U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman talks about construction of the Veterans Affairs hospital in Aurora. (Brent Lewis/The Denver Post)
Aurora Congressman Mike Coffman paid Republican Ben Carson $15,000 to speak at a fundraiser, according to a Wall Street Journal story reporting that the GOP presidential candidate and his wife earned between $8.9 million and $27 million in a recent 16-month period.
Now that Coffman has announced won’t run for the U.S. Senate but will again seek re-election in the 6th District, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee immediately went to work to . The group works to elect Democrats to Congress and is itching to unseat Coffman. Democrats thought that they had redrawn the seat after the 2010 census to make it competitive enough to kick out the Republican but Coffman has .
The DCCC says the speech is another reason to be skeptical of the shift.
“After years of running to the right, embracing the birther movement and paying the extremely controversial Ben Carson thousands of dollars, Mike Coffman has been attempting a fake moderate rebrand to keep his seat. Voters will see right through that,” said Tyler Law, press secretary for the Mountain West Region of the DCCC.
Responded Coffman spokesman Tyler Sandberg: “They said that all last cycle and their No. 1 recruit in the country got steamrolled by 9 points.”
Ouch!
Coffman defeated former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff in what was in the country. Carson spoke at Coffman fundraiser last year.
The DCCC also called out Carson for what it called his homophobic and anti-veteran comments. , Carson said he believed being gay was a choice, saying “a lot of people who go into prison straight, and when they come out they’re gay.” The retired neurosurgeon also called the Veterans Affairs waiting list scandal saying it showed the problems of having layers of bureacracy.
Those stances don’t reflect Coffman’s views.
The only member of Congress to have served in both Iraqi wars, he was the first member to . Coffman cited his work on behalf of veterans, when he declined to run for the Senate, saying, “The fact is, I’m really able to get things done where I am right now. I’ve emerged as a national leader on veterans’ issues.”
Coffman is the first Colorado Republican running for federal office to be . And he was for denying vendor space to the gay-GOP group because of its support for gay marriage.
