Gov. Jan Brewer commended herself for telling her political adviser Chuck Coughlin to "move on" and for her ability to stay "above the fray." Opponent Terry Goddard is not settling for that and challenged Brewer to fire Coughlin, calling him a "despicable human being."
The exchange came during yesterday's editorial board meeting at the Arizona Star. Video has been released, and here is a package (embedded below) airing on Channel 3 tonight. Arizona's Politics previously posted about Coughlin's sleazy effort to inject 20-year old rumors about Goddard's sexual preference, and today's somewhat subtle e-mail from the Goddard campaign highlighting his wife and son.
A Star reporter asked Brewer if she condemned Coughlin's actions. That is when she noted that she "thought that it was totally irrelevant and absolutely ridiculous and move on." Later, she patted herself on the back: "I will commend myself by saying that I have been above the fray."
Goddard was not commending Brewer, however. With Libertarian candidate Barry Hess sitting in between the Republican and the Democrat, Goddard said: "Chuck Coughlin is a despicable human being, and I think that anybody who has the kind of leadership style she just described to you (about herself) should not be tolerating somebody (like Coughlin) as her top person."
Later, Goddard spoke directly to Brewer: "Are you going to fire Chuck Coughlin?" At the word "fire", Brewer quickly got up to leave. Goddard repeated "Are you, Governor," and Brewer turned and said "Terry, your hands are not clean and you don't want to go there with me."
Goddard fired back, "Nobody working for me in my campaign - they would be gone in 30 seconds if they tried something like Chuck Coughlin just tried." Brewer shook others' hands, made her way back toward Hess and Goddard, and said "Want to shake my hand?" To which Goddard made one last remark "As a person, yes. But, you've got to get rid of Chuck."
Methinks this issue is not going to go away as quickly as it previously seemed it would.
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