The MountainGoat Report

Welcome to the Idaho Jungle

If you are new to Idaho and new to the experience of voting for the least objectional candidate in a primary election, especially if you're not familiar with a former Republican congressman named Bill Sali, welcome to a little Idaho election history.

Up for review, the 2006 race for Idaho's 1st Congressional District. The incumbent, Republican Butch Otter, vacated the seat to run for governor leaving a wide open race which attracted a crowded field. Six candidates entered the Republican primary with the expectation that, given the condition of the Idaho Democratic Party in the previous decade, the primary winner would likely take the seat. The surviving candidate would face the Democratic primary winner and three other candidates in the general.

Candidates for the Republican primary were:

• Sheila Sorensen, Idaho State Senator — a well-respected member of the Idaho Legislature for 17 years with a medical background. She was a pro-business conservative with endorsements from several GOP heavyweights, including U.S. Rep Mike Simpson and former Idaho House Speaker Bruce Newcomb. As a committee chairman she killed an anti-gay marriage amendment which spooked the far right who also tagged her with the epithet, "feminist." She would likely have won in a landslide had she secured the nomination.
• Keith Johnson, Idaho State Controller — a CPA, he joked that he had a license to be boring and was also endorsed by several GOP heavyweights and the Idaho Statesman.
• Norm Semanko, attorney — former legislative assistant to Sen. Larry Craig and head of the Idaho Water Users Association. In 2008 he ousted the party chair and then led the effort to close the Republican primary using this primary race in its justification.
• Skip Brandt, Idaho State Senator — a businessman who served in the senate for six years, endorsed by former Rep. Helen Chenoweth which tells you all you need to know. If it doesn't tell you anything, maybe that's a post for another time.
• Robert Vasquez, Canyon County Commissioner — a one issue extremely vicious anti-immigration candidate who, in a self-described stunt, billed the Mexican government over $2M for illegal immigration costs to the county.
• Bill Sali, Idaho State Representative — elected to the state legislature in 1990, he infamously clashed with Republican leadership on many issues including controversial abortion bills. As House Speaker, Mike Simpson once threatened to throw Sali out a window. Speaker Bruce Newcomb called him an idiot and relieved him of his committee chairmanship in a power struggle. He seemed to relish being abrasive, claiming abortions cause breast cancer and pursued the issue so aggressively, despite leaving Minority Leader and breast cancer survivor Wendy Jaquet in tears, that the entire minority caucus walked out in support. Republican National Coalition for Life and Club for Growth, which ensured Sali was flush with cash, were among his endorsements.

The Democratic Primary included:

• Larry Grant, attorney — former general counsel at Micron Technology and business executive with no known previous political experience.
• Cecil Kelly, small business owner — an outspoken North Idaho businessman running an issues campaign with some local campaign experience.
  

Other general election candidates:

• Dave Olson — Independent
  
• Andy Hedden-Nicely — Natural Law
  
• Paul Smith — Constitution
  

Reports at the time called the Republican primary "lively" which is a nice way of saying it was nasty. Immigration was the national issue of the day and vying to be the most cruel to the undocumented seemed to be the campaign strategy of the primary.

Idahoans across the political spectrum were concerned that the large Republican field would give an extreme candidate like Bill Sali a better than good chance of winning the nomination, while some influential Idaho Republicans had already indicated that they would not support him if he did.

Some Democrats strategized that an extreme Republican candidate would give the Democratic candidate a fighting chance of winning the seat by nauseating all the independents and any no-drama Republicans enough to support a Democrat.

See, back in 2006 all primary elections in Idaho were open, party affiliation was not required and primary voters could choose either a Democratic or Republican ballot on election day, so some went to the polls hoping to help engineer a victory for the most extreme of the extreme candidates in that primary which was, hands down, Bill Sali.

Others went to the polls hoping to keep the most extreme candidates from getting anywhere near the office and voted for Sheila Sorensen.

Bill Sali won the Republican primary with 25.78%, Vasquez was second with 18.5% and Sorensen right behind at 18.3%. Larry Grant won the Democratic primary with 75% of the vote.

Did Democrats really have that much influence on the Republican primary outcome?

