Campaign Manager To Head State Party

The high-priced manager for the failed U.S. Senate campaign of businessman Walt Minnick will take over as executive director of the Idaho Democratic Party next Tuesday.

State Chairman A.K. LienhartMinnick announced on Wednesday that Karen White will assume day-to-day management of the state party from Cathy Fuller, who has been executive director since 1995.

“Last summer, my husband and I worked for Karen,” Lienhart-Minnick said. “Now, Karen and I will form a team and work for Idaho.”

White takes over a party trying to rebound from its worst defeat at the polls in two generations. Despite raising an unprecedented $2.1 million to mark the first time in modern Idaho politics that the Republican Party was not the leading fund-raiser, Democrats failed to reclaim any of the federal offices and lost more ground in the Statehouse.

White, who has been involved in dozens of campaigns throughout the country over the past decade, managed Minnick’s $2.1 million bid to oust incumbent Republican Larry Craig last year. The former wood products executive put up nearly half the cash his campaign spent to poll 40 percent.