Minnick Dares Craig To Drop Pac Funds
Walt Minnick is challenging Larry Craig to run this year’s U.S. Senate race without money from political action committees.
Craig, the Republican incumbent, refuses.
Minnick, his Democratic challenger, won’t take money from the tobacco industry, nuclear utilities or foreign drug companies, he said Friday in a press conference in Post Falls.
He will forfeit PAC money altogether “if Sen. Craig will agree to refuse to accept PAC contributions and will refund what he has gotten since the last election,” Minnick said.
It’s preferable to run without PAC dollars but “unfortunately the American political system is broken and it takes $2 million to $3 million to run for Senate in Idaho,” Minnick said. “To the extent it doesn’t violate my convictions, I’m going to take money so I can be competitive.”
Craig’s campaign staff says that’s a desperate challenge. “What Walt Minnick is finding is he can’t get any support whether it’s PAC contributions or it’s individuals across the state of Idaho,” said Mike Reynoldson, Craig’s campaign manager.
Federal law allows contributions from PACs and Craig will follow those rules. But “changing in mid-stream just because it helps Walt Minnick’s campaign is not something we’re going to do,” Reynoldson said.
Minnick appeared in Post Falls with U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., on the last stop on a four-city tour to promote Minnick’s campaign. Kerrey, a presidential candidate in 1992, talked Minnick into running for the Senate and the pair spent much of their time at the Templin’s Resort podium drawing parallels between themselves.
Both served in the military and were in business before getting into politics, Kerrey said. Both have “a substantial ornery independent streak,” he said, attempting to distance themselves from the image of “tax and spend” Democrats.
And both think the Republican-controlled Congress is waltzing down the wrong budget path. Minnick proposes balancing the federal budget in a year by cutting corporate welfare defense spending, having a means test for entitlements and eliminating outdated federal departments and programs.
The former head of Trus Joist International, a Boise forest products company, Minnick said he would be laughed out of every boardroom in the country if he presented a budget plan like the one Republicans are touting.
In addition, “it’s hypocritical to propose a tax cut for the rich for the year while not balancing the budget,” Minnick said.
Both Congress and President Clinton are focused on a plan to balance the budget in seven years.
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