December 29, 2015 11:49 AM UTC

Mike Coffman is Terrified of Answering Trump Questions

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• by: Colorado Pols

Oh-fer.

Congressman Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) has been given plenty of opportunities to distance himself from the dangerous rhetoric of Republican Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. As the National Journal reports, Coffman is now 0-for-3 on Trump questions:

A Na­tion­al Journ­al sur­vey of eight mem­bers from ra­cially di­verse and Demo­crat­ic-lean­ing dis­tricts—in­clud­ing one Sen­ate can­did­ate—res­ul­ted in just a trio of House fresh­men who took clear stances on the pres­id­en­tial can­did­ate, whose po­lar­iz­ing rhet­or­ic has sim­ul­tan­eously bolstered his own stand­ing in the polls and en­dangered cer­tain down-bal­lot Re­pub­lic­ans…

…After Trump’s anti-Muslim pro­pos­al, Rep. Mike Coff­man of Col­or­ado re­leased a state­ment say­ing he aims to “rep­res­ent all of the cit­izens of my dis­trict,” but didn’t spe­cific­ally ad­dress Trump. His of­fice de­clined an in­ter­view re­quest, and when reached at the Cap­it­ol, Coff­man said, “Call my of­fice,” be­fore duck­ing in­to the House cham­ber. [Pols emphasis]

Wow. Coffman isn’t just declining to comment on Trump — he’s running from the question like he’s late to a push-up contest. Why is Coffman so terrified reluctant to criticize Donald Trump? As we noted a few weeks ago:

So what the hell is going on? Honestly, we’re not completely sure. It may be that Coffman is looking at polling numbers that say he cannot go against Trump publicly for fear of losing votes he must retain to keep his seat. It may be that Coffman authentically likes Trump, or something that he has said–though you’re not going to hear that publicly. Given Coffman’s silence on the matter, it may be that Coffman actually agrees with Trump. 

This has gone on for too long now. Coffman is taking such pains to avoid Trump questions that it’s fair to assume that he might just be part of the “The Silent Majority” backing His Hairness.

Remember, folks, that there is a long list of elected officials in Congress who have not hesitated to criticize Trump for his over-the-top rhetoric. Coffman has plenty of political cover to speak out against comments such as Trump’s suggestion to bar all Muslims from entering the United States…he just won’t do it.