Seems the irritated local Pachyderms turned to Jeff Ward of the Reagan Republicans instead of Mike Patrick of the Coeur d'Alene Press this morning for the usual post-election breakdown. The Elephants are mad at Patrick for (imagined) bias against their Coeur d'Alene mayoral candidate Mary Souza. Among Ward's comments:

• I don't know how they got those votes out.
• We failed in turning out the huge number of Republicans who did not vote.
• I had never heard of Kiki Miller until this election.
• It's not small town politics any more.
• Mary Souza did eight mailings. Sharon Hebert did one. There was only about a 200-vote difference in votes. It was a slate issue.

Chris Fillios added:

• We lost Coeur d'Alene, the county is next.

Question: Methinks the Republican problem is summed up in the fact that Ward has never heard of Kiki Miller. That shows he's not from Coeur d'Alene and he doesn't understand Coeur d'Alene's dynamics. Thoughts?

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