Ads fueling 1st District race

BOISE – The National Republican Congressional Committee has spent more than $100,000 to boost Idaho Republican Bill Sali’s bid for Congress and attack Democrat Larry Grant, and it’s poised to spend much more.

Already, the national group has targeted Idahoans with automated anti-Grant “robocalls” that even Sali has denounced as inappropriate, but the NRCC isn’t backing off. “Any phone banks hired by the NRCC to conduct operations in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District are done completely independent of the Bill Sali for Congress campaign,” NRCC spokesman Jonathan Collegio said.

He added, “Calls are a strong part of any competitive campaign strategy, and all of our calls are factual to the highest degree.”

The calls likely are just the beginning. The NRCC conducted a poll in Idaho’s 1st District earlier this month, then launched the calls and also spent $7,585 on production of an issue ad. Collegio said, “My interpretation of that would be production of either a radio or television ad,” and expenditures to air that ad likely would follow.

Don Rosebrock, campaign spokesman for Grant, said his campaign heard that the NRCC is spending more than $375,000 to run a TV ad against Grant throughout the district that could debut any day. “We got the word from our media buyer that it’s $377,000, and there’s one station in Spokane that they hadn’t (yet) done the buy for,” he said. “I don’t think the TV ad is probably going to be warm and fuzzy. … I think it’s going to be a smear campaign, because that’s what they do.”

An advertising representative for television station KHQ in Spokane, which serves much of North Idaho, told the Associated Press that the NRCC had paid $37,350 on Monday to run the advertisement today through Monday.

Television station KLEW in Lewiston said the NRCC sent a recorded commercial but had not yet reserved space to run the spot.

The automated phone calls the NRCC sent Idahoans included one that started off, “When you go to the polls on Nov. 7 you’ll see the name ‘Larry Grant’ on the ballot. Let me tell you a little about Larry Grant….”

The Grant campaign was flooded with complaints from people who thought it was responsible for the calls. “One person, who identified himself as a true blue Republican, complained to the campaign about receiving four of these annoying calls within an hour on Thursday evening,” the campaign said in a press release. “He blames us for it.”

Sali issued a press release over the weekend denouncing the calls. “I have not heard the phone calls, but I have heard from enough Idahoans who have. They tell me the calls are unnecessarily aggressive and that it is very difficult to tell who paid for the calls,” Sali said in the release. “That is not the kind of campaigning that Sali for Congress will engage in.”

In the primary election, the Washington, D.C.-based Club for Growth ran strident attack ads against Republican candidates Robert Vasquez and Sheila Sorensen, the second- and third-place finishers whom Sali defeated in the six-way race. Like the NRCC’s efforts, that was an “independent expenditure” campaign conducted independently of Sali’s campaign.

Wayne Hoffman, a campaign spokesman for Sali, said, “I don’t know what they’re running, I don’t know what their plans are – that’s the nature of an independent expenditure, you just don’t know. … Bill doesn’t have any control over what these other groups do or don’t do.”

The latest campaign finance reports from both campaigns, which came out Monday, show that Sali has raised $872,206 since the start of the campaign, while Grant has raised $420,725.

As he did in the primary, Sali has continued to collect large numbers of contributions “bundled” by the Club for Growth from an array of out-of-state individuals across the country. He reported raising around $30,000 from attendees at an August fundraiser with Vice President Dick Cheney in Boise, and had contributions from a number of North Idaho GOP legislators who came to a breakfast with House Speaker Dennis Hastert in Post Falls. Sali also has received $332,208 in PAC contributions to date, of which $207,750 came in the most recent quarterly reporting period.

Grant’s most recent fundraising included a bundle of $23,698 in earmarked contributions through Massachusetts-based ACTBLUE in September. Eight contributors gave that money, seven of them from outside Idaho. Grant also collected money from labor union PACs and from lots of Idaho individuals; his PAC contributions to date are $53,600.

The latest report covered the period from July 1 to Sept. 30. Sali raised $308,851 during that period, while Grant raised $184,210.

Hoffman hailed the report as a sign that Sali’s campaign is drawing support. “The campaign is doing exceedingly well, and Larry Grant only wishes he was getting the response that Bill’s been getting,” Hoffman said.

Rosebrock said, “The bulk of ours is coming from individual donors.” He said of Sali’s report, “He’s in so tight with the Club for Growth that whatever they say, he’s going to end up doing. Those guys bought the primary election for him, and now between them and the Republican National Committee, they’re trying to buy the general election for him.”

Collegio, of the NRCC, said, “The first priority of this Republican committee is to protect Republican seats (in the U.S. House of Representatives). Idaho 1 (the 1st Congressional District) is a strong Republican seat, and went for President Bush by 69 percent in 2004, and we have every intention of keeping it that way.”

However, he said the race is “way outside of the top 50” among the group’s spending priorities. “This is a third- or fourth-tier contest. … The overall budget is around $50 million.”

United Party candidate Andy Hedden-Nicely, who reported raising $5,450 as of June 30, hadn’t filed an October quarterly report as of Monday. Neither independent Dave Olson nor Constitution Party candidate Paul Smith has filed reports; filing isn’t required until a candidate raises more than $5,000.

The election is Nov. 7.