Sen. Jim Risch thinks "the job is easy."
Well … who wouldn’t like a high-paying job that gave you lots of clout and respect and perks without making you work for them?
That’s the job U.S. Sen. Risch has back in Washington, D.C..
Hard to believe? Well, Risch is the one who said it:
“You know, I really enjoy this job. I really like this job,” Risch said last week, saying it’s a breeze compared to the seven months he served as governor in 2006. “Governor will wear you down. You can’t do that job permanently. This you can do ad infinitum.”
Home for a Senate recess that included a visit with the Statesman editorial board, Risch was remarkably passive about the failure of Congress to deal with the country’s problems, starting with a $16 trillion debt.
“I can’t explain to you how dysfunctional it is back there,” Risch said, predicting it will take a catastrophe for the national legislature to tackle its responsibilities.”
U.S. Senate candidate Nels Mitchell used the column for an ad that ran this week in the Idaho Statesman. The columnist, Dan Popkey, who wrote the piece, confirmed that it’s accurate:
Democratic Nels Mitchell is using a column I wrote in May 2013 to make the case that Republican Sen. Jim Risch “sees the U.S. Senate as a place to relax, a perch from which to watch dysfunction and gridlock.”
“Idaho can’t afford a senator who thinks the job is easy,” Mitchell says in the ad, which cost $1,200. “Our country needs a working senate, and Idaho needs a working senator. Unlike Jim Risch, I won’t simply be a senator from Idaho; I will be a senator for Idaho.”
Mitchell’s ad reproduces excerpts from my May 6, 2013 column. When Mitchell announced for the job in January, he mentioned the article to me as evidence of Risch’s vulnerability despite the GOP’s strength.
Risch spoke volubly during a meeting with the Statesman editorial board about how much he loves the Washington social scene, his work on the Foreign Relations Committee and the collegiality of the Senate despite the institution’s “dysfunction.” He also said the job was a breeze compared to his seven-month stint as governor in 2006.
Mitchell’s campaign manager, Betty Richardson, said Tuesday that Risch’s comments have “staying power….So, we think more people should see it.”
Mitchell wrote:
Dear Idaho Voter,
I am running for the United States Senate to fulfill a childhood dream of serving others and to further the interests of fairness and justice for all Idahoans, indeed for all Americans.
When I look at the United States Senate today, I see a body that has become dysfunctional. It is bogged down in gridlock, held hostage to extremist views, and peopled with career politicians who have abandoned the ideal of public service in favor of protecting the perks to which they believe they are entitled.
That kind of broken system is not what the Founding Fathers envisioned.
Instead, they contemplated a Senate in which citizen legislators would step forward for a limited time in order to represent their states and serve the American people, before returning to their private lives. In so doing, they would make way for new leaders.
Surely, they did not conceive of career politicians – the kind of politician which Jim Risch epitomizes.
And our Founding Fathers did not imagine a Congress paralyzed by gridlock and partisan gamesmanship. Rather, they anticipated a true marketplace of ideas, one in which competing views would be deliberated in light of the very purpose of our Constitution:
... read more at http://www.nelsmitchellforidaho.com/...
Graphics used with permission.