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October 06, 2016 10:45 AM UTC

Another Day, Another Damning Mike Coffman Fact-Check

  • 26 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
What are you gonna do about it?
Whatcha gonna do about it?

A couple of weeks ago, we took note of a mail piece sent to an Aurora household attacking Democratic CD-6 candidate Morgan Carroll for supposedly voting “to make it easier to sue doctors and nurses providing free services.” The mail piece’s citation for this accusation was a long unidentified URL on the Colorado state legislative website–no bill number or anything else to make it easy to verify the claim.

Which made sense, because as it turns out, the claim wasn’t true. Carroll had in fact voted “yes” on final passage of the bill in question, House Bill 06-1076 sponsored by then Rep. Josh Penry, meaning the claim that she voted to make it easier to sue doctors and nurses is categorically false. Since our original story on September 26th, 9NEWS, CBS4 Denver, and as of last night Politifact Colorado, have all come to the same conclusion:

Coffman falsely says Carroll voted to make it ‘easier to sue’ doctors, small businesses, nurses

Carroll voted for the bill after it was amended on the floor to grant immunity to medical volunteers from civil liability when an “act or omission of a volunteer” resulted in injury, except in cases of gross negligence, reckless misconduct and even violent crimes — acts that would prevent a volunteer from receiving immunity under the federal Volunteer Protection Act.

Ultimately, Carroll supported passage of the law that made it harder — not easier — to sue volunteer doctors, nurses and other health-medical professionals — unless there was evidence of gross negligence… [Pols emphasis]

We rate this claim False.

There’s no way to reconcile this blatantly false claim with the truth, and Coffman’s campaign has made no real attempt to. In fact, the only thing they seem to want to do in response to this wave of adverse fact-checking is disrespect the fact-checkers:

Folks, this is a campaign that is not just freely telling lies as a deliberate campaign strategy. Team Coffman honestly does not care about the press calling them out. They are quite simply banking on the assumption that more people will see their false allegations than will see the debunking of those allegations in declining earned media. And they’re not even being coy about it.

Even in today’s outrage-fatigued political climate, that should infuriate voters. Not to mention journalists.

Comments

26 thoughts on “Another Day, Another Damning Mike Coffman Fact-Check

  1. I've posited for years on this site that the beady-eyed bird-brained Coffman and his gang of thugs were the most cowardly, immoral, unethical, backsliding scumbags — along with Con Man Cory Gardner's slimy crew — on the Colorado political scene. No low too low, no lie too obscene.

    This piece merely reconfirms it. Again.

  2. Facts mean very little to these guys……not sure why you spend so much time on them. And they know damned well that facts mean even less to their supporters and voters. 

    They'll lie and lie, say one thing to the Evul Press, another to their most die hard supporters, then (and I know, here comes the "both sides do it" charge, which D's should and can easily refudiate.-ed.) do whatever is most politically expedient:

    WASHINGTON ― Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is campaigning with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Wisconsin on Saturday, though it kind of seems he didn’t want you to know that…..

    The speaker condemns the GOP nominee all the time. He’s called him out for joking about someone shooting Hillary Clinton, anti-semitism, racism, insulting a Gold Star family, praising an Iraqi dictator, inciting violence, and associating with white supremacists, among other things.

    But Ryan is still endorsing Trump for president. 

    If Dems didn't let Republicans get away with it every time they'd probably have to change their behavior. But many Dems would rather be friends with Republicans and perpetuate the “purple state” bullshit that is most beneficial to those in power ’round here than truly hold them accountable for their behavior.

     

  3. I don't care about the lawyer thing (and I am one) in the socio-economic areas where this sort of stuff might make a difference, people there don't feel the same way that others might feel.  That stuff is for Douglas County and the richer areas of Arapahoe, not Aurora.

    What I care about is this tax shit.  That can and will hurt if not rebutted and rebutted hard.  The commercial is really easy.  "Mike Coffman and his friends say Morgan Carroll raised our taxes $____Billion and increased the budget by ____%.  How stupid do they think we are??? (Mike with a dunce cap).  We all know that pursuant to Amendment One only the voters in Colorado can raise taxes.  And, the budget.  Well, it's also limited by Amendment One.  Just like Donald Trump. You can't trust anything he says.  Really Mike?  We expected more of you.  Mike Coffman, no different than the rest of the Republicans in Washington."

    Not only is it easy to write, but you've got to love the reference to Amendment One, the Republican's best friend.

  4. many journalists have said it is not their job to correct a politician is he or she "misstates" something. Calling it a LIE is good strategy because even a 3-year-old knows what a lie is and that it is wrong. If Dems do the ugly job of rebutting every lie, pointing out the liar, reminding people of the truth, I suggest that R's will tell a lot less lies and/or the press will start doing their jobs a little better. 

    It won't be fun, but it will be effective.

  5. This stuff plus Carroll raising your taxes by zillions is appearing in anti-Carroll ads. Anti-Coffman ads say that he's too much like Trump and said mean things about Obama.

    There are no Carroll ads that I've seen that refute the story lines about raising your taxes like crazy and going after doctor's and hospitals. 

