Sali Plays for the Team

The media’s making a big deal about Bill Sali asking Kent Marmon and Pro-Life to step out of the race:

“I was asked by Bill Sali if I would get out of this race and it didn’t make any sense to me,” said Pro-Life.

Congressman Bill Sali isn’t in this race.  He has a race of his own for Idaho’s first congressional district.

But the man who calls himself Pro-Life says three weeks ago, he was personally called by Sali at his home.

“I got a call from Congressman Bill Sali,” said Kent Marmon, Libertarian Party candidate.

The other two candidates have similar stories.

“It was on a Friday evening, Bill was on his way to a wedding rehearsal for his daughter who was getting married the next day.  He asked me if I had considered the fact that I was taking votes away from Jim Risch, helping Larry LaRocco, and if I considered bowing out of the race,” said Marmon.

My thoughts? Is there anything illegal about this? No. Anything unethical, immoral, etc? No. There is something unseemly about it? You might not like it, but Congressman Sali didn’t threaten them if they didn’t get out. He believed that both Marmon and the candidate formerly known as Marvin Richardson cared about things like the right to life, avoiding big government, and insuring intelligent picks on the court get confirmed. As one of Idaho’s senior conservative statesman, he did his thing and made his request.

I say, shame on Pro-Life and Marmon for turning a private conversation into news fodder. According to Pro-Life and Marmon both, Congressman Sali made a private request that they consider dropping out with no threats accompanying it. In the same story, Independent Candidate Rex Rammell showed some class by not publicly naming “friends” in the GOP who had asked him to leave the race. Apparently, Rammell would like to have some Republican friends after the election.

Mountain Goat Report proclaims Congressman Sali, “Idaho’s GOP hitman” and, “Apparently he’s spending way too much time interfering in Idaho’s U.S. Senate race.” Folks, he made two phone calls on behalf of the Republican team.

As you read these type of attacks, remember the same people who are attacking him as the GOP hitman, also attack him as an extremist for voting against the majority of his party when he believes they’re wrong. These people want to portray Bill Sali as both too Independent outside his party’s mainstream and as a partisan hitman at the same time. It’s the same double minded attack we’ve been hearing for 2 1/2 years.