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August 04, 2016 06:02 PM UTC

Mike Coffman Just Imploded

  • 50 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE #2: Annnnddd….then it gets so much worse:

—–

UPDATE: Story now up from 9News:

We followed up with Coffman on Thursday and found that’s not precisely the case. Instead, Coffman is walking a fine line and saying that he’s undecided in the presidential race.

While the ad is intended to showcase a stance against the leader of his party, Coffman stopped short of disavowing Trump’s candidacy in a telephone interview with 9NEWS.

—–

What's that, now?
What’s that, now?

Remember that story this morning about that anti-Trump TV commercial that features Rep. Mike Coffman? The ad isn’t even on television yet, and Coffman is already backpedaling, as Brandon Rittiman reports for 9News.

You can read our original post about Coffman’s Trump dance for more background, but to really understand how totally bizarre this has become, we thought it would be helpful to give you a quick timeline of the words coming out of Team Coffman today:

1. Mike Coffman, in a preview of his new TV ad released to the press:

“People ask me, ‘What do you think about Trump? Honestly, I don’t care for him much.”

2. A bit later, Coffman’s spokesperson, Cinamon Watson, had this to say about Coffman’s thoughts on the Presidential election:

Watson said Thursday that “Hillary Clinton is not an option” and that Coffman will not vote for her. She did not directly answer whether he has ruled out voting for Trump. He “is considering his options — like a lot of Americans,” she said in an email.

3. And here’s what Coffman apparently just told Brandon Rittiman at 9News:

Rittiman: Would you rule out supporting Donald Trump for President?

Coffman: No.

There you have it, folks. This is how an incumbent member of Congress loses his re-election campaign.

 

 

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50 thoughts on “Mike Coffman Just Imploded”

    1. Except Coffman never said he was for Trump at all.  Rubio, Kasich, or Cruz, yes… but not Trump.  You really need to read other sources than just this website. Rough day, itlduso?

      1. Is Ms. Strohm a rogue staffer?

        "Will Mike Coffman support the Republican nominee over Bernie or Hillary?’ said campaign spokeswoman Kristin Strohm. ‘The answer is obviously yes.’” [Colorado Statesman, 2/02/16] 

  5. So Mike Coffman said he "doesn't like Trump and doesn't trust Hillary?"  I'd say that puts him with much of America.  How did the party of Lincoln and Reagan, and the party of FDR and JFK, sink this low to, respectively, come up with two such pathetic presidential candidates?

    Morgan Carroll played hide and seek with her presidential pick until the Democrats actually nominated Hillary Clinton, who raised eyebrows by making the person, DWS, who rigged the system against Sanders… the candidate whom Colorado Democrats actually wanted… her honorary national campaign chairman.  Now, Carroll has double downed on the presidential nominee the FBI vetted and found to be "careless and untruthful."  That's just the kind of person we want with her finger on the button, right?

    If this were 2014 and Andrew Romanoff was the Democratic nominee, Coffman might have something to worry about.  But Carroll is not as charismatic a candidate as Romanoff, is not as well known as Romanoff, and sure can't raise money anywhere near as well as Romanoff.

    Her campaign is all but invisible.  She starts out blaming Coffman for the executive branch debacle at the VA hospital site in Aurora, when it was actually the responsibility of VA Secretary Bob McDonald and his boss, Barack Obama.  Then, Coffman, Bennet, and Gardner get the funding together to complete the project and Coffman gets the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in to do the construction.  Meanwhile, the VA sits on the Inspector General's report on how this mess happened, not willing to release it to the public or even Congress, while the POTUS remains silent.  In any event, that campaign issue has fizzled out.  

    Carroll then tries to make like Coffman is just like Trump, but Coffman's highly visible three years of outreach to minority communities in his district belies that absurdity.  The Republican's current campaign ad pretty much blows it out of the water completely.  If Carroll still tries to proceed with that line of attack, she is going to be perceived as being pretty clueless.  Frankly, the Democrat is not well known outside of Aurora and is not especially well liked within Aurora outside of her own state Senate district.

    I think your hope that Coffman's campaign has imploded is misguided.  I'd be more concerned that Carroll's campaign has repeatedly misfired and is beginning to appear to be inept. 

    Watch for the first part of  October.  If the DCCC starts pulling its money out of this race, as they did with Romanoff in 2014, then you will know the party is over for Democrats in the 6th CD. 