Good question.

Which Democrats? Those who hoped to keep things sane didn't, as their candidate came in third.

Did 6,000 "scheming" Democrats turn out to give Sali the win?

It is silly to think that their scattershot strategy affected the outcome at all and there's really no data to prove either way. The possibility that they might have, though, threatened many Republicans to the point that they began efforts to change the decades old Idaho primary system after this election. Ironically the people who found it the most threatening were among Sali's most passionate supporters who, if the theories were to be believed, had benefited the most.

If, by some miracle, enough Democrats did vote to propel Bill Sali to a primary victory, that strategy backfired when the Democratic candidate, Larry Grant, eventually lost to Sali by 5 points in November and the extreme lightening rod became the congressman from the 1st District.

Bill Sali went on to become the cringe congressman that Idahoans had feared he would, the Idaho Republicans began a nasty intra-party feud that is still playing out today and if you looked real close, you could just begin to see the Tea Party gleam in fringe Republicans' eyes.

Those are tales for another day, though.

Dusting Things Off

After leaving this blog as it sat for 11 years, I have returned to brush some of the dust off and will be posting an item or two in the future.

I'm expecting that some of the links will be broken and everything is obviously out of date but I'm not anticipating changing any of that for the time being.

Most of the structure I'm leaving unchanged but I have made a couple of minor formatting changes.

Welcome back! Let's go!

Tax Cuts For All (Who Matter)

You get a tax cut and you get a tax cut and you get a tax cut!  Everyone gets a tax cut!

'Cept if you make less than $20,000 as an individual or $40,000 as a family.  Then you get a tax increase!

A holiday spending-spree of tax cuts that will cost $900 bazillion gazillion (does it really even matter any more?) coapted to the already monstrous deficit that, we're reminded daily, is a very, very, very frightening thing.

Tax cuts for the wealthy.  Tax cuts for the middle class.  Tax cuts for the dead.  But not the working poor.  Nope, the working poor get tax increases.

Who speaks for them?

A Wide Right Failure

A failed strategy leads to this:

Did you give credence to some of the early polling that showed Rep. Minnick with a measurable lead?

We were ahead in all of our internal polling all the way up to the final days. Every single undecided voter broke against Walt. I'll make one comment about some of the post-election analysis: There seems to be an assumption that Democrats stayed home. The reality is that there are a lot fewer of them. The state has become a lot more red. More Democrats became independent and more independents became Republicans.

[...]

But if you did have a few minutes with some people who could rebuild the party, where would you start?

By not worrying about rebuilding the Democratic Party. The state is ruby-red Republican, and likely always will be. Any advice I would have to give would be to accept that reality and move on. Do not assume that you're going to get the state to change. It's Republican. It's conservative. Your strategy needs to be built around that reality.

Failure.  Failure to understand that the failed strategy led to the failure.

It may feel better to blame the failure on a variation of a Bruce Hornsby lyric... but it doesn't make it so.

Good riddance.

A Great Place To Start

In the debate about where Idaho Democrats go from here, Dave Neiwert provides a great starting point at Crooks and Liars [emphasis added].

The profile of the kind of candidate Democrats should be seeking as they work to return to full power in Congress should be someone modeled after a politician like Cecil Andrus rather than a Walt Minnick:  A proud liberal who was skilled at explaining and standing up for liberal positions and policies to rural and suburban audiences because he understood that, at the bottom, these are common-sense positions -- and, if explained and marketed to voters that way, will win voters over to supporting Democratic positions instead of regurgitating Fox propaganda talking points, which is about all Republicans are capable of these days.

Amen.  Otherwise, as Dave says, it's just "lather, rinse, repeat."

The Necessity Of The Unemployment Extension

Thought the lame duck session would be any different for Idaho's Walt Minnick after becoming a one-term congressman in decisive fashion this month?  Think again.  Thursday, Minnick was one of eleven Democrats voting against an extension of unemployment benefits.  The measure was brought to the floor needing a two-thirds majority to pass but fell short despite a 258-154 margin voting in favor.

