Red State Rebels

Wayne Hoffman's six cents

Wayne Hoffman, former spokesman for the lamentable Bill Sali, has found a few new ways to occupy his time. He's now director of a supposedly nonpartisan free-market think tank and a columnist for the Idaho Statesman. Here's a snip of a guest commentary I did earlier today at NewWest.net regarding Hoffman's new gigs. (I would've sent this straight to the Statesman except another op-ed of mine has been bottled up there for several weeks.)

Few would disagree with the main point of Hoffman’s first column, published Sunday: We ought to have more transparent government spending. Democrats have been calling for that for years, and President Obama is moving ahead to be sure it happens, both for government in general and his proposed American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan in particular.

I’m sure that all Democrats, Republicans and Independents agree with Hoffman’s premise. But Hoffman’s opening paragraph is worth a second thought since it belies the key difference between the two major parties. He wrote:

“I’m one Idaho taxpayer who is delighted that state government is undergoing major surgery. Every time the state adds 6 percent onto the price of the things I buy, I imagine ways I’d spend that money if I were not giving it to the government.”

Every time he spends money, he thinks about that? Clearly, Wayne Hoffman is obsessed with taxes more than your average Idahoan.

Like most people, I just pay the six cents. But every once in a while, when I’m prompted by someone like Hoffman to think about taxes, I don’t think about how I’d spend my tax pennies if I had them all to myself. Instead, I think about how – as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said - “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”

Read it all over at NewWest.net - and let's plan on keeping a very sharp eye on the, ahem, nonpartisan writer who not six months ago accused the Idaho media of being "shrill news lemmings all marching willingly to a sea of liberalism, filth and innuendo.” - JF

Slate on Sali

Bruce Reed, former domesticc policy advisor to President Clinton and current president of the Democratic Leadership Council, has a great article up over at Slate regarding, of all things, the changing leadership in Idaho's 1st CD. To quote Mr. Reed, the 1st CD "has lost its claim as the nuttiest House seat in the country" with the recent election of Walt Minnick.

Historically, Idaho has sent a wide array of personalities to the United States House of Representatives from the 1st CD. For every "nutty" legislator like Bill Sali or Helen Chenoweth, there have been strong, effective leaders like Larry LaRocco, Gracie Pfost and Comp White. Where Idaho voters have been faulted in the past for their erroneous election of convicted-felon George Hansen, they are certainly being credited now for their vote to send a real representative to Washington, D.C.

Like what has been written previously on the demeanor and personality of Sali, Reed contends that it was in fact Sali's abrasive personality that lost him his seat in Congress. Unlike Chenoweth, Sali didn't particularly stand out in Congress (something those of us in Idaho who watched Sali would contend with) and back home his personality lost him votes his party traditionally could win:

But for a state wholly unaccustomed to good election-year news, Idaho's real breakthrough was the defeat of first-term congressman Bill Sali, who through sheer force of unpleasant personality persuaded a staunchly conservative district to swear off extremism. With a disastrous campaign, Sali finally lived up to his billing as the Republican whom Idaho Republicans most love to hate.

Bruce Reed makes sure to mention the bunny ears incident with John Foster, Minnick's campaign spokesman, as well as Congressman Simpson's, then Idaho Speaker of the House, threat of throwing Sali out a capitol window. On the matter of the bunny ears:

The spokesman tried to dismiss the incident with what might as well have been Idaho's mantra in the Craig-Sali era: "If we can't laugh at ourselves, then what have we become?"

It is unfortunate that the national press is lumping Sali's defeat and disaster of a congressional term with the career of Larry Craig. For the joke that Larry Craig has become, continuing to refer to convicted felon Senator Stevens as "Uncle Ted" on the floor of the Senate still thismorning, his otherwise traditional conservative career in Congress used to be a highlight of Republican politics in this state. However, the national press will continue to look at the antics of Sali and the unfortunate events in a Minnesota airport bathroom stall in the same light. Perhaps it is as unfortunate for Bill Sali that he is considered in the category of the now infamous reputation of Larry Craig as it is the past life and semi-esteemed carrer of Craig to be lumped in with the short congressional career of Sali.

If you have not read Bruce Reed's column because of his association with the DLC or any other reason you've previously refrained from reading his stuff, please do so for the ending alone: "Etymologists say the word patoot derives from potato.Over the years, Idaho has produced plenty of both. But without Larry Craig and Bill Sali to kick around, Famous Patoots will no longer be the state motto."

