Spin control: Craig becomes an inspiration to anti-obesity lobbyists

Sen. Larry Craig’s troubles in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport restroom have become such a punch line that a Washington, D.C., lobbying group is trying to use them to further its cause.

The cause: stopping childhood obesity.

A campaign from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has a new commercial it started running last week, which excoriates Congress for taking money from the meat and dairy industry, then pushing federally purchased bacon, burgers, meat and dairy products onto schools and food assistance programs.

So what does that have to do with Craig?

While the audio message of the organization’s commercial is fairly straightforward, the video is more … creative? It features a man walking into a public restroom, entering a stall, tapping his foot and being passed piles of money under the divider. In the end, the door to the adjoining stall opens, and inside is someone in a pig costume, who looks embarrassed and slams the door.

Spin Control is not making this up. We don’t have that kind of imagination.

The commercial can be found at the online version of the column at the Internet address listed below.

Fishing for candidates

Here’s a bit of trivia from the post-primary campaign spending reports for mayoral candidates Mary Verner and Dennis Hession: The downtown fish restaurants are split.

Milford’s, one of the city’s long-established seafood houses, gave Verner $1,000.

Herbert Gould, the president of Anthony’s Homeport Restaurants, which has a competing eatery in the city-owned structure above the Spokane Falls, gave $1,000 to Hession.

Could there be more to this than a choice between king salmon and Dungeness crab? Possibly.

Those with long memories may recall that when the city was looking to lease the property generally known as the old Salty’s site – which is odd considering that restaurant closed in 1996, and Black Angus operated a steakhouse there for much longer – there was a bit of a controversy over who should get the lease.

Hession, then the council president, eventually voted to lease the building to Seattle-based Anthony’s over the objections of the owner of Milford’s and executives from Clinkerdagger’s, another potential competitor nearby. The lease passed 5-1.

Verner didn’t vote. She had to recuse herself because the tribal organization where she serves as the executive director includes the Spokane Tribe, which had proposed turning the site into a cultural center.

But she was on record supporting the cultural center, which wouldn’t have been competition for the established restaurants.

Fred did better than fair

Inland Northwest Republicans seem to have been waiting anxiously for Fred Thompson to jump into the presidential race. Or maybe they’re just fans of “Law and Order.”

In any case, Thompson finished first in a straw poll the Spokane County Republicans held during the Interstate Fair.

County Chairman Curt Fackler said he was a little surprised that Thompson, who entered the race just days before the fair opened, fared so well. But he opined as how Republicans from hereabouts are fairly conservative, and McCain, Romney and Giuliani have had trouble gaining traction.

The ballot had names of people who are not now, and may never be, candidates. They were just trying to fill up the sheet, Fackler said.

Here’s how they finished, with the percentages:

Fred Thompson 30.78 percent; Ron Paul 16.43 percent; Rudy Giuliani 11.83 percent; Mitt Romney 10.31 percent; John McCain 9.75 percent; Newt Gingrich 7.38 percent.

Condoleezza Rice 5.29 percent; Mike Huckabee 3.34 percent; Tom Tancredo 1.67 percent; Sam Brownback 0.83 percent; Duncan Hunter 0.55 percent; Bill Frist and George Allen 0.69 percent; George Pataki 0.42 percent.

Catch the candidates

There’s only one major candidate forum scheduled this week:

Wednesday

5 p.m. Spokane and Spokane Valley candidates (contested races), at a League of Women Voters forum. Spokane City Council Chambers, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.

But the calendar gets fuller as the month goes on. Look for a longer list next Sunday.