The Response to the Statesman

The Statesmen carried four responses from the candidates to its endorsement of Keith Johnson yesterday. First up, lets hear from Shelia Sorensen:

An editorial board that bases its arguments on style points over substance is, at best, shallow in its thinking. Well, maybe I need a speech coach. I’m not as polished as I want to be in my delivery, and I’m working on that. But I have no trouble with communication where it really counts — in the political arena and with constituents…

I have the support of U.S. Congressman Mike Simpson. This is far more valuable than a Statesman endorsement. He has stated that if this were a job application, “it would be a slam dunk” for me.

If Congressman Simspon is hiring for staffers, that’s great, Shelia. I have to enjoy for a moment the idea of a newspaper being subjected to the elitism the liberal press constantly puts ordinary Americans under.

Sorensen is misleading on why the Statesman didn’t endorse her. Writing of her debate performance, the Statesman said:

We might be willing to cut Sorensen some slack, except her interview with the Statesman editorial board was equally unimpressive.

On some issues, Sorensen had no answers. The nurse practitioner by training, who is making health care a centerpiece of her campaign, said inexplicably that she was unsure how she would have voted on the Medicare bill. She offered a tortured answer about her controversial attendance at an event featuring liberal celebrity Al Franken. She said Republicans and Democrats were herded into separate rooms, and she said the event simply wasn’t a big deal. But she also said, if she had it to do all over again, she would have declined the invitation.

Also, if the Statesman is now a bunch of shallow idiots, what were they all those years they endorsed her continuing in the legislature. As she did with the faux NRA endorsement letter, she’s continuing to make misrepresentations in this race.

Skip Brandt takes the high road throughout his rebuttal and then swipes at Keith Johnson’s newspaper ad which included endorsements from people who hadn’t endorsed Johnson:

Will the public place its trust in politicians who pretend to be something they are not? Those who seek to confuse the voters by placing on their literature and in their ads false endorsements by people who support other candidates now will have those actions judged by Idahoans at the ballot box.

Its a somewhat off-message dig that distracts from a positive piece and blunts the message, particulary as most the Statesman’s readers have no clue what’s being referred to.

Norm Semanko’s response was respectful albeit unremarkable.

Bill Sali wrote a piece in which he re-iterated the large number of conservative groups that support his campaign and how he was the Conservative that could beat Sorensen.

What I wish would have done is talked about his family, talked about his love for the district and the state. When I talk to people who know him, they tell me what a fine man he is. He needs to talk about himself as an Idahoan, because if he loses the election it will be because of people seeing him as a walking pile of out of state cash. I don’t think that at all explains who Bill Sali is but he’s in danger of letting himself be defined that way.

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