Cheney to visit N. Idaho amid hot race

BOISE – Vice President Dick Cheney is headed back to Idaho for another campaign stop – this time for an “Idaho Victory Rally” at the Coeur d’Alene Airport on Thursday.

The vice president’s visit – his second to Idaho in three months – will come as Republicans are pulling out all the stops to rally Idaho voters before the Nov. 7 election. Just since Tuesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee has poured another $159,047 into Idaho’s 1st Congressional District race to boost Republican Bill Sali and bash Democrat Larry Grant.

“I’ll tell you this much, as the chairman of the Kootenai County Republican Party, I’m just thrilled that the vice president has found time to come here and visit us and to rally Republicans before the upcoming election,” said Brad Corkill, chairman of the Kootenai County Republican central committee.

Democrats had a different view. “In a sense, Democrats have already won, because Republicans have never had to work so hard for an election in recent memory,” said Idaho Democratic Party spokesman Chuck Oxley. “It’s just absolutely unprecedented. I don’t think anybody could say that Democrats are irrelevant in Idaho anymore.”

The vice president’s visit, unlike his August campaign stop in Boise for Sali, won’t be a fundraiser for any particular candidate. “He’s just there to sort of rally the troops and lend whatever support he can,” said Megan McGinn, Cheney’s deputy press secretary.

The North Idaho stop – Air Force Two will fly in to the Coeur d’Alene Airport in Hayden – is one of four quick visits Cheney will make next week to the Rocky Mountain West. It’s an area where Democrats have been making gains in the past two years, including taking the Montana governorship and majorities in both houses of the Colorado Legislature.

Cheney “victory rallies” are planned next week in Montana, Colorado and Cheney’s home state of Wyoming as well as Idaho.

“The vice president is very excited to return to Idaho and is happy to offer his support to the Idaho Republican Party,” McGinn said. “He loves to come to Idaho.”

Cheney’s August fundraiser for Sali in Boise drew about 160 supporters who paid $125 a person, or $2,100 for a photo with the vice president. Sali’s campaign netted roughly $30,000, according to his latest campaign finance reports.

The Coeur d’Alene rally will be free, but by invitation only. Details aren’t settled yet, but the late-afternoon rally likely will be for more than 500 invited supporters.

“I think it’s fantastic. Idaho’s a great Republican state, and I think that’s evidenced by the vice president coming twice in three months,” said state Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene. “As far as North Idaho Republicans go, we’re very excited, honored and proud.”

Coeur d’Alene Airport Manager Greg Delavan said the local airport, which has no scheduled commercial passenger service, won’t have any problem accommodating the Boeing 757 that carries Cheney and his entourage. In about 2001, the airport completed upgrades including pavement reconstruction, moving structures out of safety areas and adding an air rescue firetruck so it could be certified to accommodate larger aircraft.

“We got through those hurdles,” Delavan said. “We’re every bit as capable of handling those kind of aircraft as any of the commercial airports in the area.”

Delavan said he got a call at home over the weekend about the upcoming Cheney visit. “I’ve been talking to the pilots and some of the people who handle logistics,” he said.

Probably the only glimpse the general public will see of the vice presidential visit will be if they spot Air Force Two flying in or out. The plane “will be noticeable because it’s so big – it’s got a big wingspan,” Delavan said. But its engines are quiet enough that “unless people see it, they won’t notice it.”

NRCC spokesman Jonathan Collegio confirmed that his group is running a new ad on TV in Idaho that both attacks Grant and praises Sali on taxes. The Washington, D.C.-based Club for Growth also has been running ads attacking Grant.

The latest independent campaign expenses in the race, according to reports to the Federal Election Commission, came from the NRCC for TV ads, phone banks attacking Grant, and an $8,235 poll for Sali on Wednesday.

That congressional race, for a rare open seat in Congress, has been attracting lots of national attention. A Washington Post article on Tuesday headlined “Solidly Republican, suddenly in doubt – GOP faces unlikely challenges in West” marveled that the Idaho race has become so competitive that Grant “finds himself transformed from sacrificial lamb to reason for worry among national Republican strategists.”

Corkill said Kootenai County Republicans aren’t worried. “Republicans are very positive right now. We feel very confident,” he said.

But Oxley maintained that the GOP, which long has dominated Idaho politics, is getting “desperate.” He said, “You don’t send a vice president out to a state like Idaho unless you’re really afraid.”