According to a report by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, allowing the extension to expire would "drain the economy of $80 billion of purchasing power" and "could hamper the fragile recovery."  Extending unemployment benefits are more effective than other policies analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office for increasing growth and employment, the report says, and "every dollar spent on unemployment insurance benefits increases gross domestic product by $1.60."

Workers receiving unemployment insurance payments are typically cash‐strapped and will spend their benefits quickly. This quick spending generates a "multiplier" for the economy as a whole. Every dollar of unemployment benefits that a recipient spends can generate a cascade of spending by others, providing a significant jolt to the nation’s economy in terms of both economic activity and employment. Therefore, extending unemployment insurance benefits not only helps struggling households, but can also spur the creation of job opportunities.

The extension would help two million unemployed workers whose benefits are set to expire at the end of this month at an estimated cost of about $12 billion.  Minnick has not yet publicly commented on this vote but when voting against a similar extension in July told Idaho Reporter, "I am absolutely opposed to digging the deficit hole deeper.  I want to help them, but I want that help to be paid for."  

Minnick has also indicated that he supports extending all of the Bush tax cuts, including those for the very wealthiest Americans.  The price tag for keeping the tax breaks on income over $250,000 is estimated at $700 billion or 58 times more than the cost of the unemployment insurance extension.

That's obscene.

It is unconscionable, under the guise of deficit reduction, to support giving the wealthiest 1% of Americans an average tax cut of over $83,000 a year that's not paid for, while refusing to help struggling middle class families stay in their homes and put food on the table.

Just how bad is it here in Canyon County?

Canyon County is currently suffering the worst unemployment since at least 1991, with a double-digit rate of 10.4%.  That's down from a peak of 13.2% in January but still more than two points above the unemployment rate of 8.3% for the state.

Heading into the cold winter months, with the first snow falling today, the anecdotal evidence of families struggling is everywhere.  Block after block in older, less afluent parts of Nampa filled with vacant and foreclosed homes, a young man arrested for stealing a bag of chicken from a local grocery store, and in, what is to me, the most graphic depiction of the dire straits some here are facing, someone in our neighborhood is so desperate for cash they are setting out in the dead of night to collect aluminum cans from recycling bins set out on the curb for pick up.

People here are struggling.

Those who are unemployed and eligible for unemployment insurance aren't going to become rich off their average $229 per week benefit, but they may be able to keep their home and provide necessities for their families.  One less foreclosed home, one less vacant rental, one more family with hope that they may find work before they lose everything.  One less person thinking the unthinkable.  One more family still contributing to the economy.

In a perfect world these families would be able to find work and unemployment insurance would be unnecessary.  This isn't a perfect world.

Do the right thing, Walt.  When the unemployment extension comes before the House again, vote for it.  Vote for your constituents who are wondering how they'll make it through the winter without work.  Vote for small businesses who need middle-class families with the resources to buy their goods and services. Vote for this imperfect necessity.  Tell your constituents they are worth the investment.

The Education Of the Idaho Democratic Party

Sisyphus has been living up to his namesake at 43rd State Blues.  In dual post-election analyses he has advanced the theme that the blowout Idaho Democrats endured this election had at least as much to do with self-inflicted voter apathy as with a "Republican wave," as the media and Democratic Party officials have asserted.

In doing so, he contrasted the successful campaign of Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada to the losing campaign of Idaho 1st District Congressman Walt Minnick in 2010 and he crunched the numbers, such as they are, in comparing the losing gubernatorial races of Independent Keith Allred running on the Democratic ticket in 2010 and Democrat Jerry Brady, the nominee in 2006.  The candidates on the Democratic ticket in both 2010 races ran sharply away from the Democratic Party, shunning Democratic identity and disparaging Democratic ideals to the detriment of their campaigns and the Idaho Democratic Party, as Sisyphus and others have concluded.

Now, through Randy Stapilus at Ridenbaugh Press and Betsy Russell at Eye On Boise, we find links to more corroboration of this theme at the interstices blog.   In analyzing the voting in Ada County legislative races, interstices concluded that Boise Democrats didn't show up at the polls and surmised:

What happened appears to best be described as a systemic failure on the part of the Democratic Party to put on a campaign at the top of the ticket that would help drive voter turnout at the lower races such as for State Legislature. 

