It’s past time for reporters to start asking more key Colorado candidates where they stand on Trump.

Don’t yowl that it’s an unfair question, somehow beyond-the-pale partisan because Trump is so unpopular in Colorado and not relevant to state races.

If that’s what you think, you’re wishing you lived in a different America.

Trump’s presidency permeates every single political race and decision in our country, affecting every aspect of government (Bill of Rights, courts, press, FBI, EPA, voting, and so much more). His rhetoric and style upend civil discourse.

Whether you agree with that or not, you have to admit that Trump is a revolutionary-type force in our country.

As such, the opinions of all candidates about Trump should available to voters.

I don’t mean to say journalists have ignored candidates’ views on Trump, but the reporting has been spotty and, in the legislative races, it’s been absent in many cases, even in the state senate races that are so critical in this election.

I’ve scoured the public record, and called candidates, to find out which Colorado Republicans voted for Trump. Will they do so again? What do they like and don’t like about what he’s done? (I’m assuming Democrats oppose Trump.)

Objectively, these are legitimate questions for any candidate in the year 2018. Yet, many Republicans in key Colorado races have yet to answer them. Here’s what we know so far.

GOVERNOR

Walker Stapleton (embraced Trump’s endorsement.  Wants Trump to campaign with him here in Colorado)

Lang Sias (backs Trump now and is already dedicated to voting for him in 2020)

U.S. CONGRESS

U.S. Rep. Ken Buck (backed Trump in 2016; 88 percent pro-Trump voting record)

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman (voted for Pence in 2016; 96 percent pro-Trump voting record)

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (backed Trump in 2016; 94 percent pro-Trump voting record)

U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (backed Trump in 2016;  96 percent pro-Trump voting record)

COLORADO ATTORNEY GENERAL

George Brauchler (says we’re “in pretty damn good hands” with Trump; voted for him)

COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE

Wayne Williams (expressed support for Trump’s candidacy)

COLORADO TREASURER

Brian Watson (supports Trump)

KEY STATE SENATE RACES

Beth Martinez Humenik of Thornton — (unknown, but she praised Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke)

Christine Jensen of Wheat Ridge — (did not respond to a voice message asking for her views on the Trump presidency)

Olen Lund of Paonia — (did not respond to a voice message asking for his views on the Trump presidency)

Tim Neville of Littleton — (a loyal Trump backer, who celebrated Trump’s “Year of Greatness”)

Tony Sanchez of Lakewood — (did not respond to a voice message asking for his views on the Trump presidency)

KEY STATE HOUSE RACES

Kristina Alley of Lakewood — (voted for Trump)

Grady Nouis of Westminster — (stands with Trump 100%)

Toren Mushovic of Greenwood Village — (did not respond to a voice message asking for his views on the Trump presidency)

Kit Roupe of Colorado Springs — (wrote in 2016, “I ask you to vote and to vote for Trump.“)

Last month, in a free-wheeling conversation on conservative talk radio, KNUS host Julie Hayden asked Republican operative Dick Wadhams about GOP gubernatorial candidate Walker Stapleton.

“How does he tap his inner populist?” asked Hayden.

“That’s a good question. Ultimately, you can’t make somebody into something they’re not,” replied Wadhams.

Stapleton sounds as if he’d been listening to Wadhams, judging from his subsequent interview with KNUS’ Craig Silverman.

Stapleton was forthcoming about his private school education at the Brunswick school in Connecticut followed by four years at Williams College in Massachusetts.

At Williams, which he described as “politically correct to a fault,” he said he helped bring conservative William F. Buckley to speak, and he wrote articles for the Williams Free Press.

Stapleton told Silverman during the March 10 interview that he “ruffled some feathers” at Williams.

So it appears that Stapleton might be taking Wadhams advice and embracing his past, trying to show that made the most of it.

But strangely, Stapleton got his own background wrong when Silverman asked him, “What sports did you play?”

