Idaho: Democrat all spin zone
A lot of untruths, half truths, and bald-faced lies are spread around during campaign season. Republicans aren't likely to get away with weaving fairy tales because of our ever-vigilant truth-seeking press. With Democrats ... uh ... not so much.
Democrats have been freely able to manipulate the Idaho press in so many ways this year, especially when it comes to media darlings, Walter Clifford Minnick and his spin-meister general John Foster. I know first-hand the silliness perpetrated on the reading and viewing public by the Democrat/media super-spin love fest.
I was hired in June as the North Idaho Victory Director, as part of the largest joint effort ever made in our state by the Republican National Committee and the Idaho State Republican Party. About a month later Phil Hardy was hired to serve as the Idaho Victory Director. Phil and I are humble guys, but I can honestly say we are not political small potatoes. Phil is a hotshot press guy who has served the Idaho Senate Republican Majority, the Lt. Governor and before that some of the top Rock 'n' Roll bands of all time (that's a whole other story.) He is such a catch that he has now been lured away by the Labrador campaign. The state party has now filled his position with an equally talented and committed Victory Director, Trevor Thorpe.
Myself, I spent the late '80s and early '90s as a political consultant and in 1994 had a big hand in the first electoral defeat of a Speaker of the U.S. House since 1862. We are not seat-warming interns. We were hired because the RNC and the Idaho Republican party fervently want Raul Labrador elected to Congress. No matter what the Democratic spin machine cons the press into printing, you don't recruit guys like us just for appearances.
The same joint effort opened the largest and most technologically advanced Victory Headquarters I have ever been a part of in my 22 years in politics. The 2,500-square-foot Kootenai County Republican Headquarters in Coeur d'Alene puts to shame any campaign office I have ever seen and the operation in Boise is even bigger. Both sites are fully equipped with the RNC provided (at great expense) state of the art Voice-Over-Internet-Phone banks in which volunteers have already made over 30,000 phone calls. Our call volume in Cd'A alone will produce a cable-Internet bill over $1,000.
Every call made will help elect Labrador, as well as Butch Otter, Mike Crapo and every Republican candidate in Idaho. But make no mistake, the reason the Republican Party on the national, state and local level has poured unprecedented time and resources into Idaho is to make sure Raul Labrador replaces Walter Clifford Minnick in the U.S. House, to vote out Nancy Pelosi and defeat the disastrous Obama agenda. A lapdog press may take its cues from deputy Congressman Foster and boldly dissemble that the Republican Party is pulling away from Labrador but please consider the source.
They are the same folks telling you the guy who enthusiastically endorsed Obama, happily voted for Nancy Pelosi, accepts campaign contributions from pro-abortion groups, has a D rating from the NRA, is bought and paid for by Wall Street banks is a good ol' boy Idaho conservative. I've seen more "truth" in a pile behind a county fair dairy barn.
Jeff Ward is North Idaho Field Director of the Idaho Republican Party.