Dems red-faced over veteran imposter
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_12373595WASHINGTON — Rick Strandlof, executive director of the Colorado Veterans Alliance and the man most colleagues knew as Rick Duncan, was front and center during the 2008 political campaigns in Colorado.
He spoke at a Barack Obama veterans rally in front of the Capitol in July, co-hosted several events with then- congressional candidate Jared Polis and attacked Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer in a TV ad paid for by the national group Votevets.org.
And the mostly Democratic candidates he supported — looking for credibility on veterans issues and the war — lapped it up appreciatively.
Now, politicians are dealing with news that the man they believed to be a former Marine and war veteran wounded in Iraq by a roadside bomb, in fact, never served in the military — but did spend time in a mental hospital.
Many of the candidates he supported won their elections handily and now say they were defrauded as much as anyone else.
"His fraud is a slap in the face to veterans everywhere and a betrayal to us all," Rep. Polis, a Boulder Democrat, said in a written statement Thursday.
"It sounds like this man had a problem telling the truth and needs help," said Tara Trujillo, a spokeswoman for Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo.
There is little doubt that Strandlof had a remarkable ability to fool people, something aided by the fact that among his fabrications was his claim that he suffered a severe brain injury, which helped cover behavior that associates now concede was often erratic and strange.
But there were also plenty of signs during much of the time Strandlof was working on behalf of candidates for anyone watching carefully.
CVA wasn't registered as a political organization until well after the campaigns were over, and then only at the state level despite being active in federal campaigns.
And although he claimed to represent 32,000 veterans — the biggest post- 9/11 vets group in Colorado — Strandlof always showed up at events with the same small number of supporters, and there were few concrete signs he represented more than a close circle he had gathered around him.
"Nobody really fully trusted any of those numbers. . . . He had a few dozen people who were helping him out. He claimed to have a huge mailing list that no one ever saw. The VFW, the American Legion, none of those traditional veterans groups had ever heard of him," said one prominent veterans activist who worked for Democratic candidates during the campaign and who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The veterans community was very protective over him because he had portrayed himself as a wounded veteran. This is someone who claimed spending 18 months undergoing physical rehabilitation after suffering debilitating injuries. . . . You don't go at somebody like that hard," the activist said. "Perhaps we learned a good lesson here."
Republicans say the candidates Strandlof supported are either disingenuous or incompetent.
"I think they owe the people in Colorado an apology," said Dick Wadhams, the state GOP chairman. "Somebody who took that kind of prominence in the campaign should have been vetted by the Democrats. Even if they have no idea he was a fraud, I think they bear heavy responsibility."
Strandlof did manage to fool at least one Republican.
Strandlof was on the veterans advisory board for Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado Springs in 2007, and he resigned, saying he didn't support the Republican administration's stance on the war.
And Wadhams, who directed Schaffer's campaign, said that Republicans missed a chance as well to uncover Strandlof, conceding that if his fraud had been revealed during the campaign, it would have "severely hurt Udall and other Democrats."
Representatives for both Udall and Polis said Strandlof didn't directly work or volunteer for either campaign.
In Udall's case, Strandlof appeared in an ad paid for by an independent political group that was legally barred from communicating or coordinating with the Democrat's campaign. (Jon Soltz, head of Votevets.org., said in a statement that his group usually checks the credentials of veterans used in ads but didn't in this case "because he was already a well-established leader of a veterans group in Colorado.")
In Polis' case, the relationship was closer. Strandlof and his group co-hosted what his staff described as "a handful" of events with Polis, including a party highlighting a "Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq" held during the Democratic National Convention.
"There is a lot of hearsay, and Rick Duncan claims he's best buddies with Jared — which is not true," said Polis spokeswoman Lara Cottingham. She said Strandlof came to the campaign offering help, and they were glad to have it.
The Polis and Udall campaigns emphasize that Strandlof was a bizarre exception to the outpouring of help they received from veterans disillusioned with Bush-era policies.
"His actions in no way reflect on the credibility of real veterans who supported Mark's campaign or on the importance of their issues," said Trujillo, Udall's spokeswoman.
According to The Associated Press, CVA's board on Wednesday night decided that the group would disband in the wake of news that Duncan was actually Strandlof.
