KHOW talk-radio host Peter Boyles spent the morning saying that, despite his apology, Coffman really does believe that Obama, “in hisheart,” is “not an American.”

“The only reason he backpedals is because he got caught,” Boyles told his listeners during the 7 a.m. hour.

“Tragically, or luckily, whatever way it goes, I’ve spent almost five years listening and reading, and there’s more holes in [Obama’s] story than you can drive a truck through. What if Coffman had said, as a U.S. Congressman, we know more about the life of George Washington than we know about Barack Obama. That would have been a bombshell…

If [Coffman] had schooled himself on all the right questions, when Channel 9 came to him and said, hey, we have this recording of you, he could have said, yeah, and plus, let me add to that.”

Boyles continued:

“Coffman writes an apology letter to Channel 9. It’s weenie. Dude, you could have said, by the way, what about that social security number, how about that draft number. … [Coffman] says, ‘I misspoke.’ Come on.”

In 9News’ story yesterday about Rep. Mike Coffman’s statement that “in his heart,” Obama is “just not an American,” Political Analyst Floyd Ciruli was paraphrased as saying Coffman’s comment is a “blow to his moderate image.”

I’m tainted, I know, and possibly unable to fathom the mainstream image of Coffman, but my perception is that Coffman is pretty far to the right on the political spectrum, a far cry from a “moderate.”

So I called Ciruli to find out if, indeed, he thought Coffman had a “moderate image.”

Ciruli said the 9News’ paraphrase was accurate, but his view wasn’t based on any polling he’d seen on Coffman.

“Coffman’s major image comes from some his statewide offices, which have essentially been of the administrative type and have not led him to be known as a person of intensely right-wing views,” Ciruli told me. “He’s been the Secretary of State. He’s been the Treasurer. Those are administrative jobs that don’t lead you to have a particular image.”

Ciruli also said his view of Coffman’s image is partially based on the fact that Coffman replaced Tom Tancredo.

“And under those circumstances, you’re always a moderate,” Ciruli said, adding also that Coffman is “not really a favorite of the Republican establishment.”

I told Ciruli that I hadn’t seen any polling either, but I did notice that Coffman repeatedly called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” that he supported Colorado’s personhood amendment, that he wanted to pull the Peace Corps out of China, and that he said the flat tax has “tremendous value.” (I forgot to mention that Coffman supported Rick Perry for President and Paul Ryan for Vice President.)

“I don’t disagree with you,” Ciruli told me, adding that Coffman’s immigration views are out of the moderate range.

“They are relatively new issues,” Ciruli said. “They reflect to some extent his new environment, which is a very conservative Congress.”

“I assume [the Obama comment] was a faux pas, and he wisely apologized very quickly,” Ciruli told me, pointing out that Coffman’s mostly Arapahoe-County district is one of the most competitive in the country.

“He had not apologized when I did my interview last night at 5:30,” said Ciruli. “I specifically asked because I thought, my gosh, he should get out from under this, unless this is actually what he thinks, and he did.”

by Michael Lund

When was the last time a sitting president greeted Denver on the airwaves of a Spanish language radio station?

This was the first question that popped into my head when I saw KBNO Fernando Sergio’s Facebook post that he’d be interviewing President Obama Tuesday morning at 10 am.

Obama spoke to Colorado Hispanics … in English. And what did he say?

Campaigns, political consultants, wonks and analysts use a single word for a community that factors heavily in determining their fates in this upcoming presidential election. Whether it’s “Hispanics”, or “Latinos”, one word is used to identify an extremely diverse community, represented by entire spectrums of social, geographical, professional, cultural, socioeconomic, and generational identities. Hispanics, contrary to what our oversimplified nomenclature might suggest, are not monolithic as a cultural group. So, as an interviewer, which questions do you ask? And as a candidate, how do you connect?

Obama chose the right venue – a locally respected and established radio station, chatting with a familiar and well-known host.

Fernando Sergio’s interview followed the expected talking points, and Barak Obama responded articulately and personably, off-script and on.

Here’s a quick summary of the highlights:

The Economy:

Conservatives will not be disappointed with President Obama starting his response by blaming the previous administration for the mess he inherited, with some prompting by Mr. Sergio. But Fernando pressed Obama for specific examples of policies which improved the economy in his first term. Obama cited saving the auto industry, “doubling down on clean energy”, and creating and saving American jobs by passing the Recovery Act. He gave statistics which demonstrated successes, while reminding the audience of the hard work remaining, and warning of the lingering effects of depressed housing markets, continuing foreclosures and the looming European economic crises.

Healthcare

The President boldly promoted the Affordable Healthcare Act as a needed relief to families, which often lack health insurance despite holding multiple jobs. He highlighted the extended coverage for children (extended to 4 million more immigrant minors, and coverage up to age 26 on parents’ plans). He also cited improvement for seniors, particularly in coverage for prescription medications, and prohibiting insurance companies from excluding coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Jobs, Education, and Wall Street reform

Obama warned against returning to policies in the financial industry “where Wall Street Banks get to do whatever they please”. On jobs, Obama noted the need to get construction jobs back on line, “rebuilding our homes, rebuilding our schools”. He noted that in Colorado, we have “some great schools” in substandard buildings, because the growth of the population hasn’t been matched with new school construction. He spoke about his goal for educational opportunity and affordable college for all children.

Immigration reform and drug trade

Fernando Sergio suggested that executive order by the President could resolve the current political stalemate on immigration policy. Obama pointed to his administration’s increasing success in securing the borders and directives to ICE in targeting criminals for arrest and deportation instead of students and hard working families. But he also pointed to the lack of cooperation from Republicans to formulate comprehensive, compassionate, and permanent solutions to U.S. immigration policy, and he criticized Mitt Romney for praising Arizona’s immigration laws as a model for the country. In a lighter moment of the interview, the President commiserated with Fernando Sergio about their personal liabilities should profiling become a keystone of federal immigration reform.

Obama also called for maintaining cooperative efforts with neighboring countries to curtail organized illegal drug trade and violence while respecting their sovereignty, and curtailing the demand for drugs in the U.S. and the transportation of arms over our border.

Support for Small Businesses

President Obama noted that small business growth among Hispanics is three times faster than in the general population, and he recognized the entrepreneurial spirit of the Hispanic community. His policies would bolster financing and training programs for small business owners, increase opportunities for small businesses to bid on government contracts and focusing on minority owned businesses. He said his tax policy has allowed for 17 tax cuts which were favorable to small businesses in his first term.

Connection with the Hispanic Community

Obama distinguished himself from Romney as a candidate who cares about and believes in Latinos. He cited his appointments of Hispanics to cabinet positions in the Labor and Interior Departments, as well has his appointment of a Latino women to the Supreme Court of the United States. He summarized his stances, while reiterating his awareness of the issues which affect Hispanics most.

And of course, to make the connection with Colorado Hispanics all the more personal and real, President Obama predicted that barring injury, Peyton Manning would complement the Broncos’ lineup and bode well for a winning season.

Journalists, like Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard, speculated that House Majority Leader Amy Stephens’ primary fight against Rep. Marsha Looper might play a role in the fate of the civil unions bill.

Stephens would want to show voters in her El Paso County district that she’s the uncompromising conservative that she claims to be, versus Looper, who reportedly supports civil unions.

If this turned out to be true, you’d expect House Speaker Frank McNulty and Stephens to start bragging, especially in the Colorado Springs area, about how Stephens stepped up to the plate and batted away the civil-union proponents.

And that’s exactly what McNulty did on the Jeff Crank Show on KVOR Saturday. KVOR broadcasts from, you guessed it, Colorado Springs.

Reporters should take note of this exchange, as they explain what in the world happened to the civil unions bill today:

Crank said that he was hearing rumors that Stephens was for civil unions. But Crank complimented Stephens and McNulty for putting their political lives on the line to stop civil unions.

McNulty responded to Crank with this:

McNulty: “Well, thank you.  And it’s absolutely true that Amy Stephens was the rock that we came back to throughout the debate.  It wasn’t easy, and there were times when the pressure was great, when you have advocates for [civil unions] piling into the gallery, and you’re looking up there wondering what’s going to happen next.  And Amy is so strong in her faith, and is absolutely rock solid, and she just has a measure of calm about her in crisis and that’s one of the things that we relied on.  And our goal is to head into this Special Session.”

Listen to the audio clip here: McNulty On the Jeff Crank Show 5-12-2012.

CBS4’s Shaun Boyd should let her viewers know that Mitt Romney is misrepresenting an interview Boyd had with Romney when he was in Denver May 10.

In an interview last week, a radio host asked Romney: “I saw that you got a little testy with one reporter who wanted to talk about marijuana and same-sex marriage yesterday. Has this been a real curve ball for ya?”

Romney replied: “She asked two or three questions about same-sex marriage and civil unions and then about medical marijuana, and I finally laughed and said, You know, there are some really big issues out there, like if Iran is going to get a nuclear weapon, how to change leadership in Syria, and what it’s going to take to get this economy moving again, one after another. Why don’t you ask about those? We finally got around to that.”

Two problems here, one is that Romney never mentioned Syria in his response to Boyd.

But more importantly, Boyd asked Romney about civil unions and marijuana, and she still had over half of the five-minute interview remaining.

Romney interjected after about two-and-a-half minutes and asked Boyd why she was asking him insignificant questions, which, as Boyd pointed out, aren’t insignificant in Colorado anyway.

Listening to Romney’s recounting of his interview with Boyd, when he says Boyd “finally” got around to economic issues, you’d think Boyd used most of her time on civil unions and marijuana, when in reality, there was plenty of time left for other important issues.

I can think of a couple reasons why Mitt Romney chose to take questions from local TV reporters and KOA radio hosts yesterday, while blowing off all those “print” journalists in Denver.

The most obvious reason is that Romney thinks local TV news is watched by the swing voters he needs to win. This approach would be in line with what he did when he came to Colorado the day before the GOP caucus. Then, his target was Republican caucus goers. So Romney blew off all real-life journalists, TV and print, and took loving questions only from friendly, conservative talk-radio hosts, whose listeners were likely to be heading out to caucuses. So Romney got to talk directly to his target audience.

An alternative explanation for Romney’s local TV tour yesterday is that he was scared pesky print reporters would ask him tough questions while mayhem-and-fluff loving local TV news journalists would have one eye on the incoming rainstorm and therefore be unable and/or uninterested in asking him substantive questions.

If this was Team Romney’s thinking, they got it wrong. Denver’s local TV news didn’t suck up and ask softballs. They asked real questions about real issues in Colorado, including the most obvious question, given the drama in the State Legislature, about his view on civil unions.

CBS4 reporter Shaun Boyd introduced her piece by saying, “As you can see, Romney seemed a bit flustered by the questions viewers posted on our Facebook page, trying to steer the conversation back to topics he was comfortable with.”

I would say Romney was less flustered and more irritated with Boyd’s news judgment after she posed questions about civil unions (answer: no), college-tuition reductions for undocumented high school graduates (no), and medical marijuana (no).

Sounding like Colorado GOP chair Ryan Call who recently said birth-control issues were “small issues,” Romney told Boyd:

Romney: “Aren’t there issues of significance that you’d like to talk about?

Boyd: This is a significant issue in Colorado.

Romney: The economy. The economy. The economy. Jobs. The need to put people back to work. The challenges of Iran. We have enormous issues that we face, but you want to talk about, go ahead.”

Boyd picked up where she had left off, telling Romney matter-of-factly, “Marijuana.”

And Romney said, “I oppose the legalization of marijuana….”

Boyd, along with her counterparts at Fox 31, 9News, and 7News, all asked Romney serious questions, perhaps the kind he wasn’t expecting from local TV reporters.

I’m hoping the tough questioning continues through the election season because it’s informative and it makes interesting television, as opposed to happy-talk questions like, “Hey, how’s your dog.”

But I guess in Romney’s case, that would be considered a hardball query as well.

Mitt Romney promised to sit down with real-life reporters (yes, they’re still out there) during his visit today to Colorado, according to a report yesterday by Fox 31 political correspondent Eli Stokols, and it looks like he did, as 7News is teasing its interview for the 3 p.m. news.