More fascinating is interstices' comparison of the Democratic voting patterns in presidential years with those in gubernatorial years, as shown in this snip of a chart accompanying the election analysis.  "Despite favorable trends in Democratic votes the past six or eight years Allred was unable to hold to a common pattern of outperforming the Democratic Presidential nominee two years previous," writes interstices.  "Only in 1998 did the Democratic Gubernatorial candidate not do as well as the Democratic Presidential candidate two years previous."

Indeed, this contradicts the attempt at revisionism employed by Walt Minnick a week before the election when he optimistically informed the New York Times that President Obama was a "drag on the ballot" in 2008.

Check out interstices for more election analysis and other interesting bits of info.

What lessons the Idaho Democratic Party takes away from this election remain to be seen, but it would be a grave, maybe fatal, mistake to conclude that they simply fell victim to a "Republican wave."

Bryan Fischer: We Just Don't Value Killing Enough

He's pro-whale stoning, anti-secular teabagging and pro-childbirth quotas.  Now the man who put the "good riddance" in goodbye when he left Idaho for the national stage has added another in his long line of illuminating stances:  he's pro-giving awards for killing people. 

Bryan Fischer, the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the conservative Christian group the American Family Association, was unhappy yesterday that President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to a soldier for saving lives. This, Fischer wrote on his blog, shows that the Medal of Honor has been "feminized" because "we now award it only for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them."

[...]

Fischer's take? "So the question is this: when are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely at night?"

Focus on the absurdity of your choice; there are many.  A supposed-Christian advocating for killing, that the U.S. once honored its killers and breakers of things, or that preventing casualties is a "feminine" trait.

Fischer is the man Idaho conservatives revered and to whom some in the Idaho media deferred.  Do they still, with the curtain pulled back and the lunacy exposed?

A Veteran's Day PostScript: The South Will Rise Again, In Idaho?

This is how someone in Canyon County celebrated Veteran's Day.  Yes, that's a confederate flag proudly flying where others were displaying Old Glory that day.

Been trying to wrap my head around this for several days.  No luck, yet.

'Experts' Have Spoken

The "experts" have spoken and disagree that Minnick's negative ads affected the outcome of the 1st Congressional District race.  Citing only internal polls showing "the ads had great effect," the "experts" say Minnick did what he had to do to give himself a chance to win.  A great effect on what and on whom, as the thirty-point underdog laughs all the way to Washington.  That's hilarious, but not in a good way.

Here are a few questions the "experts" don't answer.  Last cycle (2008) Walt picked up 45% of the vote in Canyon County; this cycle only 36%.  Making up 22.2% of the population, how did Walt's ads affect the Hispanic vote in Canyon County?  How about the other heavily Hispanic populations in Owyhee, Payette and Washington counties?  Did Hispanic voters turn out at all?  If so, how many turned out for Labrador?  Of those, how many did so because of Minnick's ads? 

Here's a thought.  As Idaho Democrats, instead of crawling home licking our wounds wondering what in the hell happened, how about we invest in some actual exit polling so we have some idea what did actually happen.  The guessing game doesn't appear to be working so well for us.  Neither did the "we'll disguise ourselves as Republicans" game.

Election Day, Walt Minnick and Conventional Wisdom

Here it is.  Election day 2010.  Not quite the election day of 2008.  Not even close, really.  Then, you could almost feel the pulse of a Democratic wave surging.  Yes, even in Idaho.  Records were set at Democratic caucuses, hope for a new president was overflowing in a raucous Taco Bell Arena and like sharks in bloody water, Democrats could sense that Bill Sali would no longer represent the 1st District.  Now, especially in Idaho, that pulse is indiscernible--nearly a flat-line--as weary Democrats stumble to the polls today.

Walt Minnick is going to lose tonight and he won't have anyone but himself to blame.  Despite what Minnick says today (that Obama was "a drag on the ballot"), in 2008 he needed all 175,898 voters that turned out in that Democratic wave to eke out a 1.2 percentage-points win over Bill Sali.  It was just 4,211 votes more than enough.  What happened?  Both Minnick's internal and independent polls showed Minnick up by six percentage points within two weeks of that election. Conventional wisdom says that in the end voters "came home," that the 1st District really is that conservative and even a hugely unpopular incumbent with a 41% unfavorable rating could only be beaten in a squeaker.  That's the conventional wisdom, anyway.  In Idaho it's often wrong.

This is a state where blue turf is a selling point and a large portion of the population consider it a complement to be "peculiar."  Conventional wisdom doesn't always apply.  In the case of the 2008 1st District race, especially.  Something else closed the gap between Minnick and Sali in the final two weeks of that race which the conventional wisdom ignores.  In late October, fliers containing the social security numbers of Bill Sali and his wife were sent to voters in the district.  The Salis were, justifiably, angry; Idaho Democrats were contrite and Minnick's camp was unapologetic.  Undecideds now had a reason to vote and came out for the suddenly and unlikely now-sympathetic Bill Sali.  Minnick was lucky then; his blunder nearly cost him the election.  He won't be so lucky again.

In 2010, with Minnick plunging from a 30 point lead (in some polls) to a dead heat within two months, outsiders proclaim the 1st District race to be "finally conforming" to national trends.  In doing so they again overlook the uniquely peculiar nature of Idaho.

Idahoans, and independents in particular, are especially hostile to negative campaigning.  More than most, independents here have a cynical view of politics and political parties and it's that cynicism that accounts for their unusually large numbers in Idaho.   What Idahoans admire is authenticity--more so than ideology, whether conservative, progressive or somewhere in between.

Walt Minnick had nearly convinced the electorate of his authenticity but sealed his own fate by deciding to go negative, and in particularly vicious fashion, on Raul Labrador.  In mid-September the campaign launched the first of three ads targeting Labradors's work as an immigration attorney.  The campaign insisted this was to highlight Labrador's hypocrisy on immigration, not to denigrate his profession.  What it did was give otherwise ambivalent conservatives a reason to support Labrador.  From dignitaries like former Governor Phil Batt to the rank and file like blogger Clayton Cramer, Minnick's hostile ads solidified Labrador's previously wavering support.  The ads also gave otherwise ambivalent Democrats more reason to oppose Minnick.  The only apparent increased support from Minnick's ads came from the unsavory ranks of white nationalists.

When pundits talk about Idaho's 1st district race, they will likely include the dramatic implosion of Republican primary candidate Vaughn Ward.  They will also likely include the dramatic loss of Walt Minnick and conventional wisdom will chalk it up to a Democrat in a very conservative district caught up in a Republican wave.

The conventional wisdom will also be wrong.  This was Walt Minnick's election to lose, and he will.

Today, there is no Democrat more disappointed in Walt Minnick than I.

Update 11.4.10 9:25:  As predicted Walt Minnick lost to Raul Labrador, although the margin of victory at 51 to 41.3 was wider than even I expected.  Notably but as expected, Walt did especially poorly in the heavily Hispanic populations of Canyon and Owyhee counties:  36.1% to 56.2% and 34.7% to 56.6% respectively.

Minnick's Pathetic Racism

Walt Minnick has become a hero to white nationalists.  With his continuing descent into bigotry, using his first "Willie Horton" ad as just a warm up to his most recent "Willie Horton" ad (which even the Libertarian Republican calls "nasty" and on par with Sharron Angle's ad), white nationalists are praising Walt Minnick for his "patriotism."

The latest evidence appears at the white nationalist website VDARE.com, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "an anti-immigration hate website" which "also regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites."  It would be hard to argue with the SPLC assessment after reading some of VDARE's material.  Witness this excerpt from a July 21, 2003 post by Sam Francis entitled, "Abolishing America, Cont’d: Mexicans Want Reparations Too":

"America was defined — almost explicitly, sometimes very explicitly — as a white nation, for white people, and what that means is that there is virtually no figure, no law, no policy, no event in the history of the old, white America that can survive the transition to the new and non-white version. Whether we will want to call the new updated version ‘America’ at all is another question entirely."

