[Vision2020] Walt Minnick

Thu Aug 27 07:48:23 PDT 2009

FLIP!

"But, if you can't afford it [health insurance], the government's going to have to help you with those premiums.  If we do that, we can bring down the cost of the average premium about thirty percent and improve the quality of health care in this country."

- Walt Minnick (October 19, 2008)

Courtesy of the Sali-Minnick Debate - Start at the 3:00 point at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccyHJ6RH3I4

------------------------------------------

FLOP!

[Courtesy of today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News]

"Minnick said his opposition to the public option stems from concerns over
increasing the deficit and said he would vote against the 1,047 page bill
produced by the U.S. House of Representatives.

'I'm not going to vote for any legislation that digs the debt ... deeper,'
he said."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Of course, the odds are always 50-50 from which side of his mouth Walt Minnick will speak.

Seeya at Farmers' Market, Moscow.

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

> From: donaldrose at cpcinternet.com
> To: kmmos1 at verizon.net; vision2020 at moscow.com
> Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:52:52 -0700
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Walt Minnick
> 
> Good Morning Ken,
> 
> I cheerfully stand by the remarks I made last night. A cursory review of the history of Dixiecrats and Boll Weevils reveals that jackass is a kindly description - and as card-carrying Blue Dog he is, in fact, like it or not, an heir of that peculiar ideology. 
> You apparently are comfortable with the Rep. Minnick's voting record - I'm not. He is, in his own words a Democrat by default. 
> http://mountaingoatreport.typepad.com/the_mountaingoat_report/2009/08/walt-minnick-bona-fide-conservative.html
> 
> "Perhaps most revealing is what he told David Broder of the Washington Post on why he became a Democrat.
> 'In 1996, Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, then head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, recruited Minnick to run against Republican Sen. Larry Craig. "I was an independent, and I told him I wanted to run as an independent. He had no problem with that, but Cecil Andrus [the former Idaho governor and interior secretary] phoned me and said that if that was my plan, they'd run another Democrat against Craig and see that I finished third. So at that point I became a Democrat."
> 
> Mr. Minnick will be a one term Charlie. He has lost liberal Democratic support, the Republicans will run a sane (unlike Bill Sali) candidate against him and that will be that. And that political reality slap couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
> 
> Rose Huskey
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kenneth Marcy [mailto:kmmos1 at verizon.net] 
> Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 11:50 PM
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Cc: Rosemary
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Walt Minnick
> 
> On Wednesday 26 August 2009 21:27:54 Rosemary wrote:
> > I attended the Walt Minnick question and answer thingy tonight at the 1912
> > Building. My remarks were prepared in advance and follow this paragraph.
> > Although I did not call him a jackass (as he accused me of doing)
> 
> First, without some sort of mutation, the biological facts are that like 
> breeds like within the diversity and varieties of a species. You said to the 
> Congressman that he "as a Blue Dog Democrat, are the philosophical descendant 
> of the jackasses who formed the ... " etc., etc., as below. If like breeds 
> like, the descendant of a jackass is a jackass. Second, the Congressman did 
> not accuse you of anything. What he asked you not to do was to not use 
> pejorative language in a meeting the intention of which was to conduct civil 
> discourse. Publicly calling him a jackass is pejorative, and he spoke truth 
> to you.
> 
> > after hearing his rambling non-answers and half-assed explanations for an 
> > hour, I probably should have. At least Republicans are honest enough not 
> > to pretend they are Democrats.
> 
> Idaho Republicans have the closed-door luxury of being such a politically 
> homogeneous monoculture that they don't have to pretend anything, nor do they 
> have to act in ways that many non-Idaho Republicans take for granted, like 
> disclosing who are their campaign contributors.
> 
> > I can't say the same for Rep. Minnick.
> 
> Of course you can't say that Congressman Minnick is a Republican pretending to 
> be a Democrat, because he is a Democrat. And what's more, he is an extremely 
> practical Democrat in that he knows that his longer-term effectiveness as an 
> Idaho Congressman depends on his ability to be re-elected. And based on his 
> discussion this evening, he is extraordinarily aware that he was not speaking 
> to a closed-door, Democrats-by-invitation-only, crowd inside the 1912 Center 
> with no press present. He was quite aware that he was speaking to the entire 
> Idaho Congressional District 1 voting populace.
> 
> > "Last night we lost a great Democrat. Sen. Kennedy was a tireless advocate
> > for the poor, civil rights, labor, and universal health care. He
> > personified the liberal, progressive wing of our party. You, on the other
> > hand, Congressman Minnick, as a Blue Dog Democrat, are the philosophical
> > descendent of the jackasses who formed the Boll Weevils, and the Dixiecrats
> > - splinter groups that stood against all that Teddy Kennedy stood for.
> > Please tell us, based on your voting record, including the fact that you
> > have cast 60% of your congressional votes with the Republicans, and your
> > attitude toward the public health care option, why you should expect
> > liberal Democrats to support you in 2010."
> 
> Congressman Minnick explained that most of the Congressional votes in the 
> tally you mentioned were earmark votes, against which he has pledged to vote 
> as much as possible. He also mentioned that of Speaker Pelosi's list of 36 
> most important votes, he supported 32 of the 36. That's 89 percent with the 
> Democratic Speaker of the House, not 60 percent against the Democrats.
> 
> Choosing one's battles carefully is critical to conserving resources for the 
> really important battles, and it appears that Congressman Minnick has learned 
> this lesson quickly and well. Idaho Liberal Democrats would be well-advised 
> likewise to learn this lesson, too, because in a state that, in normal years 
> without an Obama national landslide, normally votes on an order of magnitude 
> of 2 to 1 for Republicans over Democrats, Idaho First District Democrats of 
> any kind, liberal, middle-of-the-road, or blue dog, are unlikely to have 
> anywhere else to go in 2010 but to the first Democratic incumbent Congressman 
> in their lifetimes. Those Democrats may be well-advised to be thankful that 
> they have elected to office a Congressman practical enough to be bi-partisan 
> enough to attract sufficient support that would otherwise vote Republican, to 
> re-elect the incumbent.
> 
> Edward Moore Kennedy was an extraordinarily effective Senator in part because 
> he learned how to form friendships, how to form working relationships, how to 
> form bi-partisan coalitions across many kinds of lines within the US Senate. 
> He spent the better part of half a century learning how to do that well. 
> Idaho's First Congressional District has a Congressman who has learned that 
> lesson with respect to his constituency in his first few months in office, 
> and he'll need to use wisely that education to return to Congress in 2011. 
> Those who recognize the benefits to Idaho and the nation of returning Walt 
> Minnick for a second term would do well to recognize the nature of his 
> constituency, and not complain that it is not as liberal as that of the late, 
> great, US Senator from Massachusetts.
> 
> 
> Ken
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