     

    1. Coffman does bear some responsibility for the VA hospital construction debacle. Literally, he was a member or Chairman of one or more Congressional Veterans Affairs  Oversight and Investigations Committees since 2011. During those six years, Coffman has scolded, held numerous press conferences, blamed everyone except his own oversight, promoted dramatic "nuclear" solutions such as fire the contractors, withhold all VA bonuses.

      No on site visits, no detailed perusals of the design, no actual advocacy for the veterans who need the facility to be up and running NOW. Did you know that the new design has no psychiatric wing? Seems it was an "oversight". It was in the original design, but was cut out of the revised design.

      No. the VA hospital issue has not "fizzled out", much to your chagrin as an obvious Coffman surrogate. You were never a Bernie Sanders voter. You would never have voted for Romanoff. You bring up these names because you hope to aggravate existing Democratic divisions.

      I could say more, but I'll let the rest of the Polsters pile on instead.

       

       

       

       

      1. If the Aurora VA hospital debacle is the barometer of this congressional race, then Morgan Carroll is toast.  Coffman has been the chair of the House VA Oversight & Investigations Committee since 2013 and has been on this issue since then.  Just ask the VA.  Veterans know who has stood up for them, as do whistle blowers in the VA.  There is nothing some fast talking lawyer can tell them that is going to change their minds.

        No psychiatric wing?  Well, the VA planned a beautiful atrium with imported marble and a curved hallway instead.  This is why the VA never should have been allowed to build this hospital in the first place.

        The bottom line is that this project has been the responsibility of the Obama administration from the very beginning.  Yet, the president has spent more time talking about Syrian refugees, making a bad nuclear deal with Iran, and pushing the TPP than speaking out about any of the corruption and incompetence of the VA.  Obviously, Harry Truman's "The Buck Stops Here" mantra doesn't exist with Barack Obama when it comes to our nation's veterans.  This will always be one of the greatest failures of the Obama presidency.

        No, I was not a Bernie Sanders voter.  (I can do math; he can't.)  No, I did not vote for Romanoff because veterans are my #1 issue and that doesn't seem to be much of a priority of Democrats.  (I took great offense at Andrew co-opting the groundbreaking ceremony for the Colorado Freedom, in 2013, to stage his candidacy for the 6th CD.) 

        So… disagreeing with the left wing commune here automatically makes me a Coffman surrogate?  I guess you are the folks that still need "safe zones," "trigger warnings," and counselors when you read an opinion that differs from your own. 

        1. disagreeing with the left wing commune here automatically makes me a Coffman surrogate?  

          No…of course not. That just makes you a twit. It is your rhetoric that makes you a Coffman surrogate.

          2. yesyes

            Yeah, Skivvy is a Coffman shill.  How you doin' with that 'Obama isn't an American' thing, Skivvy?  Did they leave that out of your talking points?

            1. Give the Green Zone Troll a little slack, V. He/she/it is trying to deflect now (in another thread), pretending to care whether Tipton is going to show up at a Drumpf rally in CD-3.  

            3. Well, the actual quote was "In his heart, he's not an American"  and it had nothing to do with Obama's birthplace or citizenship.  It had to do with the president reducing the size of the U.S. military uniformed personnel and replacing them with civilian Department of Defense employees, therefore, negatively impacting the readiness of our combat forces.  But I guess you lost the entire speech in an e-mail on Hillary's private server. 

                    2. Never mind, guys. I'm just seeing the words "how cute" and taking it for a compliment! wink

              2. Um, then why bring his birthplace up?  It was a speech, not a question and answer session.  If you don't question where he was born, there's no reason to bring up where he was born, right?  Strange also, that if he's relating the comment only to military spending that he delivers it after he's done talking about that, and when he's on to Obama's divisiveness and the failure of his economic policies.

                I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that,” Coffman said. “But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.

                1. I believe he was being dismissive of the point because questioning of Obama's birthplace or citizenship, which was common in some GOP circles back then, was a waste of time. 

                  Can you produce anything that shows Coffman saying Barack Obama was not born in the United States or is not a U.S. citizen?  Of course not.

                  (Even if Obama had been born in Kenya — which I do not believe — his mother was a U.S. citizen, which would have made him a natural born citizen.)

                  The point was the president's willingness to reduce our combat readiness was very much unAmerican.

                  But it is nice that Morgan's backers have to go back four years to dig up material that no one cares about anymore.

                   

                  1. Can you produce anything that shows Coffman saying Barack Obama was not born in the United States or is not a U.S. citizen?  Of course not.

                    Can you produce any evidence to support your contention that Coffman "was being dismissive of the point because questioning of Obama's birthplace or citizenship, which was common in some GOP circles back then, was a waste of time?"  Of course not.

