[Vision2020] Now he's a target, Rammell asserts

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (September 2, 2009) Spokesman Review.

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Now he’s a target, hopeful asserts
GOP leaders trying derail race, he says
Betsy Z. Russell / betsyr at spokesman.com

BOISE – A defiant Rex Rammell, still refusing to apologize Tuesday for his
joking remarks about buying hunting tags to shoot President Barack Obama,
accused top Idaho Republican leaders of conspiring to sabotage his run for
governor by condemning his remarks.

“They’re trying to ruin my run to be the governor,” Rammell said at a
press conference across from the state Capitol.

At a Republican barbecue in Twin Falls last week, during a discussion
about wolf hunting tags, a woman in the audience shouted, “Obama tags,”
and Rammell responded, “The Obama tags? We’d buy some of those.”

Widely reported, his remark prompted a storm of criticism from GOP leaders
at home, as well as talk across the nation.

Rammell is from Rexburg, the eastern Idaho town where elementary
schoolchildren riding home on a school bus after last year’s election
chanted, “Assassinate Obama,” prompting statewide consternation and a
public apology from the mayor.

“There’s an underlying animosity to Obama and his policies,” Rammell said.

“I think it comes out in these comments.”

But, he said, “I meant nothing by it. 
 I wasn’t serious, and it didn’t
even start with me. It would’ve been rude for me to condemn the lady for
saying it. This country needs to lighten up.”

Rammell launched his own attacks against top Idaho GOP leaders and
officeholders, accusing Gov. Butch Otter of “betraying the conservative
movement” and calling his appointment of popular GOP state Sen. Brad
Little as the state’s lieutenant governor “unforgivable.”

Rammell criticized Congressman Mike Simpson for “literally selling Idaho
and America down the road” through votes in Congress, and he bashed former
Idaho Gov. Phil Batt, who also is a former state GOP chairman, for “idly
standing by while the federal government was dropping wolves on our big
game herds in 1995.”

He said, “I will apologize for my comments when you apologize for all the
pain and suffering you have caused Idaho.”

Norm Semanko, chairman of the Idaho Republican Party, issued a statement
calling Rammell’s criticisms of state GOP leaders “a ridiculous and
desperate publicity stunt.” He said, “I call upon Rex Rammell to take
responsibility for his actions and apologize for his remarks as Rammell’s
comments do not reflect the views of Idaho Republicans.”

Rammell is a veterinarian and former elk rancher with a grudge against
former Idaho Gov. Jim Risch, now a U.S. senator, for ordering his escaped
farmed elk shot to avoid possible harm to Idaho’s wild elk herds. Risch,
like the rest of Idaho’s congressional delegation, has strongly condemned
Rammell’s remarks about hunting the president.

“I’ll tell you the main reason that I won’t apologize, is because of the
over-the-top comments by the GOP leaders,” Rammell said. “I am not sorry
for saying the comment – I am sorry that some people took it incorrectly.”

Rammell said he doesn’t intend to assassinate the president. “I was just
being polite to that lady,” he said.

Two residents, who decided separately to show up, attended Rammell’s press
conference, but he refused to take any questions from them. “I’m an Idaho
resident who’s a lifelong Republican, who finds Mr. Rammell to be an
embarrassment,” said one, Brad Cozzens, of Eagle.

“I don’t see how anyone can take a joke about licensing the assassination
of the president in any manner except highly offensive,” Cozzens said. “I
don’t like Obama much, and I find it highly offensive.”

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown