Craig Still In The Senate Saddle Expensive Challenge By Minnick Can’t Unseat 16-Year Veteran

U.S. Senate

Even $1 million of his own money and a hot-button issue like nuclear waste couldn’t propel Boise businessman Walt Minnick to the U.S. Senate.

He was easily walloped by incumbent Republican Larry Craig although Minnick kept saying his own polls put him within shooting distance of Craig. With 527 of 925 precincts reporting statewide, Craig pulled in 160,630 votes - 59 percent of the vote - to Minnick’s 103,594 - about 38 percent.

Independent Mary J. Charbonneau received 5,708 votes, or 2 percent, and Natural Law Party Candidate Susan Vegors earned 2,901 votes, or 1 percent.

Worn out from his own last-minute tour of the state, Minnick, former CEO of timber products firm TJ International, took his defeat graciously. And the political newcomer is not interested in trying again.

“I have no interest in that at all,” Minnick said when asked if he would take another run at the Senate in two years. “I’m going to go get a job and it’s one that will probably pay a lot better than being a U.S. Senator.”

His regrets included the price tag of running for office. “I spent 80 percent of my time raising money as opposed to out there talking to people about the issues,” Minnick said. “The system is broken.”

Craig, a recluse until long after the national TV networks declared him the winner, glowed with confidence not reflected in the hard-edged ads and attacks he started using last summer. The 16-year veteran of the U.S. House and Senate called it his toughest re-election fight, although Larry LaRocco came much closer to unseating Craig in a 1982 race for the U.S. House.

“We were able to prevail because we focused on the issues that (Idahoans) were really concerned about,” Craig said.

He would not say if he would run after this term expires in the year 2002. “I will not grow old with the office,” Craig said.

Craig is bullish on what the win means for the country, boldly proclaiming “we are going to balance the budget, we are going to offer some tax relief and we are going to keep the nation on a course toward limited government.”

Minnick, a self-portrayed independent running as a Democrat, scrambled in the later days of the campaign, pulling his negative campaign ads and endlessly pushing Craig to debate him in places like North Idaho. Craig refused not only to pull his own negative ads, but wouldn’t agree to more than the two Boise-based debates. Instead Craig stuck to his tried-and-true statewide bus tour and touting his 16-year-old theme of a balanced budget amendment.

Both candidates attempted to make nuclear waste a central issue in the campaign. Minnick attacked Gov. Phil Batt’s agreement to allow more shipments of waste to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory in return for a cleanup promise from the federal government.

Craig painted himself as a longtime foe of making Idaho a dumping ground and touted Batt’s plan as Idaho’s way of getting rid of the radioactive mess parked above the Snake River Plain aquifer.

In the end, it was not the defining issue, said Minnick, who first raised the waste alarm. “People got confused as to who was responsible and what the solutions are,” he said.

Craig gives nuclear more importance. Still, “I think (voters) recognize the fact that our governor and the Congressional delegation is taking care of that,” he said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo