August 11, 2017 10:31 AM UTC

Has Coffman become a pile of mush?

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• by: Jason Salzman

Rep. Mike Coffman broke from conservative orthodox thinking last week when he stated that there’s “not taxpayer funding for abortion.”

That may not sound like such a big deal to you, if you know that the 1976 Hyde Amendment bans federal funding for abortion, unless the life of the person having the baby is at risk–or a victim of rape or incest.

But the Republican crusade against funding Planned Parenthood is rooted in the falsehood that the organization uses Medicaid and other funds from the feds for abortions, even though it doesn’t.

Would Coffman actually vote for Planned Parenthood funding at this point?

That would be something to see, because Coffman has voted against Planned Parenthood funding six times and counting, even though the organization serves over 2,000 clients in Coffman’s own Aurora.

And what’s more, Coffman, as I discuss in a Rewire post today, co-sponsored the 2011 “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” which aimed to “prohibit taxpayer funded abortion.”

So it’s kinda shocking that Coffman would stand up at his town hall and, essentially, say it isn’t so, that taxpayers don’t fund abortion.

But now that he’s said it, and he continues to infuriate his anti-abortion base, the question is, can he get away with it?

As far as I know, he’s never explained his own personal evolution from no-abortion-even-for-rape-victims to his current I’m-mostly-against-abortion-and-want-it-outlawed.

It might be difficult for Coffman to come up with an explanation that doesn’t sound fake, even if it isn’t. But regardless, what are Coffman’s base voters thinking at this point? Has he become such a pile of mush that no one, on the right or left, likes him? That could set up his downfall.