                    There was no reason to bring up the President’s origins at all if all he wanted to say was that it was un-American not to give the military what Coffman thought they were entitled to. “Not supporting our armed forces with the money I think they should get is un-American.” See?

        2. Disagreeing gets you debate and argument, civics. You know, freedom of expression, all that? 1st amendment, the one before the Sacred Second?

          I still think that you're a Coffman surrogate. Either you reacted to Pols' diaries about Coffman's trying to put out his Trumpster fires, or you showed up in response to my inquiries to Coffman's office regarding the diary I'm writing about the VA hospital. So we'll take what you say with a generous sprinkling of salt, thanks.

          Anyway, Mike Coffman only has a C rating from the largest and most modern veteran's organization, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). This is because Mr. Coffman tends to vote down functioning government and service improvements that are real priorities of veterans. Coffman's good at posturing and pretending, calling press conferences, declaring that heads must roll to fix the VA. In terms of honest oversight and problem solving, or voting  to solve the problems of veterans, not so much.

          Like you, Coffman is great at blaming Obama. But when you chair the freaking committee that's supposed to provide oversight for VA hospitals, as Mike Coffman does, you can't exactly escape the responsibility for the disaster for veterans that is the VA hospital construction project.

           

          1. Well, I'm sure that that C beats out any rating the president got. Besides, veterans in the 6th CD rank Coffman considerably higher than that.  It's not like they feel like they can rely on Barack Obama.

            This president hasn't bothered to use his bully pulpit to demand the VA do its job to help veterans.  It was the executive branch that let the finances on the VA hospital balloon to over a billion dollars and the Congress — mainly through the efforts of Coffman, Bennet, and Gardner — to get the funding to get the job done.  VA officials, repeatedly lied to Congress, about the project's cost and progress with impunity.  If you are waiting for local veterans to blame Coffman for the Obama administration's negligence, you are in for a long wait.  While oversight committees are, indeed, supposed to keep on eye on the executive branch, that does not relieve the administration's responsibility to do the job right in the first place and for their officials to testify truthfully, when under oath, before Congress. 

          2. Well, of course, you're wrong, dear.  I was posting about the VA incompetence, on this website, back in March of 2015.  I do have serious reservations about your ability to write an objective diary about the VA hospital.

            You don't even understand that the debacle of the VA hospital, as well as the whole incompetent and corrupt VA system, goes back to the president and his two VA secretaries.  The agency is part of the executive branch, not the legislative branch. 

            If you are not bothered by the refusal of the VA to release its own IG report, on this disaster, to the public, the media, or even the Congress, then I doubt anything you're writing will be taken seriously by anyone who is familiar with the situation.  Didn't the Obama administration promise to be the most transparent one ever?   

            Blaming the president about the VA is easy.  Many veterans do it.  The president's indifference to the plight of veterans has resulted in the deaths of many of their comrades.

            An oversight committee's function is to investigate and call out discrepancies, incompetency, and corruption.  It's up to the executive branch to correct those screw ups.  If the legislative branch had the authority, this hospital would have been built, and VA officials would have been criminally charged and definitely fired.  It's clear the current administration could care less.  The question is, do you?

            1. Civics, You probably already saw these questions through the Coffman press secretary, but if you do care about me writing an "objective diary", please answer these questions for Representative Coffman:

              1.When did you realize that the redesigned va hospital had no psychiatric wing? (When was the psychiatric rehabilitation wing scrapped from the design, and when did you become aware of it?)

              2. What do you think should be done to provide psychiatric care for veterans at this point? There is now an additional 550,000 sq ft needed, bringing total costs of the facility to 1.73 billion if the psych rehab wing is included. The Obama administration has proposed funding this from the VA "efficiency" fund. Will Coffman agree to this Obama proposal, or block it?

              3.Why was there no attempt to incorporate psychiatric care into the revised design? What was the rationale for denying veterans this care?

               

      1. Well, maybe it should.  From the 8-5-16 front page story from the Denver Post:

        Denver-based independent political analyst Eric Sondermann said so far the Trump connection seems to be the sole thrust of her campaign.

        “It seems as though Morgan’s strategy is to wait by the railroad tracks for the Donald Trump train to derail, so she can pick up the pieces,” Sondermann said.

        Waiting for something bad to happen, before doing anything, is what one expects from a personal injury lawyer.  It's not a campaign strategy that compels many people to donate to a floundering cause.