Now in a post claiming "Many Immigration Patriots Poised To Win House Races," VDARE.com champions Minnick as an "immigration patriot," proclaiming Idaho's 1st District race "one of the most important races" to watch.

Republicans are not always the strongest immigration patriots. In Idaho, incumbent Democrat Walt Minnick has a pretty good record on immigration co-sponsoring the SAVE Act and expanded E-Verify. When given Numbers USA’s survey, he answered in favor of reducing legal and illegal immigration (though not favoring ending birthright citizenship.)

[...]

In fact, of course, there is a glaring “obvious reason” why Minnick decided to be a patriot. White Idahoans still make up over 91% of the population of Minnick’s district. They never voted to make their days as a “lily white enclave finished”.  And they are not keen on attorneys who helped bring forth these unwanted changes.

Walt Minnick "decided to be a patriot."  That's what they think.  To them, racism is patriotic and even they see Minnick as playing to the fears of "white Idahoans."

That isn't patriotism.  It's pathetic.

Update 10.31.10, 12:10:  Minnick has won the endorsement of another racist group.

From Imagine 2050 [emphasis added]:

Earlier this week, Brian Griffin aka “Hunter Wallace,” writer for the overtly white supremacist website Occidental Dissent, put out his own list of endorsements. Over 130 candidates are on his list, and all are running on an anti-immigrant platform and have received the “true reformer” seal of approval from NumbersUSA. Wallace, in his article, directs his readership back to NumbersUSA’s report cards. NumbersUSA is part of an array of anti-immigrant groups founded or funded by John Tanton, a white nationalist who has single-handedly orchestrated the anti-immigrant movement in the U.S. Also part of the Tanton Network are Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) among others.

A sampling of the candidates endorsed by Hunter Wallace includes Brian Bilbray (R-CA), Sue Myrick (R-NC), John Boozman (R-AR), Tom Tancredo (Constitution – CO), Gene Taylor (D-MS), and Walt Minnick (D-ID).

The post goes on to quote Wallace:

“I will flatly state that immigration is by far the most important issue facing the White Nationalist community. In the long run, changing racial demographics will determine the electoral context in which every other issue is decided, and ultimately the fate of our race on this continent.”

Nice.  This is your Democratic congressman, Idaho.

"Skidding to a loss," indeed.

Why Does Walt Minnick Lie, Again?

Congressman Walt Minnick is often touting his business experience as making him uniquely qualified to represent Idaho's 1st District.  Just last week at a Meridian Chamber of Commerce forum, Minnick said that "his centrist record and 30 years of business experience put him in the best spot to help restore America’s financial health."

So with all of Walt's business experience, why does he feel the need to lie about it?

On his campaign website biography, Minnick lists his 16-year tenure as President of TJ International as an example of his "proven leadership."  He also claims that under his tenure, the company "never failed to make money."

Trouble is, company documents show otherwise.

In a  press release dated February 14, 1992, TJ International announced the first annual loss in the company history.

Why Minnick would say that the company never lost money under his tenure is unclear when the facts obviously say otherwise.

Minnick's tenure at Trus Joist is a story unto itself, but here is a brief history. 

After leaving the Nixon White House in 1974 amid the ongoing scandal of Watergate, Minnick struggled for six months to find a job.  In a letter obtained by Freedom of Information Act request dated December 17, 1974, he told Watergate Special Prosecutors,

In looking for a job last winter and spring, a number of prospective employers were hesitant to "take a chance" on me because I was one of those "out of work lawyers from the Nixon White House."  The chairman of the Board of Amfac Corporation expressed a similar view when it was suggested that I might be an appropriate candidate for their Board of Directors.

This was in sharp contrast to the success of Hank Paulson, Walt's good friend and fellow Harvard Business School alum with whom he worked at the Pentagon and the Nixon White House.  Hank was not only "well connected enough to get the job [as assistant to John Ehrlichman, Nixon's chief domestic advisor], but well connected enough to resign in the thick of the Watergate scandal without ever getting caught up in the fallout."  He landed a job with the now infamous Goldman Sachs, rising through the ranks to become CEO, and the rest is history.  And it was no doubt Hank and Walt's close friendship that would later deliver a job at Goldman for Minnick's son Adam, also a Harvard MBA.