That Classy Bill Sali

Imagine you're a campaign manager for the challenger in a close congressional campaign.  Imagine you're being interviewed by the local TV news.  You're speaking professionally, talking about why your candidate should be elected to the US Congress, when some people, outside of the view of the camera, start heckling you, flashing bunny ears and yelling.  "Huh," you think, "must be some kids."  And then you notice: it's the incumbent.

http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-oct1508-sali_minnick.116e9220f.html

New ad from Walt Minnick for Congress

For more on the people in the ad, click here.

New Minnick ad calls out Sali

The Walt Minnick for Congress campaign debuted this hard-hitting ad against Bill Sali earlier this week. Predictably, the Sali campaign called foul. But as its lead story last night, KTVB in Boise fact-checked the ad and found it to be 100 percent accurate. It's too bad that, at the end of its piece, KTVB noted a poll showing Sali ahead of Minnick - but not the one that has Minnick ahead. There are plenty more stories on the 1st CD race on Minnick's campaign blog.

Idaho GOP wants to abolish Federal Reserve

Idaho Democratic Party executive director Jim Hansen reminds us all at the state party website that the state Republican Party is on record as wanting to abolish the Federal Reserve. A snip:

There are few people alive who remember the 1929 stock market crash and the devastating depression that followed. If Idaho Republicans got their way, a crash of similar or greater impact would have happened this month.

It is clear that years of irresponsible lending fueled by Republican economic deregulation policies has accelerated into a dizzying series of near-disasters in the global economy. To put on the brakes and prevent the economy from completely derailing, our government must turn to a tool that Franklin D. Roosevelt created during the Depression: The Federal Reserve.

Read it all here. Jim raises an interesting question: Do Bill Sali, Jim Risch, Mike Simpson, Mike Crapo, Larry Craig, Butch Otter, and other Idaho Republicans actually stand behind this plank in the state GOP platform? Also, isn't it interesting how 1st CD candidate Bill Sali lashed out against the financial market bailout package before he knew anything about it - and now he's having to promise he'll keep an open mind? In complex times like this, we need leaders who think before they talk.

Update 9/24/08: Check out what Kos pointed out Tuesday afternoon (h/t Jill) ... this passage from the Republican Party Platform adopted mere weeks ago:

We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself.

I can only imagine the moral confusion that free-market zealots are experiencing this week, as they realize that their black-and-white positions don't work in the modern world.

New poll shows Minnick ahead of Sali

There was a lot of head-scratching last Friday night when Daily Kos released a poll showing Bill Sali an improbable 11 points ahead of Walt Minnick. Sure, Sali is an incumbent in a traditionally GOP district. He's also one of the most extreme and least effective legislators in Congress, a man who can't get his FEC filings straight, and someone who barely won his seat last time around.

Well, the Minnick campaign has released its own internal poll (by the respected Harstad Strategic Research) showing that Minnick is, in fact, running about 5 points ahead of Sali (53 percent to 48 percent 43 to 38 percent) and that Sali is hugely unpopular among even Republican voters. The survey was taken among 405 likely voters September 9-11, the week after the Republican convention.

Of course, the only poll that really matters is the one that concludes at 8 p.m. on November 4.

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!

Risch trying to railroad foes out of race

UPDATE Friday afternoon: LaRocco talked about the GOP's ballot machinations during a short interview with the Spokesman-Review's Huckleberries Online just now. Read it here.

Jim Risch and the Idaho Republican Party are apparently losing sleep over the idea that the lieutenant gov has to compete not just with surging Democrat Larry LaRocco but with three other conservatives in his drive to win Larry Craig's U.S. Senate seat. First, the GOP power elites tried to get independent Rex Rammell tossed off the ballot, a request that the Idaho Supreme Court denied on Wednesday. Then, on Thursday, KTVB reported that U.S. Rep. Bill Sali has called Rammell, Libertarian candidate Kent Marmon, and independent Pro-Life (yes, that's his name), asking them to drop out lest they throw the election to LaRocco. All three underdogs refused, and LaRocco told KTVB that the GOP efforts to winnow the field show disrespect for the voters. LaRocco served two terms in the U.S. House in the 1990s, and he offers that seniority and his place in the Democratic Party to improve Idaho's lowly status in Congress.

New commercial from Walt Minnick for Congress