Stokols, you recall, called Romney out for NOT meeting with real-life Denver reporters last time Romney came to Colorado, preferring the cozy confines of conservative talk radio. So you have to wonder whether Romney would have stayed mum, had it not been for Stokols.

Stokols’ report that Romney plans to meet with TV reporters caught the attention of Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard who tweeted, “Do Obama/Romney have stones to talk to print media? Apparently not.” (Now would be a good time for The Post to throw a public fit over Romney’s favoritism toward TV news, if he, in fact, avoids print reporters during his Colorado swing. Same with Obama, next time he comes.)

I’m looking forward to seeing the local TV interviews with Romney, but meanwhile (and maybe this will piss Hubbard off even more) Romney took questions from radio hosts at 8:30 this morning. Listen to Mitt Romney on KOA Radio May 9 2012 at 17:15.

Tubbs: “How do you handle the criticism that Mitt Romney flip flops on issues…because you’ve certainly been accused of not sticking with one message, the most recent, your comments about the auto bailout?”

Romney: “Well actually, I had the same position on the auto bailout I had from the very beginning. I actually wrote about it. So nothing has changed there. I do understand that the nature of an opposition campaign is to try and create a narrative that is harmful to the opposition. And that’s been used against me by my opponents, and frankly, it is not accurate. There is one place where I did change my view, and when I became governor, I became solidly pro-life, wrote an op-ed to the effect that I was going to be a pro-life governor, and that’s been my position ever since. By the way, that was seven or eight years ago, and I continue to have that view. I’m happy to defend the things that I believe in. And by the way, if I were going to change positions, you would have seen a very different candidate than you have. My view is I’m sticking true to the things that I believe. I hope people are willing to understand that.”

If I’m a radio host, or if I’m just about anybody at this point, I’d be thinking, “One flip flop?”

First, there’s health care reform, which Santorum, among others, pointed out. Romney was complimentary of Obama modeling national reform after Massachusett’s model, but later he was against Obamacare.

With respct to the auto industry, Romney said he wouldn’t sit back and let the auto industry die, in apparent contrast with an op-ed he wrote saying the feds shouldn’t intervene.

Then there’s the stimulus, solar energy, climate change, immigration, the tax pledge, gun issues, and more, as widely documented.

Reporters shouldn’t let Romney get away with saying he’s a one-time flipper. Even if you just look abortion, he’s a serial flipper, as his position has changed back and forth. Throw in the other stuff, and you understand the Jimmy Kimmel joke, featured in a video produced by Democrats:

“Experts are predicting kind of a tough battle between Mitt Romney and his biggest ideological opponent, Mitt Romney from four years ago. Those guys don’t agree on anything.”

We’ll be hearing a lot about Medicare this election season, and reporters should study up on some of the expected flashpoints, so they can challenge candidates who try to deceive us.

A case in point is Rep. Scott Tipton’s appearance on 9News’ YourShow Sunday.

“When we’re talking about health care, I think we need to get the facts on the table,” Tipton told YourShow host Brandon Rittiman. “The President, this administration, and the people who support them voted to take away $575 billion dollars out of Medicare, hurting our senior citizens.”

As I’ve reported before, nonpartisan fact checkers have found this to be mostly or completely false. Politifact found the statement, “The new health care law ‘will cut $500 billion from Medicare. That will hurt the quality of our care,'” to be deep in its “mostly false” category, which is as false as its ratings go. Fact checkers at the Washington Post also found that the $500 billion is saved in Medicare efficiencies, which are “wrung from health-care providers, not Medicare beneficiaries.”

If you read the different analyses of this issue, the key point is that there’s no evidence that the $575 billion (It’s actually $500 billion) saved from Medicare will hurt seniors, while it’s clear that some services will be improved.

To be fair, Obamacare critics point to some element of uncertainty about how the cost savings will play out in the future, but they can’t point to a specific example of how seniors’ healthcare services would be diminished in any way. There’s no meat behind the allegation.

Tipton raised the $500 billion figure during his 2010 campaign, as noted by Pueblo Chieftain reporter Peter Roper, who handled Tipton’s accusation by adding a factual statement after Tipton’s allegation.

