Looking Good for Sali

Despite the massive liberal Special Interest efforts, it looks like New York won’t get it’s 32nd Congressman. Color me cautiously me optomistic about Congressman Bill Sali’s re-election chances for a couple of reasons. First, there’s this story from the Idaho Statesman:

Those are the results of a statewide mock election among students in high school senior government classes, organized by the Idaho Secretary of State’s office. Of the more than 4,704 online ballots cast Thursday and Friday by students at 54 schools across the state, and tallied up this morning, 47.8 percent favored Democrat Barack Obama for president, to 45.6 percent for Republican John McCain. Independent Ralph Nader got 4 percent, Libertarian Bob Bar got 1.6 percent and Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin got 1 percent…

In the congressional races, Republican incumbent Bill Sali edged Democrat Walt Minnick in the student vote in the 1st Congressional District, 52.8 percent to 47.2 percent, while GOP Rep. Mike Simpson collected 65.9 percent to Democratic challenger Deborah Holmes’ 34.1 percent in the 2nd Congressional District.

Now, let’s think about this. Obama wins among Idaho Kids with 51.8% voting for leftist candidates Obama or Nader (public education/media propoganda successful.) Yet, in the end, Bill Sali wins over Minnick by a healthy 6 point margin. Given that the kids voting are much more liberal than their parents, it would seem safe to suggest Congressman Sali should win by an even stronger margin when the elections are held.

Second pieces of news that helps Sali comes from the Idaho Press Tribune. Last election cycle, Democrat Larry Grant ran the table of newspaper endorsements in heading towards a loss. They didn’t endorse Sali this time, opting for “no endorsement decision.” While the Press Tribune tweaked Sali, but it’s Saturday Editorial was an unabashed slam on Walt Minnick:

Because the 1st District does lean conservative, Minnick’s high-pressure effort to convince Idahoans he’s so far on the right raises red flags.

Consider this question the IPT asked in an online survey: On a political scale from extremely liberal (1) to the very conservative (10), where are you on a scale of 1 to 10? Minnick answered with a 7. Sali answered with an 8. There’s something wrong with this picture.

On one issue, Minnick touts himself as a strong supporter of gun rights — a critically important topic in Southwest Idaho. But consider how his grade from the National Rifle Association stacks up to other federal candidates in the election the pro-gun group gave a rating:

Minnick: D+

Sali: A

Jim Risch: A

Larry LaRocco: A

Mike Simpson: A

Clearly, there’s a disconnect between the image Minnick tries to project and where he stands. Notice that fellow Democrat LaRocco received an A.

Further, in debates and interviews, Minnick seems to try to say things that make everyone happy, conservatives and left-leaners alike. But he usually leaves a lot of room to wiggle…

Instead of fresh ideas, Minnick brought politics as usual to the table.

This is damning for the Democrats. Unanimous support of newspapers was key to Larry Grant’s bid, but the Press-Tribune broke ranks. Worst yet, they advertised the biggest weakspot in Minnick’s issue stances: Gun rights. The D+ rating from the NRA should be “D” for devestating.

Kevin Richert takes issue with Sali on only quoting the parts of the Editorial where the paper calls out Minnick:

In a remarkably glass half-full reading of the editorial, Sali neglects to mention the non-endorsement. An omission that is itself disingenuous and misleading.

I disagree with Kevin here. If the Sali campaign said, “In its endorsement editorial, the Press-Tribune said…” Richert would have a point. But it’s not the campaign’s job to spread around criticism and attacks on Congressman Sali.

That’s the job of the Idaho Statesman.

In all seriousness, by Richert’s standard, campaigns are being disingenuous and misleading when they put out press releases praising their guy and criticizing the other guy and failing to note where their candidate made gaffes or the other made a good point.

For a newspaper to try and turn a common political practice into being “misleading and disingenuous” in one and only one case is itself misleading and disingenuous.