No such prestigious landing for Minnick; he finally found a job as corporate secretary at Trus Joist Corporation.  He rose to President and COO in 1979, eventually becoming CEO in 1986.

With Walt at the helm, Trus Joist launched into several diversification efforts, one "into energy management systems, which cost Trus Joist some $2.5 million over 18 months," according to the company history.  The other was into the wood window industry, acquiring Norco Windows of Wisconsin and Dashwood Industries of Canada, which would eventually be merged into the Outlook Window Partnership.

It was this diversification, as the Outlook partnership continued to drag on company profits, that would ultimately lead to Minnick's resignation from Trus Joist in 1995, amid disagreements with the board over the direction of the company.  Minnick wanted to continue diversification but the Board had other ideas.  It cost the company $40 million to divest itself of the window partnership.

Nearly everyone would want to shine the best light on the past, but as a congressman running for reelection asking voters to trust his business experience, is a man who lies about that experience (and this isn't the first) really worthy of that trust?  

Walt Minnick's 'Pernicious' Lie

The November 2010 edition of Reader's Digest featured an article by Michael Crowley entitled "Tin Soldiers: Phony vets, fake heroes—there's an epidemic of lying about military service."  Crowley writes about how surprisingly widespread this phenomena is, using examples of people like David Budwah who claimed to be an Iraq and Afghanistan war hero when he actually served as a radio specialist in Japan.  But, Crowley says, much more offensive is a politician who does so. 

Here's an excerpt [emphasis added]:

What would possess these impostors to spin their disgraceful lies?  Some, like Budwah, are looking for special treatment.  Others may just want respect.  Damian Pace, who never finished his military training but occasionally wore U.S. Army uniforms and badges meant for combat veterans, told a federal investigator in 2009 that he wanted to "look cool."

Those guys may be pathetic, but they're not as pernicious as the politicians who want to win votes by tricking us into thinking they're heroes.  One of them was Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who while running for the U.S. Senate last March claimed to a group of veterans that he "served in Vietnam."  Not quite:  Blumenthal got at least five deferments to avoid that war, before joining the reserves.

Blumenthal's lie is not at all unlike that of Idaho's Congressman Walt Minnick.  While Blumenthal spoke those words himself, Walt Minnick let his 2008 campaign Facebook make the false claim that he served his country in Vietnam and then blamed an intern for using the misleading language.

Here's a screenshot of the Facebook page captured in October of 2009:

There's the lie in the Information section right below the part about Walt's life of "strong and principled leadership."  As has been pointed out, Walt never served in Vietnam; once his deferments expired and while fighting his hometown draft board—all the way to the Presidential appeal level—Walt joined the ROTC to avoid his impending draft and he says so in his own words.  Eighteen months of Walt's two-year Reserve obligation were spent in the Pentagon, the remainder was spent in the Nixon White House.

It should be noted that during the Vietnam era, National Guard and Reserve units weren't used in the way they are today; units were rarely mobilized and draft-eligible men could usually avoid combat by joining these units, swelling their ranks and making it nearly impossible to join without someone with connections pulling strings.

The Vietnam service lie remained on Minnick's official 2008 campaign Facebook page until March 29 of this year when, in response to the original posting of "The Vietnam Service Lie," his campaign manager sent this explanation (the "official FB page" referenced below was set up in February):

That's after he vigorously defended the use of the Facebook page language of "serving his country in Vietnam" in his initial email response a day earlier.

The post was not corrected (although it was updated to include a statement from Foster) because there was nothing to correct.  As we know from the Blumenthal example, "serving in Vietnam" is widely interpreted to mean combat service.  To say a couple of temporary duty assignments of 10 days or less is equivalent to Vietnam service is a grave injustice to the hundreds of thousands of young combat troops who weren't wealthy enough or well-connected enough to successfully fight a draft board or lucky enough to land a cushy assignment in the Pentagon, and to the tens of thousands who lost their lives serving their country in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

To say that Walt Minnick has never lied about his service is just factually inaccurate, unless you also say that Walt Minnick isn't responsible for the content of his campaign materials.  That 2008 campaign Facebook page has since been deleted but the lie it contained made its way into many web biographies.