From an Oct. 29, 2010 article:

“…[Tipton] repeated his charge that Salazar and Democrats want to cut $500 billion from Medicare — a cut that Tipton said would hurt seniors. That part of the legislation calls for reducing the growth in Medicare expenses by $500 billion over 10 years by eliminating fraud and waste.” [BigMedia emphasis]

I’d go further, if I were reporting on Tipton, and write categorically that 1) nonpartisan fact checkers have found the allegation to be mostly or completely false, and 2) Republicans cannot offer specific examples of how seniors will be hurt due to Medicare cost-saving measures.

I’d also ask Tipton to provide specifics and report his response.

by Michael Lund

By now we’re all aware the pivotal role Hispanics will play in swing states (like Colorado) in November’s election.  As the political parties strategize and tune their message machines to reach Hispanics in Colorado and secure their votes, we wondered how well Denver’s English language TV news broadcasts cover Hispanic issues.

To do this, the BigMediaBlog designed a snapshot survey of Denver’s local television news broadcasts. We monitored the amount and type of coverage that included Hispanics on all four local stations:  CBS 4, KMGH 7, KUSA 9, and KVDR 31.

What we found can be classified as Good News/Bad News.  Here are the highlights of each:

Good news

• Hispanic reporters and anchors bring a welcome element of diversity and familiarity to Hispanic viewers. These include anchors Anne Trujillo (Channel 7 news, on vacation during our snapshot study period) and Dave Aguilera (CBS 4), and reporters Tammy Vigil, Melody Mendez, Nina Sporano (FOX 31), Dominic Garcia (CBS 4), and Valerie Castro (CBS4).  There are others, of course, but the aforementioned are those who appeared during the window of our study.
• Hispanics are featured in some local news coverage, representing our community across a range of topics (news, sports, weather, health, government, economic and business, public works, education, elections, labor, etc.).
• In news stories covering issues of shared interest and value to Hispanic and general audiences, coverage sometimes includes a Hispanic perspective.  For example, jobs and the economy are issues consistently highlighted by the Hispanic electorate and voters in general as being important to them in this election cycle.  In our snapshot survey, one story in particular stood out that qualified in this category:  Walmart’s opening of 5 neighborhood markets, bringing  new jobs to Denver.  While all four channels covered this story, only Fox31 expanded the story to interview job seekers, Hispanics included, and explored the relation and importance of the story to these individuals’ lives and job searches.  Their input made the story immediately more relevant and vital to an otherwise underrepresented population of TV news consumers.

Bad news

• In our study, crime stories dominate Hispanic related news, accounting for 60% of news stories that involve Hispanics.  These stories generally offer little to inform and engage the public and Hispanic populations, and often displace other stories on issues with equal or greater importance to our communities.  During the three days we were viewing, the predominant crime stories involved the murder of a clerk during a robbery of an auto parts store, escapees from a federal prison, and at least two cases of child abuse and negligence.   While crime trends might rate as important, these particular cases certainly were not highlighted as issues of reigning importance among Hispanics during this election cycle.  The economy was, however, and the only related story we found, excluding economic stories reported by Hispanic journalists, was the Walmart piece referenced above.
• The Hispanic community is misrepresented by an over-emphasis of crime.  In fact, when pictured in news stories, 38% of the time Hispanics were the accused or perpetrator in the story, as opposed to the reporter, a witness, a commentator, or a sympathetic subject.  Again, the proportion of Hispanic criminals to law-abiding Hispanics is grossly misrepresented by this figure, and alerts us to a need for more balanced coverage.
• Proportionately little time of a news broadcast is dedicated to covering Hispanic issues.  Excluding crime stories and weather and sports segments, Hispanic news accounts for just under 6% (on average) of the entire news coverage.  Obviously, to be representational of our Hispanic community in Denver, more substantive and engaging coverage of Hispanic news stories is needed.

This survey is a snapshot and as such gives a only a small glimpse of successes and areas for improvement in covering the people and the issues of priority to Hispanics, which often overlap with the composite population.  Hopefully, this study will at least serve to reflect on how our state and its citizens are portrayed during the upcoming election season, with our added notoriety and visibility as a swing state.  And more importantly, we hope that it reminds us all of the importance of an engaged and informed electorate, Hispanics and all voters alike.

