Labrador Campaigning-gate, Ward Press Release-gate, or Much Ado About Nothing-Gate?

Hello Conservatives,

Last week the fireworks were flying in the Idaho 1st Congressional Dist Republican Primary Race. Let’s do a quick recap.

On Thursday Ryan O’Barto, spokesman for the Vaughn Ward Campaign, sent out a press release that read in part, “Labrador Abandons Idaho Families, Misses Key Hearing On Bringing Jobs To Idaho, Raul Labrador must think it is more important to campaign for higher office than to work on behalf of the Idaho taxpayers that elected him…If Raul is not going to fight to bring jobs back to Idaho in the State legislature, then how can we trust him to do it in Congress.”

The press release seemed to suggest Labrador missed the JFAC Committee meeting on the issue of the possible assignment of three F-35 Strike Fighter squadrons to Boise that would effectively double the size of the Idaho Air National Guard. As ICB pointed out on Thursday, Labrador is not on the JFAC Committee but, he did miss an in session day at the State House. ICB asked O’Barto about this and got a response that read in part, “No he isn’t on that committee, but he missed a day of the legislature today in which this hearing was taking place. If he was interested in bringing jobs to Idaho, wouldn’t you think he would have been there?…He needs to either focus on working on behalf of the people of Idaho or resign his seat in the State legislature....Why doesn’t he pay back the taxpayers for missing today?”

So I asked the questions directly to Labrador on the phone Thursday night.

Should you resign the seat now to concentrate on your campaign?

Should you agree not to be paid for session days you are absent?



To give him credit, I caught him as he was going into an event so he said he would have someone from his campaign contact me, which I got very promptly. I asked for a response and Labrador’s spokesman told me that they were not going to respond to each specific item in the flawed Ward release.



So, is this trivial politicking or does it have any substance? Well, it made for good radio today on KBOI with Nate Shelman where both Ward and Labrador phoned in.

First, ICB thinks what started out to be a non-issue has become a ‘gate’ of sorts. I’m just not sure what the ‘gate’ is. Labrador Campaigning-gate, Ward Press Release-gate, or Much Ado About Nothing-Gate? Perhaps the ‘gate’ is how each campaign handled the first ‘non-gate’.

In ICB’s opinion O’Barto started this fight and it not only fell flat but might have hurt Ward because of its flaws. Ward should have addressed this and just moved on. Instead, not until today, when pressed by Shelman on KBOI, about if he stands by his spokesman’s call for Labrador to resign his seat he said he would leave that decision up to Labrador. He did not address the seemingly overzealousness of his spokesman.

As for Labrador, who was put on the spot by one of his constituents for having time to campaign but not enough time to respond to an email he sent Labrador 3 weeks ago, Raul said he had no problem not getting paid for session days missed and that he has inquired about it in the past. He also said rules prevent him from running for two seats at the same time. Issues solved. I wonder why he didn’t just say that last Thursday night when I asked him?

My friends, this race is very interesting to me, as one who has not yet endorsed either candidate. I am watching and wondering when we will have this aggressive back and forth between these very competent candidates on the real issues because I feel the last week has been “Much Ado About Nothing-Gate”.

ICB