STAPLETON: “I played baseball. I played tennis. And I was more — I was a rackets guy. Baseball and tennis were my — were my two.”

A search of Brunswick’s website reveals that Stapleton played squash there. The school proudly lists Stapleton among its student athletes that went on to compete at the college level.

The website states: “Brunswick offers a competitive athletic program that prepares our students for participation in college athletics. While many of our students choose to continue sports on an intramural basis in college, Brunswick’s premier athletes have met with considerable success on college varsity teams. Here is a recent overview of our college athletes.”

Stapleton is listed among the squash players.

Maybe Stapleton played baseball and tennis, too, but it appears he was also a serious squash competitor.  And he apparently played it at Williams college as well.

An email to Stapleton’s campaign, asking why he didn’t mention his squash history, was not immediately returned.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Coffman, who’s also Colorado’s attorney general, spent a substantial chunk of time during her early career helping Colorado Republicans develop legal arguments to defund Planned Parenthood.

She became widely known as an expert on the arcane topic, and last year, anti-abortion activists repeatedly cited Coffman’s 2001 legal opinion as evidence in a lawsuit (footnote 3 here) claiming that Colorado’s ban on using tax dollars for abortion precludes the state from funding Planned Parenthood at all, even for the women’s health organization’s non-abortion services for low income people, such as breast cancer screening.

Colorado’s Supreme Court disagreed, ruling last month that the state can provide funds for Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion services, despite the constitutional abortion-funding ban.

You’d think this would be a major disappointment for Coffman, who once boasted about her role in defunding Planned Parenthood, “We went through the legal process, since I was [Jane Norton’s] attorney, and we defunded Planned Parenthood in that case, because they were using public funds to subsidize abortion.”

Coffman’s campaign did not respond to my request for comment after the Colorado Supreme Court decision last month.

But during a brief interview Wednesday, prior to a debate, Coffman indicated that her hard stance against Planned Parenthood may have softened.

Asked whether she still opposes public funding for Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion services, Coffman declined comment, saying, “That’s a longer conversation we should have another time.”

If Coffman were still opposed to funding for Planned Parenthood, a quick “yes” would have ended my interview.

You wouldn’t think a “longer conversation” would be required to restate an existing and painstakingly well-documented view. Still, it’s quite possible her hard line position hasn’t changed, and she just wanted to lay it out during a long conversation.

So we don’t know for sure.

At Wednesday’s debate, she referred me to a staffer, who was accompanying her.  The staffer asked me to email her my interview request, which I did and to which I’ve gotten no response.

Coffman has taken conflicting stances on the abortion issue during this year’s gubernatorial campaign, accepting a TV reporter’s characterization of her as “pro-choice” but later telling a talk show host she refuses to accept the “pro-choice” label.  Then she told another reporter she wants abortion to be “rare” and “safe,” which sounds more like a pro-choice stand.

Then Coffman told a radio host that she personally disagrees with the landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, though she accepts the law as “settled.”

Against this backdrop, you can see why Coffman would rather not talk about the Planned Parenthood court decision, which is precisely why reporters should ask her about it!

She’s already being pounded by anti-abortion conservatives for her contradictory statements on abortion during the gubernatorial campaign.

And anti-abortion Republicans are known to have an outsized influence at GOP assembly, where Coffman must win 30 percent of delegates to advance to the primary election.

So, she’d rather not say anything more to turn anti-choice activists away than she already has.

At the same time, Coffman appears to be setting herself up to try to leapfrog over anti-abortion Republicans and appeal to pro-choice unaffiliated voters in the primary and general elections.

For now, she apparently thinks her best strategy is to have it both ways on abortion, and talking about Planned Parenthood won’t help her.

The Colorado Independent took a step yesterday toward winning its battle for the release of court documents illuminating why prosecutors messed up a death-penalty case in suburban Denver against Sir Mario Owens, who was found guilty in 2005 of killing two people.

