ID-01, ID-Sen: Headlines We Love

How much did it kill the Wall Street Journal to have to publish this headline: "Idaho is No Longer a Lock for Republicans"?

Savor that for a few moments.

Ok, now on to the article.

SANDPOINT, Idaho -- Bill Sali is defying the political odds by making Idaho's first-district congressional race competitive. That isn't good for Mr. Sali: He is the incumbent.

A 54-year-old Republican from Kuna, 18 miles from Boise, Mr. Sali represents one of the most heavily Republican electorates in the U.S. The district hasn't elected a Democrat to the House since 1992; in the 2004 presidential race, 69% of its votes went to George W. Bush.

But through slow fund raising and a combative reputation, Mr. Sali has become vulnerable to his Democratic challenger, Walt Minnick, a businessman with little political experience.

Actually, Minnick has quite a bit of political experience, but from the outside, as an activist on environmental issues. And this is what having an "experienced" politician in the seat has meant for Idaho, some of the greatest hits folks might remember from his race in 2006:

When Mr. Sali was in the Idaho statehouse, he tried to amend a bill that would extend a law against domestic violence to minors because he wanted it to apply only to heterosexual couples. He supported efforts to make divorces more difficult to obtain. He upset some colleagues by insisting on legislation to require parental consent for minors to get abortions after courts frowned on such laws.

After an abortion debate in 2006, then speaker Bruce Newcomb, a Republican, told a group of reporters in the statehouse hallway that Mr. Sali was "an absolute idiot" after Mr. Sali insisted on the statehouse floor that abortions cause breast cancer. "I've not withdrawn my statement," said Mr. Newcomb, who now teaches at Boise State University...

He objected to putting a Mexican consulate in Boise. (He says it might encourage illegal immigration.) Last year, responding to a Hindu prayer recited in Congress, he said "multiculturalism is the antithesis" of the U.S. motto, E pluribus unum, Latin for "out of many, one."...

Mr. Sali also announced a draft bill to "propose that the force of gravity, by the force of Congress, be reduced by 10%" to combat obesity. Mr. Sali said it was meant to parody a bill to raise the minimum wage, which he felt ran counter to the laws of economics.

Sali has been a core mover in an attempt by an extremely conservative faction of Idaho Republicans (as opposed to the run of the mill very conservative Idaho Republicans) to take over the party, which they succeeded in doing at last month's state convention when they teamed up with Ron Paul supporters to oust the long-serving and relatively moderate party chair.

There's also the spectacle in the Senate race of an Independent candidate teaming up with Dem Larry LaRocco to make the point that Republican Jim Risch doesn't really give a damn about Idaho voters, since he's not running much of a campaign and thus far has refused even to debate. Risch has never been one of the most popular of Idaho figures, even among Republicans, and Rammell's continuing pounding on him (which has been getting serious press across the state) will hurt Risch to some degree.

Given all these factors, there's likely to be a lot of ticket splitting all across the ballot in Idaho this year. A fractured Republican vote is the only hope for Idaho Dems, and it's looking more and more likely that it can happen.