing relationship with all of the Democrats who were mentioned in the blog post and we will not participate in this type of negative campaigning.”
Neither Fitz-Gerald, Shafroth nor Salazar have responded publicly to the post. Campaign manager James stated that Polis called each of the individuals targeted in the post to personally apologize.
Noboa is a well-known activist on the national blogging scene as a “Fighting Dem” who obtained the rank of sergeant in the U.S. Army, 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division at Ft. Carson. He served in Iraq from April 2003 – March 2004.
