GOP Sends Heaviest of Heavies to Help Sali

Cheney’s Boise Visit Will Challenge Grant Campaign

By Jill Kuraitis, 7-28-06

Vice-President Dick Cheney will travel to Boise on August 16th for a fundraiser for 1st Congressional District candidate Bill Sali.

Just this week, a Washington, D.C. newspaper reported that the GOP is running scared about the race between Democrat Larry Grant and Sali. See our story, “D.C.’s ‘The Hill’ Say Idaho Republicans Fear Losing 1st Congressional District.”

They must be nervous indeed to send Cheney, who is wildly popular among Republican hard-liners and will no doubt raise buckets of money. The Grant campaign will have to work hard to overcome the dollar deficit that will create.

With three major polls – CBS/New York Times, NBC/Wall Street Journal, and USA Today/Gallup last week putting President Bush’s approval rating at an average 38% and disapproval at 56%, you’d think Cheney’s Idaho visit would be less fruitful than, say, a year ago.

But in Idaho, the reddest of the red states, that’s doubtful. When Cheney mistook a hunter for a deer and blasted his friend’s face with buckshot, he was given an instant pass. Any shenanigans of which he’s been accused are just fairy tales to Idaho Republicans.

It’s an old mantra in Idaho that Democrats who hope to gain a foothold must start by accepting that the odds are not in their favor. Cheney’s previous visit, with an enormous crowd lining the streets to greet his motorcade and high-pitched news coverage from local television stations, made that lavishly clear. We’ll hear spin from Democrats downplaying the importance of the Cheney fundraiser, but, behind the curtain, they’ll be nervous.

They ought to be.

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