Arapahoe-County-area prosecutors George Brauchler and his predecessor Carol Chambers wrongfully withheld evidence that might have helped Owens’ defense, according to a Colorado court ruling. But the documents explaining the screw-up were sealed.

The Independent asked a court to unseal the records, but a  judge said no, arguing that Owens would have been found guilty anyway, even if his defense had been given access to the records. Yesterday, the Colorado Supreme Court asked the judge to explain his legal reasoning for keeping the records sealed.

But here’s the interesting part, from a political perspective.

Not only are the prosecutorial-misconduct documents themselves sealed but so are documents from Brauchler’s office, filed in response to the Independent’s lawsuit, outlining his office’s arguments for keeping the documents sealed. 

That’s kind of jaw dropping for two reasons. First, Brauchler is running for the job of Colorado attorney general. And second, as Susan Greene, the Independent’s editor, wrote a post about the case, “Brauchler’s chief deputy wrote our lawyer, Steve Zansberg to say his office fears that the documents, if unsealed, would be used ‘to gratify private spite or – promote public scandal’ and ‘to serve as reservoirs of libelous statements for press consumption.'”

In other words, Brauchler’s office admits that he doesn’t want them released for political reasons.

So it’s no surprise that Brauchler, a Republican who dropped out of the race to be governor last year to pursue the attorney-general office, isn’t talking about why he wants to keep them sealed.

Yet, at the same time, he’s saying publicly that “I will answer any question ever about what we do.”

“Once you’ve announced you’re running for office, there are certain people who are going to view every decision you make as having been motivated by politics,” Brauchler told KNUS host (and Brauchler friend) Steffan Tubbs Feb. 6.  “Even this, someone sitting there right now, recording this, the Brauchler Haters for AG Group or whatever, and they are like, ‘He’s just talking about that.’ Look, this is just who I am. I’m the DA out here. I love the job that I do. It’s an awesome responsibility. And I will answer any question ever about what we do.” [Listen below.]

Any question ever? Why not tell us why you won’t release the documents? Brauchler’s office did not return an email seeking an answer to this question. (He’s stated that Owens received a fair trail.)

Undoubtedly, Brauchler, who’s known for being readily available to talk to reporters and others, may have legal reasons for keeping the Owens’ documents sealed.  But it looks as if politics is playing a big role, if you believe his deputy. But who knows without seeing the docs?

And regardless, as Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition Executive Director Jeff Roberts told Greene, access to to such court documents is “only way Coloradans can know whether the system is working properly.”

At the end of the day, beyond one election, that’s what really matters here.

Listen to Brauchler on KNUS Feb. 6:

During a KNUS radio interview Saturday, Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman implied that ColoradoPolitics reporter Joey Bunch is writing unflattering articles about her gubernatorial campaign at the behest of Republican mega-donor Phil Anschutz, who owns ColoradoPolitics and the Colorado Springs Gazette through Clarity Media.

KNUS 710-AM HOST CRAIG SILVERMAN: [at 12 minutes] I don’t know if your ears were burning last night, but on “Colorado Inside Out”, Joey Bunch — veteran political reporter — said, “What’s up with Cynthia Coffman? She doesn’t really have a campaign.” I know you have a website now. But, do you have a full- blown campaign? Do you have a campaign manager? Are you ready to really participate in this race?

COFFMAN: You know, I’m going to say, “Baloney!” to Joey. Joey Bunch works for the Colorado Springs Gazette, owned by Phil Anschutz, who has already put out an editorial saying everyone in the Republican primary field should just clear the way for [Colorado Treasurer] Walker Stapleton, because that’s who [Anschutz] supports. So, I think you need to consider the source. Yes, I have a campaign. As I told you, I won Attorney General statewide by a higher percentage than anyone else. I know how to run a statewide campaign and I think people need to stop worrying about the girl in the race.

