Today marked a bit of an odd start to a bid for governor that Idaho Congressman Raul Labrador has pondered for years, coming as he’s in the midst of a national swirl of negative publicity over his recent comment that “nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” You can read my full story here at spokesman.com.

“He’s getting a lot of unfavorable exposure nationally, in so many different media outlets,” said Jim Weatherby, Boise State University emeritus professor and longtime observer of Idaho politics. “This is not an auspicious time for him to make any public announcement, whether he planned to or not.”

However, Weatherby said, “He must feel a need to get on with other aspects of the campaign in terms of organizing support, contacting donors and seeking endorsements before a lot of those might be boxed out by some of the other candidates who are active in the field and have been for some time.”

On Monday night, late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, discussing the reaction to his emotional on-air statement a week before about health care and his newborn son’s serious illness, said, “Maybe the worst person of all is a congressman named Raul Labrador from Idaho. This from a town hall meeting in Lewiston, Idaho. This is something he actually said," Kimmel said, showing a clip of the nobody-dies comment. “And that's a congressman, not a garbage man, that's a congressman we have."

Politifact, the fact-checking site, fact-checked Labrador’s nobody-dies comment, weighed his statement afterward clarifying it, watched the full 7-minute exchange between Labrador and a constituent, delved into academic papers published over the past decade and a half and interviewed experts. It concluded that Labrador’s statement scored the worst-possible rating on the site’s “Truth-o-Meter,” “Pants on Fire.”

Labrador has long made it clear that he was weighing running for governor. The outspoken fourth-term congressman, a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, called a news conference in 2013 to announce that he wouldn’t run for governor in 2014, and instead would seek a third term in Congress, saying he wanted to “end all the speculation.”

More candidates still could enter the race – the primary election isn’t until May of 2018. “This is shaping up to be the most competitive race among heavyweights since the 1978 gubernatorial primary,” Weatherby said.

That year, six candidates – including current Gov. Butch Otter – vied for the GOP nomination, which was narrowly won by then-House Speaker Allen Larsen; he lost to Democrat John Evans in the general election.