October 12, 2010 in Idaho

Labrador ad tries to tie Minnick, Pelosi

• Print
• Email
• Share

BOISE - Idaho GOP congressional hopeful Raul Labrador on Tuesday launched a TV ad trying to portray Democratic Congressman Walt Minnick as a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama, but “blue-dog” Minnick actually has voted far more often with House GOP Leader John Boehner than with Pelosi.

Minnick’s campaign called Labrador’s ad, his first, “false” and “misleading” and demanded that he pull it; Labrador’s campaign said it stands by the ad.

“Minnick voted with Obama/Pelosi over 70 percent,” the ad claims, citing as its source opencongress.org, a project of the Participatory Politics Foundation that tracks all congressional votes. That site shows that Minnick voted with his party, the Democrats, 74 percent of the time. But it also shows that he voted with fellow Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, a Republican, 77 percent of the time, and with Boehner 78 percent of the time.

Minnick voted with Pelosi just 57 percent of the time; the House speaker often doesn’t cast a vote. Many of the roll-call votes in Congress are unanimous.

“He voted with his party, and the head of that party is his president and Pelosi,” said Phil Hardy, Labrador’s campaign spokesman. “We can’t speak to how other people vote. We’re speaking about how he votes.”

The ad, which began airing in the Boise area on Tuesday and will be on cable TV in other parts of the state, attacks Minnick on immigration, federal stimulus spending and “Obamacare” health care reform - though Minnick voted against both the stimulus bill and the health care reform bill, bucking his party on two of its signature proposals.

The ad says of Minnick, “Voted for $68 billion in more stimulus, and Minnick won’t commit to repealing Obamacare. Bottom line, Minnick’s hiding his liberal Obama/Pelosi record.”

Minnick voted against both the economic stimulus bill, HR 1, and the health-care reform bill, HR 3590. He was one of just 11 House Democrats to oppose the House version of the stimulus bill in February of 2009, and one of just seven to oppose the final version. He was one of 34 House Democrats to vote against the health-care reform bill.

The ad cites two other bills to back its stimulus claim, HR 1586, a state-aid bill for schools and Medicaid that was signed into law Aug. 10, and HR 5297, a measure establishing a small-business lending fund. Minnick voted for HR 1586, and he successfully pushed an amendment to HR 5297 to make non-owner occupied commercial real estate loans eligible for the program.

Hardy said, “The use of the word ‘stimulus’ now is a catch-all, even by the media, for continued efforts to prop up the economy by the president and the Pelosi agenda.” He called both the school/Medicaid funding bill and the small-business lending fund bill “all stimulus,” and said, “It’s all a culture of spending that Raul Labrador does not support at all.”

Minnick also is a cosponsor of a Republican bill to repeal a section of the health care bill, regarding a record-keeping requirement for small businesses, and has backed repealing other sections as well.

John Foster, Minnick’s campaign spokesman, called Labrador’s new ad “little more than a spurious collection of innuendo and outright lies.”

Jim Weatherby, Boise State University political scientist, said, “Certainly you could argue over the accuracy of some of the claims.” But, he said, “Based upon all the polling I’ve seen, Labrador is behind - he has to go after his opponent.”

Late Tuesday, Minnick launched two new ads, one on veterans’ issues and the other faulting Labrador’s record on state domestic violence legislation.

Three comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  PhiltheBibliophil on October 12 at 5:04 p.m.

  Raul Labrador wouldn’t even make a poor specimen of a Labradoodle!

• 

  richwas on October 13 at 9:25 a.m.

  Finally some eyes are opening. Walt Minnick has been hiding in plain sight. On one hand he says he is distant from Obama/Pelosi, on the other hand he said recently to idaho democrats: “[Obama will be] perhaps the greatest president any of us will see in our lifetimes.”

  http://mountaingoatreport.typepad.com/files/idpmessinapr.pdf

  also see realminnick.com

• 

  circle8 on October 28 at 1:39 a.m.

  I have not counted anyone’s total votes on various issues but I do know Minnick voted for the WALL STREET BAILOUT BILL. That was an insult as if people making millions per year on Wall Street needed a bailout.

  The thing I did notice when reading the Spokesman today was how many times Minnick’s name was mentioned as a positive in the title of the stories and how many time Labrador’s name was listed as a negative in the title.

  That begs the question does Walter Minnick have to file the donation value of all these endorsements by the Spokesman or can these be called “donations in kind.”? Stories should be neutral based on facts and endorsements on the opinion page. But then maybe Betsy Russell is working on Minnick’s campaign.