Hayden Lake’s Tony Paquin To Run Against Helen Chenoweth

Hayden Lake businessman Tony Paquin said Monday he’s decided to challenge U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth in the 1998 Republican congressional primary.

Paquin, 38, spent the past four months assessing a challenge to the conservative and at times controversial two-term lawmaker, apparently convincing himself he can defeat her.

The political newcomer said he will formally announce his campaign in Boise and Coeur d’Alene today when he will discuss “why Idahoans want a conservative alternative to Helen Chenoweth.”

Paquin, who with his brother built a $10 million software company that employed 125 people before being sold in 1993, promised what he said would be a conservative campaign focusing on job creation, reducing the size of the federal government and dramatic tax reform.

And he has tapped into the conservative ranks in Idaho, announcing that term limits crusader Donna Weaver of Hayden Lake will serve as his campaign chairman. Weaver contributed the maximum $2,000 to Chenoweth’s 1996 re-election, which Paquin briefly considered challenging two years ago.

Paquin contributed $5,000 to Weaver’s term limits initiative last year.

Paquin and his brother, Gary, did contribute $1,000 to Chenoweth’s initial campaign that resulted in the ouster of two-term Democratic incumbent Larry LaRocco in 1994.

Since then, however, he says Chenoweth has advanced an agenda he calls “extreme right wing” and consequently does not represent a majority of voters in the northern and western Idaho district.

, DataTimes