In fact, the Gazette published a finger-wagging editorial last month stating that Coffman and the other GOP gubernatorial candidates, except Colorado Treasurer Walker Stapleton, “would do themselves and their party a favor by selflessly clearing the field and helping [Stapleton] win against the odds.”

And, in fact, Bunch appeared on Colorado Inside Out Friday, saying, “You know what is holding up? The fact that Cynthia Coffman doesn’t have a campaign or a message or any momentum at all. And she also doesn’t have any money.”

And, in fact (again), Bunch has posted multiple articles that raise questions about Coffman’s campaign (e.g., here, here, here, and here). ColoradoPolitics reporter Ernest Luning has written one as well.

But unfortunately, those three facts don’t come close to proving  that Anschutz is dispatching Bunch to attack Coffman in hopes of promoting Stapleton.

Coffman’s implied accusation is the kind that’s heard when a journalist is reporting information that a candidate doesn’t want to hear.

And in this case, Coffman hasn’t responded to Bunch’s specific points, made by other political observers as well, about lack of money, momentum, or campaign operations. So the evidence-free implication about Bunch being in Anschutz’s tank serves as little more than the ultimate insult for a professional journalist.

In an email, Bunch stood behind his reporting, writing, “I’ve reported what’s she said, her financial report and what appears to be a lack of an organized campaign or clear message on transportation and where she stands on abortion, something that matters deeply to the Republican base. Her first quarter in the race she spent about $14,000 and raised a little less than $100,000. I haven’t heard from any press person she’s employed, and it’s not clear who her campaign manager is.”

BUNCH: “I’ve said worse about her. I’m flattered she cared enough to mention me by name. I can live without positive attention.

Maybe I’m wrong, Maybe she actually does have a campaign.

Man, what a world, a conservative criticizing me because I work for Anschutz. I thought the liberals were supposed to do that.

But in this race Cynthia doesn’t know who she is, and that’s a big part of her problem: no money, no message, no base. Is she Cynthia who shouted “Go Trump” on Election Night, or is she Cynthia who told the NYT people lament not electing a woman president the same night?”

Coffman’s office did not respond to my request for evidence that Anschutz is directing Bunch’s reporting.

As Bunch points out, you’d expect to see the red flags about Republican donor Anschutz and ColoradoPolitics being waved by progressives. My response to them is, I trust the journalists at the Anschutz-owned outlet to let us know if the owner’s fist pounds the table and demands bias. They’d know, and I think at least some of them would tell us what’s going on.

I caught up with former Congressman Tom Tancredo the day after he announced his decision to abandon his campaign to be governor of Colorado.

“I’m here with a truck load of furniture that I have to unload entirely by myself,” Tancredo told me, saying he was backing his truck into his driveway as he was talking. “And I’m thinking, ‘You know, did you count on this, Tom? You’re going to have to deal with all this crap by yourself. Maybe I should have thought this whole thing through. I wouldn’t have to unload all of this if I were still a candidate.”

Westord’s Michael Roberts got it right Tuesday, when he reported that Tancredo “speaks in the sort of unfiltered manner that is incredibly rare for any politician, no matter his ideological beliefs.”

Tanc’s comments upon his departure from the race were no exception.

He talked openly about his surprise and disappointment at not being able to raise the money that he felt he needed to win the general election, even though he thought he could win the GOP primary.

He called Treasurer Walker Stapleton, who’s still in the gubernatorial race, the “ultimate insider.” At the same time, he was openly envious at the Bush cousin’s fundraising abilities.

Tancredo said it will be “hard for any Republican to win.” But he didn’t say it was out of the question either, just impossible for him without money he didn’t have.

He said his relationship with the media would also have hurt him:

Tancredo: “I do not have the luxury of a friendly relationship with the media, The Denver Post, Channel 9, and certainly the Colorado Springs Gazette.”

But he pointed out that the Gazette, which backs Stapleton, warmed to him after he dropped from the race,  even calling him “iconic” after lambasting him last month.

The Gazette used Tancredo’s departure to again call on other Republicans to exit the race: “Despite Tancredo’s move, the Republican field remains crowded with eight declared candidates. Others would do themselves and their party a favor to follow Tancredo’s lead if they can’t raise big money soon and achieve good name recognition.”

All of this, plus the prospect of facing a well-funded Democrat in the general election, led Tancredo to conclude it was time to drop out. He’d promised from the beginning that if he did not think he could win the general election, he’d leave the race to others.

For progressive journalists, like Mike Littwin, Tancredo’s exit is mixed blessing. As Littwin wrote toward the end of a column on Tancredo’s sudden departure, “And, on a personal note, with the race still in its early stages, I just lost about half my material.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Coffman told Peter Jones of the South Metro Villager last month that she backs abortion rights. Jones reported:

Coffman is likewise supportive of abortion rights.

“I want abortion to be rare. I want it to be safe, and I want us to be doing things as a society that diminish the need for there to be abortion,” she said.

That’s a pretty straight-forward articulation of a pro-choice position.

So you wonder why Coffman said previously that she was “surprised” that Channel 4 political specialist Shaun Boyd had characterized her as “pro-choice.”

“No! No, I didn’t. I refused to accept a label. And I still do,” Coffman said on air in response to a question about whether she’d describes herself as pro-choice.

Yet, Boyd reported that the Coffman campaign did not want Channel 4 to correct its story labeling Coffman as “pro-choice.”

So Coffman’s words say she’s pro-choice, but that’s not what she wants to be called? What to do with that, if you’re a reporter?  You have to call her pro-choice, because that’s what she appears to be, but maybe there’s more to the story.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who’s considering another run for governor,  has cleansed his Facebook page of the fake news that Obama honored Harvey Weinstein, among other Democrats accused of sexual assault.

The item depicts Obama giving medals to Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, Anthony Weiner, and Bill Cosby.

A headline across the top reads, “I DIDN’T KNOW THERE WAS A SEXUAL PREDATOR AWARD. THANKS DEMOCRATS.”

Tancredo, who ran for president in 2008, told me he had doubts about the Facebook meme before he posted it.

“When I looked at it, I thought, ‘What would Obama be giving Weiner an award for? So I should have paid more attention to that one,” Tancredo told me. “It’s well done, but these days, who can tell?”

The falsehood no longer appears on Tanc’s page.

Tancredo told me he once removed one item from his Facebook page after hearing Rush Limbaugh state it was false. But he isn’t inclined to believe Snopes or the New York Times. 

Sometimes a journalist tries the most basic research tactics, and they pay off.

That’s what happened to Colorado Springs’ KRDO reporter Chase Golightly last week when he went to the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs in search of right-wing political strategist Steve Bannon.

Golightly went to the hotel, hung around a for a bit, but didn’t see Bannon. He interviewed staff, who wouldn’t confirm anything. He spoke with guests and workers.

Finally he got the idea to call the front desk. He phoned up the hotel, asked for Bannon, and bingo, the notorious Breitbart editor and former Trump adviser was on the line.

Unfortunately, Bannon apparently hung up on Golightly, but confirmation positive. Bannon was at the conference, sponsored by the Council for National Policy.

It’s one of the details you’ll enjoy in Golightly’s piece last week about Bannon’s presence in Colorado. He takes you through the steps he took to try to find the elusive Bannon.

Unfortunately, Golightly didn’t return an email and call seeking comment, but perhaps he’s just seeing what it feels like to be Bannon. So I don’t hold it against him.

The bigger praise goes to The Denver Post’s Mark Matthews, with help from John Frank, who broke the story that Bannon was somewhere in Colorado and, more importantly, had been talking to Tom Tancredo about his possible run for governor.

But without slighting The Post, it’s great to see aggressive and entertaining journalism from KRDO TV’s Golightly.

