Minnick gets Cook boost while Sali shills

Great news in the 1st CD race: the prestigious Cook Political Report today changed its rating of the Idaho 1st Congressional District race from "Likely Republican" to "Leans Republican."  The Cook Report had already  swung the seat from "Solid Republican" to "Likely" earlier this year. To put this into context, in 2006, The Cook Report made the "Likely" to "Leans" switch on October 18, so Walt Minnick is a full month ahead of that benchmark - even with Idaho native Sarah Palin at the top of the GOP ticket.

The Cook Report noted, "Despite this district's very serious GOP bent, Republicans admit that Sali himself is the biggest issue in his reelection race. Sali was recently criticized for pressuring non-major party candidates to exit the Senate race, and has taken to holding yard sales to bankroll his shoestring campaign. ... Once again, Republicans are extremely nervous about a district that they shouldn't have to lose sleep over."

Yard sales. You read right. Read more at Swing State Project and Sali's own blog, and see Sali himself make a pitch for it (or for yard signs, oooops) at YouTube. I wonder whether Bill Sali Fan has held his event yet? Or whether, as this blogger wonders, very, very few Idahoans would actually be willing to admit to their neighbors that they'd actually give this guy another term. In any case, Walt Minnick supporters can take the more traditional route to donating money via his website.

Also on the 1st CD front, Minnick has scored the endorsement of the League of Conservation Voters (on whose scorecard Sali gets a zero); the Idaho Democratic Party has launched a list of 30 reasons Idaho voters don't want Bill Sali (#30 – Sali voted to worsen health care in rural Idaho); and  Betsy Russell of The Spokesman-Review had a story yesterday on the candidates' relative cross-party appeal. A snip:

Both candidates for North Idaho’s seat in Congress are now saying party labels don’t really matter, after Democrat Walt Minnick released a list of 60 “Republicans for Minnick” and GOP incumbent Bill Sali named a Democratic county commissioner as one of his campaign co-chairmen.

"We hear from people all the time who are loyal Democrats, don’t like Walt Minnick, don’t like his position on issues and find they have more support on the things they care about from Bill,” said Sali’s campaign spokesman, Wayne Hoffman.

Funny, though, how the Sali campaign has released the name of exactly one Democrat who supports Sali. According to Russell, "Hoffman said other Democratic supporters didn’t want to be named." I'll bet!

Comments

[Bill Sali Fan]

I bet you'd like to know when my yard sale is going to be, but it's a closely held campaign secret; plus, I'll only be accepting cash, so I won't "barter" or take "fair trade script" or whatever it is you Socialists do.

I was going to sell my TV to support the Hero of the Owyhees, but now I'm going to keep it so I can watch Bill Sali's first campaign commercial! I talk about why it's so great, and why there's no way that Bill Sali unethically utilized taxpayer resources by having the CRS draw up a report for him just so he could use the numbers for his commercial, at my Patriotic website: http://billsalifan.blogspot.com/2008/09/bill-sali-commercial-shows-why-hes-hero.html

[Irwin Horowitz]

Did other 1st district residents get this lovely mailer today from wacky Bill? Going through his list of votes, I found an anti-correlation of near unity in how I would vote compared to how he would vote. Guess this means I support Walt, huh?

[bernard]

Minnick is down 46-35 and needs more name id with voters and less time holding teas in Boise to raise money among the converted (who live mainly in the 2nd CD) to pay for campaign staff overhead, and he needs to bring Sali down five points with some advertisements reminding people of Sali's poor performance, bad reputation and others things that would make for a good contrast.

[sharon fisher]

The Statesman had the yard sale story today.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/531/story/508361.html

It would be fun for us all to go in and comment with other ways Sali could raise money: Bake sales! Collecting bottles and cans! Lemonade stands! Paper drives!

The Statesman also had an interesting angle about how the yard sales might run afoul of campaign contribution reporting.

[Julie in Boise]

Sharon, I saw that and wish they'd pursued the FEC angle a little more. Technically, anyone buying anything at these yard sales ought to be filling out the usual contribution disclosure form. Given Sali's continual troubles with the FEC, I'd be very surprised if they're asking their yard salers to do that.

Bernard, I agree. Minnick needs to come out with some hard-hitting ads. And the media needs to do its job reporting on the FEC story (with another quarter closing soon) and other assorted Sali malfeasance.

As for the mailer, I heard about it at the Women's Fitness deal this morning. It sounds nasty. No surprise.

[Julie in Boise]

Actually, it turns out that I GOT the Sali mailer, even though I live in the 2nd District. Way to spend those scarce campaign dollars!