Club For Growth nutcase Bill Sali has another Democratic challenger on his hands: businessman Walt Minnick, a former Senate candidate who lost by 16% to Larry Craig in 1996. For those keeping score, that’s not a bad performance considering that Bill Clinton won less than 34% of the state’s Presidential vote that year. Minnick will join ’06 nominee Larry Grant and army vet Rand Lewis in the Democratic primary.
At his announcement speech today, Minnick was joined by former Gov. Cecil Andrus, the last meaningful Democratic figure to hold office in Idaho:
“This is a man who can win in the fall; a man I trust and can be elected in November as Congressman from the first district,” said former Idaho governor and Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus.Andrus was introducing Walt Minnick, candidate for the Democratic nomination to the House of Representatives, in front of supporters and press this morning in front of the Idaho Historical Museum in downtown Boise.
Minnick’s entry and Andrus’ endorsement comes with this as a backdrop:
After Grant lost to Sali, Idaho Statesman political columnist Dan Popkey quoted a few Idaho Democrats who were angry with Larry Grant for running a lackluster campaign, squandering goodwill with unreturned phone calls and offers of help, not listening to campaign advisors and declining to campaign aggressively against Sali’s far-right philosophies.Some Democrats think Popkey’s column opened the door for party members to talk about their disappointment with Grant, leaving room for a challenge primary.
While the ripest year to beat Sali was 2006, it’s certainly a change of pace to see a three-way primary for a House seat in Idaho. Perhaps this race could get interesting later down the line.