Rammell will return with more green
BOISE – Independent U.S. Senate candidate Rex Rammell’s largely self-funded campaign turned out not to be as rich as it initially appeared.
“I really failed in the money department,” Rammell said. “I wasn’t able to run any ads in the home stretch, and that’s really hurt me. But I think I did a pretty decent job of getting my name into the race, and I think there’s gonna be a lot more people know who I am and what I stand for, and it’ll set me up for the future.”
Rammell said he initially loaned his campaign $60,000, and then another $250,000 – but then he had to take the larger amount back.
“I had borrowed money against my real estate projects in Jackson, and I got ’em in trouble through this financial crisis, and I had to take the 250 back,” Rammell said. “And so I’ve run this race with less than $100,000.”
He added, “When that happened, and the reality of it hit me that I wasn’t going to get any money from my real estate projects, I thought, ‘There’s no way I can win this race, but I can do the best I can and build a foundation for next time.’ ”
The former eastern Idaho elk rancher said he’ll likely run for office again, and figures he’ll have a boost in organization and name recognition from his run this year.
Celebrate a loss, make another run?
The Idaho Senate candidate who legally changed his name from Marvin Richardson to “Pro-Life” said on Election Night that he was celebrating his loss.
Asked why he’d celebrate a losing run for high office, the independent candidate said, “Because maybe we’ve saved a baby.” He said, “The only way my wife and I could win is if Idaho repented. … We’re not going to change to be like the voters.”
He also said he’s planning to run for governor next, and will start his campaign shortly. “In probably the next two weeks I will make an announcement that I’m going to run for governor in 2010,” Pro-Life said. “I’ll run as an independent.”
Big turnout ‘good for our democracy’
Idaho’s heavy turnout in this year’s election was “big everywhere,” according to Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa. “For a record turnout, it went remarkably well.”
Despite the high number of votes cast, there were few reports of long lines to vote on Election Day, in part because of the heavy early and absentee vote this year. Ysursa said that’s just how it was planned, and it worked.
“To me, the process works,” he said. “I think it’s good for our democracy and our system to see this kind of voter interest.”
A ‘philosophical truce’ on health care
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden traveled to Boise recently to tout his bipartisan health care reform legislation and to campaign for Democratic Senate candidate Larry LaRocco. LaRocco lost to Republican Jim Risch, but Wyden’s still pushing his reform bill.
“There’s been something of a philosophical truce emerge on the health care issue,” Wyden declared, before presiding, with LaRocco, at a roundtable meeting on health care reform with doctors, hospital officials, employers, AARP and labor representatives and more. “To fix health care, you’ve got to cover everybody, because if you don’t, the people who are uninsured shift their bill to those who are insured,” Wyden said. On that point, he asserted, “Democrats have been right.” But he said Republicans also have been right to press for a continuing role for the private sector, that the nation “shouldn’t turn health care over to the U.S. government.” “Republicans have had a good point on that,” Wyden said.
His amended “Healthy Americans Act,” S. 334, now has more than a dozen co-sponsors who are evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. Among them are Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
The complex plan calls for providing all Americans the option of either keeping their present, employer-provided health care plan, or switching to new, lower-cost private-sector plans that would be made available to everyone and would cover all basic health care. Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, would be rolled into the new private plans, and everyone would be required to have coverage.
Premiums would be subsidized for lower-income people, and employers would help fund the system; states would pay the amounts they now pay for Medicaid and SCHIP. Current tax deductibility for “Cadillac” treatments like extensive cosmetic surgery would be eliminated, to help offset costs.
Wyden said a new analysis of the bill by the Congressional Budget Office showed it would be budget-neutral within two years and would start saving money by the third year.
Wyden is a Democrat who is best known in Idaho for co-sponsoring the Craig-Wyden legislation with GOP Sen. Larry Craig that brought millions in federal payments to rural communities to offset losses from decreased logging on federal lands.