    4. At the risk of reading your comment a third time and getting mental whiplash …

      Now, Carroll has double downed on the presidential nominee the FBI vetted and found to be "careless and untruthful."  That's just the kind of person we want with her finger on the button, right? 

      So you believe Hillary's finger shouldn’t be on the button, thus Trump's stubby finger should? 

       

      1. No, I don't.  That what makes America's choice for president, in 2016, so pathetic.  Neither of these candidates are trustworthy enough to be president.

        The only good thing about this election is that, based on Clinton's and Trump's unpopularity and ages, we are looking at a one term president.  Neither one of them stands much of a chance of reelection. 

         

        1. Hillary will be a more than competent President. Unlike the Republican Ilk that preceded her and presently deploy their 24/7, fact-free rage machine against her, I do believe (and it will be at times to my chagrin) she will be a President for everyone. That means she's probably going to make decisions I won't be happy with from time-to-time. 

          I'm not holding my breath the know-nothing party will have their act together by 2020 to competently challenge her re-election machine. I do hope the Sanders movement remains intact and keeps her feet to the fire on the platform issues. Progressives owe Bernie a debt of gratitude for changing the conversation on social, educational and economic issues. 

          3. Seriously, what presidential candidate, from either party, sticks to their party's platform?  Between Obama and Hillary, you can be sure there is a TPP in our future.  What makes you think she has changed her mind on trade deals?  Now, that Bernie is out of the way, you can be sure she's thinking "What does it matter now?" 

            Re-election machine for either Hillary or Trump?  I seriously doubt it.  Either one will enter office with the lowest approval ratings for a new president, face a hostile Congress (for different reasons), and be — respectively — 73 and 74 before Election Day in 2020.  We all have seen how the presidency ages every occupant prematurely.

            Frankly, I do not care about the contents of Hillary's $225K speeches to Goldman Sachs or Trump's tax returns.  I would much rather see their health records.  Fortunately, I do believe that both Tim Kaine and Mike Pence are decent men, who could actually step in and do the job if called upon.  I just wish those two were the actual presidential nominees, instead of the flawed candidates were are stuck with.

            1. You do realize that platforms are goals and Presidents don't legislate? But there's no point discussing anything with such an obvious troll. I don't take you seriously enough to respond to you anymore. Have fun trolling.  

        3. If Coffman thinks Trump is so untrustworthy, why did he echo Trump's "Iran ransom for hostages" claim in a fundraising email? Spin that.

          From the Aurora Sentinel:

          Aurora Rep. Mike Coffman echoes Trump’s Iran ransom claim in campaign email

          Trump lied about everything associated with this video. Yet Mike Coffman just repeated Trump's words, almost verbatim. The fundraising email hit Aurora mailboxes the same day the "I don't like Trump very much" ad hit TV screens.

          “Payments like this will only serve to put a target on the backs of our soldiers, as terrorist organizations and rogue states everywhere will seek similar windfalls,” Coffman’s email read. Associated Press fact checks of Trump's claim have found no concrete evidence to support it.

  6. Coffman once again can't decide what is more beneficial to him… straddling the fence. Heck! I thought by what I first read, this guy is really thinking and getting that he can't back Trump because he's smart enough to know his district. So much for trying to speak Spanish, Mike, kiss it goodbye or adios. Back that racist candidate for Prez – you'll lose voters in every spectrum. Oh and no you can't keep sitting on the barbwire, hurts really, really badly in the crotch. 

     

  9. Pols has a tendency to make hysterical proclamations on the state of races months before election day (see: Gardner, 2014). Regular people aren't paying attention to this story. Trump overall is likely to be a pull on Coffman's chances in the district, because Hispanics will show up to vote against him – and likely other Republicans on the ballot. If Carroll can capitalize on that, she still has a strong chance to defeat him. How's that for analysis?

  11. Civics 101 decides that Obama is responsible for a major decline in the combat readiness of the US military and said inaction is "un-American." Maybe Civics 101 needs to look at the Congress which continues to authorize ships and planes that aren't wanted or needed by the brass. We're in process of working up another super carrier which will be a sitting duck; like our other carriers; for Chinese ship-killer missiles. What about the big boondoggle known as the F-35 fighter?

    Congress also refuses to authorize another round of base closures for disposing of unneeded bases. And if our military is so under-prepared, why do we spend as much on defense as the next ten largest country defense budgets combined? In recent years, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has called for an audit of the Pentagon, but that has never happened. Why is it, Civics 101, that Paul can't make any headway on this when every other government agency, including the VA with its Aurora hospital, is subject to such audits?

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