    Coffman has a very well produced ad with a multi-cultural group of  shiny happy people all talking about how they like him and trust him. 

    In short the positive ads for Coffman are far superior to the positive ads for Carroll. The anti-ads against Carroll are about pocket book issues that matter much more to low info presidential year voters than whether Coffman said something mean about Obama years ago or isn't sufficiently opposed ( what a shocker) to his own party's presidential candidate. Well, d'uh.

    The Big Line's assessment of this as a 50/50 race is ludicrous. If the Carroll campaign loses by any less than the Romanoff campaign did it will only be because of a few extra points thanks to its being a higher turn out presidential year.

    Pretty pathetic.

    1. I couldn't agree more. Coffman will win handily and Democrats have no clue how to beat him.

      I see Coffman running for high office someday. He's the best Republican politician in Colorado.

    2. Again, kudos to you for resisting the liberal groupthink and telling the truth about this race. That's why I respect you no matter how much you insult me.

      1. But I really do hate it on those rare occasions when the truth means something agreeable to you. So glad it hardly ever happens.

        And of course you never diverge from group think except when you make mistakes in these confusing times, thanks to Trump, about what the group think is supposed to be.

        1. With all due respect, I think your concern trolling of Morgan Carroll became ridiculous a long time ago. Maybe the fact that Moddy is praising you for it should give you pause.

          1. So, concern trolling is pretending to be an ally, when in reality you are in opposition.  You may not like what BlueCat has to say about Morgan, but you'd have to be crazy to think she wants anyone other than Morgan to win that race.

            She's not a troll.  She's someone who has things to say that you disagree with. To see what trolling looks like, just look at the comment one up from the one you responded to.

          2. I just let BC vent on this without comment.  Obviously, I hope Morgan wins and BC might be available to help her retain the seat in the super challenging 2018 election.  (And, I just did a penalty lap for mentioning 2018.)

              1. Well, in all honesty, BC, it wouldn't kill you to let a day go by without a shot at morgan carroll.  Who knows, there might be someone else you can slam.

                1. V, I don't believe your opinion of what the outcome will be differs from mine. I also don't believe that cheer leading will help. I just wish some day Dem ops would would wake up to the fact that when they cede the economic issues to the Rs here in CD 6 they aren't going to win.

                  They should know perfectly well that they will be attacked for raising taxes and being more concerned about so called PC, bleeding heart issues than they are about jobs while Rs claim to have the answers. So what if that's bull? Dem campaigns play right into all of it when they barely say a word about jobs and economic growth as if they either don't care about those meat and potatoes issues or are afraid to challenge Rs on them. 

                  CD 6 voters, very much including CD6 women, have shown over and over that they just don't care as much about the issues that Dem candidates have been choosing to play the starring roles in their campaigns as they do about jobs, their pocketbooks and a bright economic future for their kids.

                  They care about choice but not as much. They may not like the way Coffman spoke about Obama but they don't care about that as much either. They don't care as much about catching pols lying because it's expected.

                  They keep saying what they do care most about and voting accordingly.

                  If this is the way Dems are going to keep campaigning in CD 6 they'll keep losing even though CD6 is now demographically sufficiently competitive for a Dem win.  

                  It wouldn't kill me to shut up about it but it wouldn't do any good either. My bitching isn't the reason a Dem still hasn't won CD6.

          3. And maybe you should look around you and ask yourself if you honestly believe Carroll is on the brink of winning. Perhaps you have a role in the campaign. Perhaps you feel obliged to cheer lead. I'm sure you know less about my CD than I do.

            I have gone door to door and phone banked and contributed and done GOTV and either scheduled or attended events for every Dem candidate for the CD 6 seat since well before the district was reconfigured. I have been a PCP and an HD level officer here. I've been to I don't know how many yard parties, coffees, town halls for candidates at every level in my territory.

            I'm no concern troll which means someone pretending to be concerned while working for the other side. I'm just not a reality denier. I've seen enough campaigns to know when one is not being effective. Carroll's isn't. Even with a great campaign this would be a tough mountain to climb but this one is very weak. 

            As for modster I wouldn't dream of letting his opinions affect mine one way or the other. I'm not going to say Carroll in a landslide to play opposites with the likes of modster.

            I would have loved for the Carroll campaign to be great. If you read past posts you'll see I was confident it would be and enthusiastic about having my first Dem CD6 Rep. 

            I was wrong then. You're wrong now. My admitting on this little old blog that Carroll is losing isn't going to change the outcome any more than your cheer leading or the Big Line's ridiculous assessment is going to.

            When it happens, if it makes you fell better… be my guest. Blame my "concern trolling".

    3. That's 100% correct, sad to say. Coffman is Teflon in that district, and the people in his campaign organization are very good at their jobs. This one is indeed likely to go the way of Coffman-Romanoff, another race that was supposed to be a toss-up.

  6. V. wrote (to BC):  "it wouldn't kill you to let a day go by without a shot at Morgan Carroll……"   Hey V: can you wake us all up when Carroll stops running such an inept campaign?

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