August 20, 2009 03:42 PM UTC

Cory Gardner struggles with Obama birth question

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• by: BobMoore

(Oh no, Gardner’s a “birther” too? We had such high hopes for him. – promoted by Colorado Pols)

UPDATE 1: The audio from the Wednesday night meeting can be heard here: http://www.coloradoan.com/apps… 1221097202

UPDATE 2: Campaign manager says Gardner believes Obama “most likely” a citizen. http://www.coloradoan.com/arti…

Cory Gardner, the frontrunner for the 4th Congressional District Republican nomination, answered a question about President Obama’s birthplace Wednesday night by saying “the administration is trying to say he was born in this country.”

Gardner struggled as he responded to this question at a town-hall meeting in Fort Collins: “Do you know for a fact if Barack Obama was born in the United States?”

After initially trying to parry the question with a joke — “I don’t know if you were born in this country” — Gardner waded in. Deep.

“Based on what they’ve shown, what they’ve tried to say, I think the administration is trying to say he was born in this country. I know what everybody else knows.”

By this time it became clear the questioner was a Democrat. The man, who didn’t give his name, followed up: “My question is, my question is then why do so many Republicans refuse to believe that he was born in this country?”

That led to calls from the audience of “Show me the birth certificate.”

For a transcript of the exchange (and hopefully soon an audio file) see my Coloradoan blog here: http://bit.ly/7eTyG