JEERS ... to Congressman Raul Labrador, R-Idaho.
Earlier this week, Labrador's gubernatorial campaign issued this accusation: "New poll shows Labrador winning; fake news won't report it."
What a crock.
Labrador's team is miffed about Dan Jones and Associates' Nov. 26 results showing the congressman running at 17 percent, behind Lt. Gov. Brad Little at 21 percent and ahead of Boise developer Tommy Ahlquist at 14 percent. Jones shows the greatest proportion of voters, 36 percent, "don't know."
As frequently happens, Jones' poll - which is released to the public at-large on idahopoliticsweekly.com - got noticed. In this case, the Idaho Statesman's Cynthia Sewell and political columnist Randy Stapilus wrote about it.
At about the same time, Labrador's campaign provided political columnist Chuck Malloy with exclusive access to its own internal polling, giving the 1st District congressman a solid plurality - 37 percent, compared to 23 percent for Little and 21 percent for Ahlquist.
Campaigns pay dearly for their own data. Rarely do they release it for the public - and political adversaries - to look over.
Malloy is a regular contributor to several Idaho newspapers including the Tribune, which published his scoop on Sunday. It also appeared on the Idaho Politics Weekly website for anyone to see.
So nobody sat on this story. If there's "fake news" here, it's spewing out of Labrador's campaign.
JEERS ... to Ahlquist.
The Boise developer hasn't told the entire story behind his $5,000 contribution to gubernatorial candidate A.J. Balukoff in 2014.
Balukoff has since entered the governor's race for 2018.
A $5,000 check makes a statement - especially if it's a Republican giving it to a Democrat in Idaho.
Idaho's campaign finance laws limit contributions from any single source to $5,000 in the primary and $5,000 in the general election.
Only a handful of Balukoff's donors "maxed out." Most of his contributions came in smaller checks, which is why the Boise businessman wound up investing more than $3 million of his own money in the campaign.
Ahlquist said he helped Balukoff out of friendship and that he later voted for Republican Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, who handily won re-election, by almost 15 percentage points. Ahlquist also gave Otter $2,500 but that was during the 2014 GOP primary when Otter defeated a right-wing challenge from then-state Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian.
What Ahlquist isn't talking about is the sequence of events.
As Idaho Education News reported on July 16, 2014, Otter passed over Ahlquist - and three others including former Senate Education Committee Chairman John Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene, former state Sen. Melinda Smyser, R-Parma, and retired University of Idaho Associate Vice President Trudy Andersen - in naming former Idaho National Laboratory Deputy Director David Hill to the State Board of Education.
One week later, on July 23, Ahlquist issued his $5,000 check to Otter's gubernatorial rival.
Coincidence?
JEERS ... to Little.
Speaking to the Associated Taxpayers of Idaho annual conference in Boise Wednesday, the lieutenant governor touted his tax relief plan as the only concrete package with a chance to succeed.
That's just the problem.
Anything Labrador and Ahlquist have to say on the subject is dead on arrival. Their plans are political confections with stratospheric price tags.
Idaho has about $3.5 billion available for everything from public schools to state prisons.
The Idaho Center on Fiscal Policy says Labrador's "5-5-5" plan - lowering income and sales tax rates to 5 percent - would cost around $871 million.
Ahlquist's plan to lower income tax rates to 5 percent would take $704 million.
But Little is offering an intricate package his fellow Republicans in the Legislature just might find plausible - incrementally lowering the top individual and corporate income tax rates from 7.4 percent to 6.15 percent during the course of a dozen years.
The Center says that means skimming another $350 million after - as Otter himself has said - more than $1 billion in tax cuts already have been passed.
If having the 48th lowest tax burden in the union translated into prosperity, Idaho would be there by now - instead of being bogged down by a low-wage, low-skilled economy. Education could turn that around, but Idaho has some of the most under-funded schools in the nation. Education Week singled it out with an "F" for school finance.
Meanwhile, the state faces growing prison populations, the threatened loss of federal Children's Health Insurance Program funds and the expense of expanding services to a population that has grown by 200,000 people in 10 years.
"It's like adding a city the size of Boise to the state," Otter's budget chief, Jani Revier, told the ATI conference.
Labrador and Ahlquist don't know any better. Little doesn't have that excuse.
JEERS ... to Otter.
Last week, Politico's David Siders caught up with Otter and his counterparts who were attending the Western Governors Association meeting in Phoenix. Siders wanted to get reaction to former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.
Leave it to Otter to come up with a glib quote: "It's not something that we're spending a lot of time watching. ... I think the FBI's lied to me a few times."
Here's why some ears among the law enforcement community perked up:
- The FBI has its own chain of command and answers to the Justice Department. On the rare occasions when the FBI does check in with Otter - or any governor - it typically deals with security and threats of domestic terrorism.
So is the governor of the state of Idaho accusing the FBI of misleading him on matters of life and death?
- President Donald Trump is actively undermining the legitimacy of the FBI. Sunday, Trump tweeted: "After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters. - worst in History! But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness."
Please explain, governor. - M.T.
