ACHILLES: Strong and independent

In her July 3 letter, "Vulnerable candidate," Jenny Holmes wants readers to believe Todd Achilles is just a Democrat wearing an independent label. She's right that Todd once served as a Democrat in the Idaho House. She leaves out why he doesn't anymore.

Todd grew up on a family farm, served in the Army as a tank commander, spent more than twenty years building businesses in tech, and now teaches public policy. When a seat opened in the statehouse it was Republican Governor Brad Little who appointed him. He left that seat, and the party, because he reached the same conclusion a lot of us have, that both parties in Washington keep growing the debt, looking out for their donors, and setting us against each other while neither one fights for Idaho. That's not a rebrand. It's the reason he's running as an independent.

What Holmes really does is change the subject from the man Idaho already has in Washington, a senator who's 83, has held office since 1970, and rarely comes home to face voters. In February, Jim Risch told a Senate hearing that "Idahoans do not want their public lands sold," and then, when Steve Pearce's nomination to run the Bureau of Land Management reached the Senate floor, Risch didn't cast a vote, not once but on both floor votes that carried Pearce through. Mike Crapo voted yes.

Idaho doesn't need another six years of a senator who says the right thing at a hearing and isn't there for the vote. Todd Achilles will be. That's the real choice here, and no clever nickname changes it.

CHRISTIE WOOD

Coeur d'Alene