October 21, 2016 08:41 AM UTC

Mike Coffman STILL Can't Call Trump What He Is

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Coffman’s hometown Aurora Sentinel is as flabbergasted by these remarks as everyone else:

Congressman Mike Coffman may not know that what Donald Trump has done to women constitutes sexual assault, but we do. Women across Aurora and Colorado do. District attorneys across the country do.

During a televised debate Thursday night on 9News TV, Coffman and his Democratic challenger state Sen. Morgan Carroll were asked whether Trump’s notorious taped comments about doing what he wants to women — and the subsequent flood of women saying he grabbed them, groped them and forced unwanted kisses upon them — constituted sexual assault.

“Well, I don’t know,” Coffman said. He followed the jaw-dropping comment with a political tap dance…

…He can’t have it both ways on this issue. Trump’s blatant misogyny and admitted sexual assaults are not debatable political philosophies, no matter how loudly Trump and his supporters say they are.

—–

We’ll have plenty more to say about last night’s debate on 9NEWS between incumbent GOP Rep. Mike Coffman and Democratic challenger Sen. Morgan Carroll later today (watch this space), but this morning most of the conversation is focused on a very short exchange over Donald Trump’s now-infamous bragging about forcibly groping, kissing, and doing even worse to women he fancies:

Transcribed:

CLARK: …Coffman, a question first for you here. Uh, based on the claims that he’s made do you believe that Donald Trump is a sexual predator?

COFFMAN: Oh, I don’t know. [Pols emphasis] But I do know this, that, that I’ve worked, uh, very hard as a member of the Armed Services Committee on a bipartisan basis to work on, uh, preventing sexual assaults and I…

CLARK: Alright, it’s a short answer but thank you. Senator Carroll, do you believe that Donald Trump, based on his own remarks, is a sexual predator?

CARROLL: Yes. The definition of grabbing people without their consent is the definition of sexual assault and sexual harassment. It’s his words, not mine.

CLARK: Thank you.

The uproar over Donald Trump’s multitude of recorded boasts about touching and ogling women under his financial control without their consent, including but not limited to a 2005 recording in which Trump bragged about his star-powered ability to “grab them by the p—y,” is such that Coffman really needed to have a better answer for this question than “I don’t know.” An overwhelming majority of women in Coffman’s district most certainly do know, and their judgment is that Trump’s own words flag him as “the definition” of a sexual predator.

For a man whose political survival depends on putting daylight between himself and Trump at every opportunity–but not too much, lest he offend his Republican base so much that they won’t support him–this is yet another unforced error Mike Coffman can’t afford. Coffman’s answer satisfies no one, and shows again how boxed in he is between his self-destructing party and an electorate that has had enough of Donald Trump.

And this time, it happened when the voters of CD-6 have their ballots in their hands.