Click here to view the data (stories, reporters, categories) upon which the snapshot study is based: Hispanics in Denver Local TV News

In a 20-15  party-line vote last Friday, Democratic State Senators defeated a measure that would have given symbolic support to the so-called “Blunt” amendment, which would allow employers to opt out of offering health-insurance coverage for health services, including contraception, that employers find objectionable on religious or moral grounds.

Media coverage of the measure should have folded in more views from outside the state Capitol, given the potential political ramifications of the issue, so I’m reporting a wider range of views to fill in the media gap.

Addressing the issue after the vote Friday, Colorado Republican Party Chair Ryan Call told Jon Caldara that in the national debate about whether the Obama Administration should have allowed employers to opt out of offering certain types of health care, like contraception, Republicans should have focused on “making it, rather than about big issues, making it about small issues.”

“The big issue there,” Call told Caldara, “was the question of religious liberty, about the government telling, not only religious organizations but private employers and persons what kind of health-care insurance they have to pay for, even if it violates questions of moral conscience.”

Democrats, he said, “were able to, at least attempt, try to make it about those smaller issues, are we trying to ban contraceptives, which is not the issue.”

“Horsepucky,” was progressive political consultant Laura Chapin’s response to Call in a  in a US News opinion piece:

“Approximately 99 percent of reproductive age American women have used birth control—and something used by almost every woman in America isn’t a small issue, it’s huge,” she wrote, adding that “it’s obviously a big issue to Republicans.”

“It’s big enough that they threatened to shut down the entire U.S. government over it last spring,” Chapin continued. “It’s big enough that Republican governors like Mitch Daniels have made defunding Planned Parenthood a top priority, as has their presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Romney even wants to eliminate federal funding for Title X, which provides family planning funding for five million low-income Americans.”

Senate Democrats in contested elections voted for the measure, including Colorado Senators Evie Hudak, Mary Hodge, and Linda Newell.

Fox 31 reported Newell’s view that the measure, called Senate Memorial 3, would be hard for business to comply with. Fox 31 reported:

“The problem for the businesses is this just opens up all kinds of liability disclosure issues,” Newell said, noting that one of her two daughters was listening to Friday’s debate inside the Senate chamber. “She wants to know what we’re doing in the state of Colorado to protect her freedoms.

“Right to privacy goes out the window with this bill because now you have to disclose. And it puts my daughter’s future boss right in the middle of her private life. They’ll have to ask, Do you use birth control? Are you having sex?

“I want my daughters to have access to proven methods of preventing pregnancy. I want my daughters to have the ability to be healthy and free.”

Larry Crowder, a Republican who’s running to represent contested Senate District 35, told me he hadn’t followed the debate at the state Capitol, but he said: “In my opinion it should be up to that employer. I’m not really in favor of mandates.”

“Health care provided by the employer is a great thing,” Crowder said. “And it’s an added tool to attract employees.  If you’re going to start putting a mandate on employers, what would be in the health care, that would be between the employee and the employer.  As far as a mandate, I would not be comfortable with that.”

As far as the symbolic resolution goes, Crowder said, “We’ve got more important issues to talk about and decide in the state than a nonbinding resolution. We should not get into the hype right now about nonbinding resolutions for political purposes.”

He also said the question about employer mandates is “premature,” with the U.S. Supreme Court reviewing Obamacare.

Republican Senate District 19 candidate Lang Sias had a similar view, saying jobs should be the focus. His likely opponent is Sen. Hudak.

Senate District 28 Candidate John Lyons had been at work and hadn’t had time to follow events at the State Capitol when I talked to him Friday, but he said, as a general matter, that this is “all about free market and government interference.”

“It’s up to the insurance companies to decide what they want to do and what they want to cover,” he said. “If people had more choice and competition among insurance companies, this problem would be solved.”

“Being a Republican, I don’t believe it’s the government’s job to dictate what the insurance companies should offer and what they shouldn’t,” he said.

Lyons’ Republican primary opponent, Art Carlson, agreed, saying: “I believe it’s up to the companies. I just don’t think it’s up to the government to force companies to do something like that.”