Huckleberries interviews Paul Amador

• Huckleberries: What did the results of your win over three-term representative Kathy Sims mean?
• Paul Amador: It meant that the message we delivered resonated with voters. We pushed a positive message about the future. Our topics were education, jobs and finding solutions to our health care concerns. My win was an indication that those topics were important to voters.

• Huckleberries: Did you win or Sims lose?
• Amador: I’ll leave that up to your readers to decide. We certainly won in the vote total. I can’t speak to what each individual voter made his or her decision on.

• Huckleberries: Of all the hard-contested campaigns, yours stayed above board the most. Why is that?
• Amador: From the beginning we made it a point that my race and my message would be positive. And when we talked about my opponent, it was about her record not her character.

• Huckleberries: You’re not home free. You have a Democratic opponent in the general election — and a good one. What’s your strategy moving forward?
• Amador: The message doesn’t change. It’s going to remain the same. We aren’t taking the challenge of the election in the fall lightly. Many will say this is a strongly red part of Idaho. We’re going to run a smart, aggressive campaign. Voters will recognize having a strong Republican representative will benefit this community. The message we’re delivering will resonate with voters in fall. We support a strong educational system. We work for better jobs. We find solutions for our health care problems.

• Huckleberries:  I know that you would look forward to working with state Rep. Luke Malek on the House side, if you win in November. How about state Sen. Mary Souza?
• Amador: I do look forward to working with Sen. Souza. If we look at her record, she has a good strong record of supporting our community in Boise. I will absolutely support her in the fall.

• Huckleberries: On the last weekend of the campaign. Sen. Souza sent our a newsletter that said that Luke, Peter Riggs and you were too young to represent your communities. What do you think of that?
• Amador: Certainly in the primary, as Republicans, we have differences of opinions re: the best candidates to move forward. Sen. Souza was expressing her opinion at that time. Now that the voters have voiced their opinion, all of us are supportive of Republican candidates moving forward. I’ve already expressed to her that I will work diligently for the people of District 4 in representing them. Sen. Souza has already expressed her congratulations to me.