March 14, 2018 03:54 PM UTC

Aaaaand...Now Cynthia Coffman's "Pro Life" Again!

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• by: Colorado Pols

Joey Bunch of the former Colorado Statesman put the capstone on floundering GOP gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Coffman’s long series of flip-flops on the issue of abortion rights yesterday, and we wanted to be sure it got a mention. After repeatedly making it clear that she supports abortion rights, a novel (if risky) addition to the mix in the 2018 GOP gubernatorial primary, it would appear that Cynthia Coffman has belatedly realized that she is in…well, a GOP primary:

As a conservative Republican who represented the state’s case when it sought to withhold money from Planned Parenthood, Coffman create surprise and anxiety among would-be supporters when her campaign in November reportedly told CBS4’s Shaun Boyd that Coffman was pro-choice, That sent radio political talkers such as Corporon, Craig Silverman and Dan Caplis into orbit. Coffman’s spokeswoman at the time told Colorado Politics that Coffman has never said publicly how she feels personally on the wedge issue, but said the candidate would speak about it on the campaign trail.

“I am personally in favor of life,” Coffman said Saturday. “I would choose life.” [Pols emphasis]

It was Cynthia Coffman’s supposedly moderate views on social wedge issues that some Democratic strategists had worried might make her a formidable candidate in the event she survived the Republican primary. The biggest problem for Coffman, of course, is winning the primary with a public position on a critical issue that conservative primary voters find repellent. Thus before Coffman can put this angle to her advantage, she has to survive it being her greatest disadvantage.

But none of that matters now. With Coffman now backpedaling on an issue she has already backpedaled the other way, she has squandered her credibility on both sides. Nobody who opposes abortion is going to take seriously this obviously contrived flip back in the direction of GOP primary voters, and no one who supports abortion rights can trust Coffman either now. It’s like she is trying to take a page from Sen. Cory Gardner’s playbook, deliberately scrambling her image in hopes of confusing a winning coalition into either supporting her or disregarding abortion in this race entirely.

But in timing or the execution, Cynthia Coffman is no Cory Gardner.