Chenoweth Challenger Seeks Funds
As Congressman Helen Chenoweth prepared to fly to the former Yugoslavia, her Democratic opponent Dan Williams drove to a fund-raising reception - in Spokane.
The 33-year-old Boise attorney attended an exclusive gathering Friday in his honor in the Gourmet Room of the Spokane Club. He turned to Washington residents in hopes of bringing his election coffers to $100,000 before January.
Democratic strategists such as Bob Brown, Kootenai County party chair, said that would make him a “credible” candidate and help draw contributions next year for his bid against GOP freshman Chenoweth.
The move struck some Idaho voters as odd.
“I don’t think it’s fair that he should go to another state,” said Coeur d’Alene resident Clara LaBorn, a registered Democrat. “Why go over there when you’ve got your own state to get money in?”
Republicans, who now hold all of Idaho’s congressional seats, tiptoed around the question.
Chenoweth’s office declined to comment on out-of-state fundraising. Incumbents typically collect a huge chunk of election cash from Washington, D.C.
“It’s just not that unusual in federal races,” said state GOP Chairman Mike Reynoldson.
Out-of-state fund-raising is hardly limited to federal races. In fact, it has become so much a part of Idaho politics, it hardly raises an eyebrow these days.
Former Gov. Cecil Andrus regularly held fund-raisers in Seattle. Former Congressman Larry LaRocco collected much of the money from his two terms in office from Eastern Washington.
Political watchers say Larry EchoHawk took heat during the 1994 governor’s race only because his money came from celebrities and aligned him with Bill Clinton and Barbara Streisand.
Democrat Ron Beitelspacher, a former state legislator from Grangeville, who collected Spokane dollars himself during a failed gubernatorial bid, said this:
“It’s the way you have to play until we change the rules of the game. In politics, money knows no borders.”
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