Boise News

Idaho Politics: Commentary

Eight Challenge Idaho GOP Heir Apparent for Craig’s Senate Seat

By Jill Kuraitis, 1-29-08

When Idaho Lt. Gov. Jim Risch announced last October that he would run for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Larry Craig, Risch himself showed little sense of entitlement, but he didn’t have to – the crowd did it for him.

The press conference felt like a coronation. The Idaho GOP’s old guard, new guard, and elected officials practically down to dogcatcher stood beaming behind Risch at the lecturn as he declared.

Since then, eight Republican challengers have said they’ll run against Risch, more than one of them citing the rally behind Risch as the heir apparent as one reason they made their decision. Richard Phennegar even commissioned a poll by a firm outside Idaho, which he says showed only 21 percent of Idahoans were satisfied with the two major-party frontrunners for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat – Republican Jim Risch and Democrat Larry LaRocco.

There are so many in the primary race that it almost looks as if they all got together – without Risch – and agreed to run, hoping to collectively skim off enough votes from Risch to cause trouble. A “group spoiler” strategy is interesting, but it’s doubtful it could make a difference in this race. Risch has years of name identification and was a short-term but popular governor, filling in when then-Gov. Dirk Kempthorne was tapped for Interior in President Bush’s cabinet.  It would take hundreds of thousands of dollars for a challenger to make a dent in those advantages and, so far, none of the eight have raised more than a few thousand.  Here’s the lineup:

1. Jim Risch http://www.newwest.net/city/article/risch
Would he support Craig’s stance on immigration? He responded: “We have a guest worker program in place right now.  I would start with the old law and make changes to that.”

“The number one job of the United States government is the protection of its people,” Risch said, before answering a few questions on foreign policy. He said he is amazed and upset by the Sunday morning news shows, where partisan politics about the Iraq war are featured. “This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, it’s an American issue. We are all Americans.”

Risch has no campaign website.

2. Rex Rammell http://www.kpvi.com/Global/story.asp?S=7772219
Rammell, who has no prior experience in politics, says he has a lot to bring to the table. He says he wants to bring back traditional Republican beliefs; he wants to see less spending, lower taxes, and wants to put a limit on government involvement in people’s lives. http://rexrammell.com/

3. Scot Syme http://www.symeforsenate.com/

4. Harley D. Brown Statesman story
During his 2001 Boise mayor’s run, Statesman columnist Dan Popkey branded Brown “a profane clown given to kookiness.” This earned Popkey an expletive-laced voicemail from the candidate himself.  Ultimately, Brown garnered only three percent of the vote, finishing sixth in the seven-way race.

5. Kent Marmon http://www.idahostatesman.com/244/story/264897.html
Kent Marmon questions Risch’s credentials and says he is a ‘conservative’ and is ‘more in line’ with Idahoans.

Marmon pointed out that Risch’s property tax relief plan during his brief tenure as governor included raising the sales tax. He said he doesn’t have much money but believes he can defeat Risch using a grassroots strategy. He said he is committed to rolling back expansion of the federal government and giving states more power. Marmon said he ran as a Democrat in 1978 for a seat in the Idaho Legislature and narrowly lost, but has been an active Republican since 1980. http://marmonforidaho.com/

6. Richard Phenneger http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=13073
Post Falls businessman Richard Phenneger commissioned a poll that showed only 21 percent of Idahoans were satisfied with the two major-party frontrunners for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat – Republican Jim Risch and Democrat Larry LaRocco – and now Phenneger’s running too.

Phenneger, a retired airline and military pilot who’s built a career developing employee stock ownership plans for companies throughout the country, has filed to run as a
Republican.He said his history of negotiating between labor and management on highly complex conversions to employee ownership – including for Rosauer’s and other area companies shows he’s a problem-solver.

7. Brian Hefner http://www.idahopress.com/news/?id=3334
On political issues, Hefner takes aim at illegal immigration, seeks to make English the official language of the U.S., supports gun rights, wants to provide more support and
services for the military and veterans, and hopes to make America a “manufacturing giant again.” http://www.brianhefner.com/index.html?_ret_=return

8. Fred Adams http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A310270
While he considers himself a solidly conservative Republican, he said he was disappointed by the Idaho Republican Party’s move to formally endorse Risch before the primary elections.  “It was as if they, not the voters, had already decided who was going to be our replacement senator,” Adams said in a prepared statement. “Our job as voters, it seemed, would simply be to rubber-stamp Risch’s selection.”

Adams also took shots at his other competitors, stating that Rammell is running simply to antagonize Risch.” http://adamsforidaho.com/Index.html

9. Neal Thompson
Thompson has been a deacon and sat on the board of his church 14 years, but he credits solid grounding in Christian principles for the way he lives his life and valuing trust and truth. Thompson hopes to stop a trend he said has developed in the federal government to dictate to states what they should do. He named the No Child Left Behind Act and wolf reintroduction as examples of federal programs pushed upon Idaho without the consent of its people. The McCall Star-News quotes Thompson saying, “Going from school board trustee to U.S. senator is not a big leap when it comes to doing the job itself.” (The link to this story is missing because The Star-News website is subscription only.)

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