Apparently contradicting her spokesman’s statement to CBS4 political specialist Shaun Boyd, gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Coffman told a radio station last week that, in fact, she’s not pro-choice and refuses to “accept a label” on the abortion issue.
The topic came up on KCOL after guest host Karen Kataline asked Coffman directly about Boyd’s report that Coffman is pro-choice and pro-gay rights.
“Shaun didn’t ask me about that,” Coffman replied. “So, I was surprised as most people to hear that.”
But Boyd asked Coffman’s campaign if they wanted to correct her report that Coffman was pro-choice, and a campaign spokesperson declined the offer.
Pressed by Kataline about whether she said she was pro-choice when she ran for her current position of Colorado attorney general, Coffman said:
Coffman: No! No, I didn’t. I refused to accept a label. And I still do, because I — like many people, I think have opinions about this complicated issue that are somewhere not on either end of the spectrum. I personally would not choose abortion. I would choose life. But I also believe that this is settled law from the United States Supreme Court. And unless that law changes at some point, we have to follow it. Because we are a rule-of-the-law nation. And that’s what my position is, as Attorney General, and would be as Governor.
Boyd’s initial report that Coffman is pro-choice drew an angry response from conservative talk radio hosts, leading KNUS’ Dan Caplis to say she wouldn’t have been elected AG if she’d come out as pro-choice.
Asked if she did not support the Obamacare repeal, Coffman said, “No. I didn’t even take a position publicly.”
“We need to fix Obamacare,” she said. “People are extraordinarily frustrated, as am I, with Congress, and particularly with the United States Senate, that they are unable after all this time talking about it to come up with a plan that they can get a majority vote on.”
Elsewhere in the KCOL interview, Coffman said her GOP primary opponent Tom Tancredo “goes too far” in an “effort to get people’s attention.”
Coffman described Tancredo as “entertaining” but not “constructive” and “not what people want; people want a serious candidate who will talk about all the issues.”
“This is not a single issue campaign,” said Coffman, saying Tancredo has picked “a few issues” issues to run on.
Coffman said she’d made her decision to join the GOP gubernatorial primary before Tancredo entered the race Nov. 1.
Coffman’s abortion position is similar to that of former State Sen. Ellen Roberts (R-Durango) who began her potential campaign for U.S. Senate in 2015 by telling a radio station she’d never been pro-choice but was forced to correct her statement once a video emerged of Roberts calling herself a pro-choice Republican.
“I’ve never called myself pro-choice as a politician,” said Roberts at the time. “What I found out, early on, was I supported parental notification in the instance of an underage girl having an abortion. So, when I supported that, and I still support that, I found from those who are pro-choice advocates that no longer made me pro-choice. And I was surprised. I didn’t know that there were slices to what made a person one thing or another.”
Roberts later withdrew her name from consideration for the GOP Senate nomination.
