Republicans for Grant Throw Sali Out the Window

By Jill Kuraitis, 8-16-06

With a sharp new website and an insightful column from the Idaho Statesman’s Dan Popkey, Republicans for Grant came out swinging this morning, the very day that Vice President Dick Cheney will be in town for a fundraiser for Grant’s opponent, Bill Sali.

The race to replace Butch Otter in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District between Democrat Larry Grant and Republican Bill Sali is the hottest contest in the political zeitgeist in Idaho, and the newest twist, Republicans for Grant, will likely fan the flames even higher.

The new group’s website provides words both pro-Grant and anti-Sali, including this one from the group’s organizing leader, Boise’s Jim Nelson: “We intend to carry the message that in this one very important race in Idaho this year Republicans can - and should - put aside partisan considerations and simply vote for the best person for the job. The best person is clearly Larry Grant."

Ward Parkinson, Micron co-founder and former GOP Congressional candidate, is a Republican for Grant. Nelson and Parkinson are joined by Fred Shoemaker, a Boise attorney; Cathy Smith, a Boise Realtor who will serve as the volunteer coordinator of Republicans for Grant, Allyn Dingel, a Boise attorney; Tom Nicholson, a Boise business leader; Dr. Lawrence and Kaye Knight, a retired Treasure Valley physician; Ron Graves, retired corporate attorney; Richard Greener, a Boise attorney; and Janie Goichochea, Boise Realtor.

In his 16 years in the Idaho House of Representatives, Sali’s belligerent and sometimes aggressive hostility toward those who disagreed with him made him both disliked and ineffective. “In the end, I just didn’t think he was very competent in his job,” said Republican Speaker of the House Bruce Newcomb to the Idaho Statesman, as he stripped Sali of a committee chairmanship in 2005.

Newcomb’s predecessor as Idaho’s speaker, now-Congressman Mike Simpson, also had some words for Bill Sali: “If you want to debate this, I’ll put the House at ease and we can go back into my office and I’ll throw you out the window.”

The Democrats’ nominee Larry Grant, a businessman from Fruitland, has earned the respect of community leaders with his long and steady record of achievements, his gentlemanly good grace, his family values and his competence. As vice president and chief counsel for Micron, a Boise computer company which is one of Idaho’s major employers, Grant’s achievements in protecting the American computer-chip market were crucial in the company’s early days. There is high praise on the Republicans for Grant website: “In Larry Grant, an Idaho native with extensive and successful experience in our state’s important high tech sector, Idahoans have a candidate for Congress who will concentrate on solutions to our real problems. Larry has proven that he can work with people of all political persuasions and do so with common sense and respect. His Republican opponent, in a long and divisive tenure in the Idaho Legislature, has shown time and again that he is unable and unwilling to seek common ground or even work with his fellow Republicans.

It is clearly time for a change – it is time for Larry Grant.”

With a group of leading Republicans with access to both hard cash and funding sources, the benefits to Grant are obvious. But more than that, this organized rejection of Bill Sali as a candidate of their own party, which marks a serious breach of the Republican loyalty ethic, makes it acceptable for Republicans to talk openly of the elephant in the living room – sorry – an embarrassing nominee.

And on the very day that Dick Cheney comes to town.
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