Because, as Golightly reported himself, the Broadmoor is “no stranger to gatherings of the highest political and financial ranks,” and we need journalists to try to figure out what’s going inside there–and elsewhere in Colorado Springs’ conservative miasma.

At a Sept. 9 campaign stop in Grand Junction, GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Robinson told the crowd that the “editor” of The Denver Post informed him that U.S. Rep Jared Polis (D-CO) is “too left” for Colorado, and that the unnamed editor “can’t see [The Post] endorsing” Polis.

“This is an interesting story,” said Robinson told supporters at the meet-and-greet event. “When I announced my candidacy, the editor of The Denver Post called me. I was like, ‘Really?’ [laughter]. You know what I mean? Because they have endorsed Democrats for generations. [crowd: “Oh Yeah!”] You know what I mean? And he said, ‘Don’t write us off.’ He says, ‘We are going to endorse a candidate. And if it’s Jared Polis, I can’t see us endorsing him. He’s too left.’ [crowd: “Wow! Ohooo”]. ‘Too far out for Colorado.’ He says, ‘He may be too far out for Colorado.'”

That’s an “interesting story,” to say the least.

Asked about it Friday, Denver Post editorial Page editor Chuck Plunkett said via email that no one on The Denver Post’s editorial board, which has the job of making endorsements for the newspaper, spoke with Robinson about Polis in April, when Robinson claimed the call took place, and that The Post has “not reached any conclusions about endorsements in any of the races.”

Robinson had a phone conversation with the Chair of The Post, Dean Singleton, a few days before Robinson entered the gubernatorial race, but Singleton did not talk to Robinson about Polis at all, according to Plunkett.

Plunkett wrote:

Robinson’s account is incorrect on many levels. For one, I am the editor and I don’t even have his phone number. We’ve never talked.

Only one member of our board has talked with Robinson, and that is our chair, Dean Singleton. I have talked to Dean about the transcript you sent and learned that Robinson’s account is badly flawed.

Dean knows Robinson casually. He got a call from Robinson before he entered the governor’s race. Dean told him that he didn’t think he had a chance at winning, and suggested he might consider running for treasurer. The call came the day or so before Robinson announced, which was in late April. Jared Polis didn’t enter the race until weeks later, in mid-June.

Dean has said publicly that he doubts Polis can win the race, as he’s too liberal for a statewide contest, so Robinson must be conflating events. Dean says he didn’t talk to Robinson about Polis back in April, as the congressman hadn’t even entered the race.

Dean meets with candidates and expresses his opinions as is his right. But — and this is an important point — in doing so he doesn’t speak for our editorial board, or attempt to derail the process we take in coming to conclusions on our endorsements.

I can tell you without doubt we have not reached any conclusions about endorsements in any of the races. A long process awaits before we can get to that point.

I wish Robinson, who’s the nephew of Mitt Romney, returned my phone call or multiple emails seeking comment, but, alas, I didn’t hear back from him.

So we don’t know his side of the story, but clearly someone is confused or not telling the truth here. Or maybe Robinson talked to another Post editor–which is highly unlikely since you wouldn’t expect an editor on the news side to be offering opinions to Robinson.

But, in the absence of a response from Robinson, I’d have to say the guilty party is probably Robinson, especially because his false statement about The Post’s past endorsements punctures his credibility.

Robinson may be so upset that The Post didn’t endorse his uncle that he didn’t noticed all the other Republicans The Post has backed, including Gardner in the 2014.

In the 2014 general election, for Congress, The Post endorsed three Republicans and four Democrats. In the 2016 election, The Post backed five Republicans and five Democrats. The Post picked Obama over Robinson’s uncle in 20012.

I’ll update this post if I hear from Robinson. Meanwhile, this blog post shows, again, that you never know what a political candidate will say at a meet-and-greet.

Robinson is pictured on the right, next to  former gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis, in the above photo, which I found on former Post reporter Lynn Bartels Facebook page.