Big Gop Backer Endorses Paquin Boise Businessman Contributed To Chenoweth Campaign In L996

A major financial contributor to U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth’s 1996 re-election campaign has endorsed her challenger for the 1998 Republican nomination.

Jim Nelson, a major GOP contributor and owner of Nelson Construction Co. in Boise, formally endorsed Panhandle businessman Tony Paquin’s bid to deny Chenoweth a third - and what she has said would be a final - two-year term.

“Tony is well-qualified,” Nelson said in a statement issued by the Paquin campaign on Monday.

“He is an astute businessman who knows what it’s like to deal with real life. He understands balancing the social needs of the community and the environment with the rights of private landowners.”

Nelson, who contributed $1,000 to Chenoweth’s successful $1 million campaign for a second term last year, is a major supporter of Gov. Phil Batt. He funneled $20,000 to Batt late in his 1994 campaign that some aides said was crucial to assuring the governor’s victory over Democrat Larry EchoHawk.

Batt will announce his future political plans Sept. 17.

Aides and associates have said he seems to move back and forth between seeking a second term and retiring.

A number of Republicans believe the governor has waited so long to announce his intentions that he has made it difficult for other potential successors to mount credible campaigns for next May’s primary, leaving him little option but to run again.

But some close advisers believe he is leaning more toward stepping aside, renewing speculation that U.S. Sen. Dirk Kempthorne, a Batt protege and manager of the governor’s unsuccessful 1982 campaign, would run.

“We will see,” was all the governor said on Monday after announcing that he would make his intentions public in nine more days.

Paquin, who has said he will accept no financial support from special interest political action committees, contended that Nelson’s endorsement “shows that we are the candidate of choice among mainstream Republicans in the state.”

Chenoweth, the outspoken and often controversial conservative whose strident stands have drawn criticism from a number of moderate Republicans, spent a record $1 million to win her second term in Congress last fall.