It first appeared in Minnick's Wikipedia entry on March 3, 2010 where it was edited to read that Minnick was a "veteran who served in Vietnam" by someone with an IP address in Moscow, Idaho using a Road Runner ISP.  That claim remained until June 1, 2010 when it was finally changed to reflect Minnick's actual service again by someone with an IP address in Boise with an Integra Telecom ISP.

The biography of Minnick at uuworld.org, the official online publication of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, credits Minnick with a "tour of duty in Vietnam."

Since our initial posting in March, Boardroom Insiders has not modified their profile of Minnick, still crediting him with a "tour of duty in Vietnam."  However, Walt Minnick's biography at LivPAC, the PAC established by Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, no longer appears among the candidates the PAC is endorsing for 2010.  LivPAC was founded to "help elect Democratic Members of Congress who support the policies and principles that will make the U.S. government a partner in building and maintaining livable communities that embody smart growth principles."  The PAC endorsed Minnick in 2008, held a fundraiser for him July 15, 2009 and his biography appeared in their candidate endorsements through at least March 28, 2010.  It's unclear whether Minnick no longer fits the profile of candidates the PAC is endorsing or if there is some other reason for his removal from the list (an email to the PAC requesting clarification has not been returned) but this was his biography as it appeared in March of 2010:  

Although Walt is no longer claiming to have served in Vietnam, these are just a few examples of how that lie has migrated into the public perception and, unlike his recent strenuous objections to a misleading statement from his opponent, Walt has made no apparent attempt to correct the perception.  If anything he has continued to perpetuate it with ads like this which, while technically correct in saying he "served his country in the U.S Army during Vietnam," omit important context.

How pernicious is it for a politician to lie about his service, then claim to never have lied while continuing to allow others to perpetuate the lie on his behalf?

The Character of the Man

What does it say about the character of a man whose defining moment in life never really happened?

In the final month of the 2008 election cycle, embroiled in a tight race with then-Congressman Bill Sali, then-candidate Walt Minnick told the Idaho Statesman editorial board that the turning point in his life was his decision to resign from the Nixon Administration after events that came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre.  October 20, 1973 at the hight of the Watergate investigation, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than carry out an order from President Nixon to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox who was demanding that Nixon comply with a subpoena to turn over the White House tapes.  At the time, Minnick was the Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget and Chief of OMB's Federal Drug Management Division.

Walt says "he walked in and quit" that Monday and, when relating these events, has repeated the story that he resigned in protest immediately after the Saturday Night Massacre.  Trouble is, there aren't any facts to back that up.

A Freedom of Information Act request produced no resignation letter from the Nixon Library, the White House Digest from the period records no resignation from Walter Minnick and he testified to Congress that he remained employed in the Nixon Administration through January of 1974.

Minnick's hometown paper, the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, carried no such story reporting his resignation in the days following the Saturday Night Massacre.  To understand the significance of that, one has to understand that this is a hometown paper that had a special relationship with the Minnicks.  From a story about a seven-year-old Walter growing pumpkins, to his time in school-boy patrol, to his graduation from Harvard, if Skeeter Minnick sneezed it ended up in the Union-Bulletin.

This is the paper that ran the front-page headline "Minnick Mentioned in Watergate Coverage," June 26, 1973 the day after White House Counsel John Dean mentioned Minnick's name in his televised testimony.  It was big news in Walla Walla -- the whole town was abuzz -- and the paper reported that Minnick's parents weren't speaking to the press about it.

If Walter Minnick had resigned following the Saturday Night Massacre -- especially "in protest" -- that would have also been big news in Walla Walla.  The Union-Bulletin carried the front-page story of the events but no mention of Minnick's name.  A month later they printed a story, referring to Minnick as a government official -- no mention of any resignation.

This is supposedly THE defining moment of Congressman Walt Minnick's life, and it never happened -- at least not the way he says it did.  That says more about the character of this man than any vote he's taken, any attack he's made on an opponent, than any pandering for votes he's done.

It has become a defining moment, alright.  As a Democrat, it couldn't be more disappointing.