Congratulations to Walt Minnick, flipping a seat that has been in Republican hands for the past 14 years in a state that has been as unfriendly to Democrats as any in the past two decades. He's been declared the winner, but, true to form, that isn't enough for Bill Sali:
U.S. Rep. Bill Sali did not concede the race for the 1st Congressional District at the Idaho GOP news conference Wednesday afternoon.
"We're going to wait until things turn out."
Sali said they are still going back through to make sure all of the balloting was done correctly and won't concede until all of the votes are counted.
"Whatever happens, we know that the result will be from the people of Idaho."
I don't know why he's under the impression that the results provided by Idaho's Secretary of State would be from some people other than the people of Idaho, but there you go. It's Bill Sali.
He also wanted to thank all of the people who called to encourage him to "come back and try again," but he says "I don't know that I'm ready for that yet." The entire Idaho Republican party is going to work on convincing him that his retirement from public life is the best thing possible for him and his party. They're also going to be working on finding a decent and sane Republican to take on Minnick in 2010. But, for now, Idaho is half blue. And that's a fine thing to see.