Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne says Colorado Republicans and Walker Stapleton’s campaign are twisting her words, and she isn’t happy about it.

Lynne ran for governor this year but lost the Democratic nomination to U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, finishing fourth in a four-way primary. Stapleton won the Republican nomination for governor in an equally crowded primary.

Lynn tells Colorado Politics she didn’t say what the state GOP and Stapleton are claiming she said in a quote they’ve been sending around for a couple of months attacking Polis.

Trail Mix gets it. It’s silly season – the final month before votes are counted in what could qualify as the most impassioned and divisive election cycles in memory.

Although it no doubt disappoints Gov. John Hickenlooper, who must feel like jumping in the shower fully clothed every time he turns on the TV these days, negative attacks have been the currency of politics for years, on all sides.

Various “truth tests” conducted by local media outlets have had a field day this year, debunking claims and determining just how long Pinocchio’s nose is growing.

But in one instance during the primary, Stapleton came under scrutiny for declaring he was the “only [state] treasurer in the country with the courage to support” the Republican tax legislation that passed late last year, even though several other GOP state treasurers also had been vocal with their support.

For weeks, Stapleton refused to back down and compounded the misleading claim – a primary opponent and TV station called it a “lie” – when he asserted in a debate that he didn’t “think the semantics of being ‘one of or the first’ or ‘the first’ are really meaningful,” despite the words “only” and “first” having distinctly different meanings.

Usually there’s a kernel of accuracy or enough vagueness in the phrasing – the people who craft some of these attacks are pros, and some of them probably consult attorneys – that even the furthest stretches can be explained, and the wildest conclusions can be defended as someone’s opinion.

After the primary, Lynne sat down with Westword for a lengthy interview to discuss the race and lamented how hard it is to communicate detailed policy proposals amid the bluster of a modern campaign.

In one long passage in that interview, quoted below in its entirety, Lynne broke it down:

“But in a campaign, you can say anything. You can say, ‘I’m going to give you free this or free that,’ without any sense of reality about what our voters in Colorado have done with respect to tax increases over the past 25 years. A candidate can appeal to voters by saying they’re going to give them free something. So it’s not only about the way campaigns are financed. Maybe it’s also about how we get our information and how much time reporters can actually spend saying, ‘Here are the real differences in education policy, on marijuana policy, on whatever.’ That’s as much of a concern as the amounts of money that are being spent.”

Before long, five words from Lynne’s thoughtful discussion started showing up in press releases and statements issued by the GOP and Stapleton’s campaign.

“Lieutenant Governor Donna Lynne thinks Congressman Polis appeals to voters by promising ‘free this or free that’ but lacks the policy details to back up his claims,” quoth Daniel Cole, the state Republicans’ communications director, in an Aug. 6 release. He later repeated the same five-word phrase in other releases blasting Polis.

Asked by Colorado Politics why he maintained Lynne’s quote was about Polis, Cole responded in an email: “She’s clearly contrasting her thoughtful campaign with someone else’s; and the someone that description best fits is Polis. It’s true she doesn’t name him, but the implication is pretty clear.”

Stapleton’s communications director, Jerrod Dobkin, released a statement with roughly the same formulation, casting Lynne’s “free this or free that” wording as an attack on Polis – echoing a drumbeat of criticism the Republican campaign has rained down on the Democrat’s campaign.

Then, after the phrase appeared in a statement from Stapleton campaign manager Michael Fortney in response to a question about a series of upcoming gubernatorial debates, Colorado Politics asked Dobkin whether the campaign stood by its contention Lynne was referring to Polis, when the ample context suggested otherwise.

He said the campaign was sticking with it.

In an interview, Lynne sounded equal parts exasperated and amused at the Republicans’ insistence.

“It was about the influence of money in general,” she said. “It was totally not about Jared Polis. It wasn’t addressed to any specific candidate.”

Lynne said she thought it was clear she was talking about how nuanced policy discussions – including sometimes complicated explanations about how to pay for proposals – can easily get drowned out by the vast sums of money spent on advertising that’s anything but nuanced.

“It was a generic conversation about campaign finance,” she said, “The [article] was based on both the direct expenditures and soft money that was raised and spent – not just in this election but in general.”

Lynne said the millions of dollars spent by candidates and groups that back them – in any election – should alarm voters.

“There were candidates on the Republican side doing the same thing. There were people writing their campaigns big checks and raising unlimited amounts of money before they declared they were running,” she said, noting that Stapleton came under fire for encouraging contributions to his super PAC before he made his run official.

The episode left her frustrated, Lynne added, chuckling at the irony of her detailed discussion about the difficulty of having detailed discussions refashioned into an example of the problem she was describing.

“They’re really pulling things about of context and adding 1 plus 1 and getting 7,” she said.