Idaho GOP congressional candidate asks Sali to declare his intentions

Republican 1st District Congress candidate Ken Roberts said he spoke with former U.S. Rep. Bill Sali on Friday and asked Sali to reveal soon whether he will attempt to reclaim his 1st District seat in 2010.

"Bill probably enjoys all the press he's getting, I guess, but it'd be nice if we'd just kind of ignore Bill and move forward," Roberts told the Idaho Statesman during a phone interview Friday while on a North Idaho campaign swing.

Sali was back in the news for a speech he gave to the Kootenai County Reagan Republicans in Coeur d'Alene Thursday night. He urged conservatives to bolster the party's message of free markets and small government.

"I'm not here to make any kind of announcement tonight," began Sali, according to the Coeur d'Alene Press.

Before the speech, Sali told the Press, "I know there are rumors out there. But I didn't start any of them."

Sali did not return phone calls to his home in Kuna or his cell phone Friday.

Roberts, of McCall, is chairman of the GOP caucus in the Idaho House, where he served six years with Sali. Roberts said he was unable to pin Sali down Friday. "I talked to Bill this morning," Roberts said. "He is not announcing that he's running for anything, but that doesn't mean that he's not running for something."

Roberts said Sali "said he would get back to me soon" about whether he will run or not.

Roberts said talk in GOP circles of a Sali revival has "really thrown us for a loop in the last couple days. The rumor mill is running rampant, but I need to move forward."

Roberts said uncertainty about Sali's plans complicate his efforts against Vaughn Ward of Eagle, who is making his first run for office and has a 4-to-1 fund-raising edge. Through Sept. 30, Ward collected about $246,000 and Roberts about $62,000.

Sali reported no contributions in the third quarter. Instead, Sali has loaned the campaign about $6,800 so far this year and reported campaign debt of $112,725 on Sept. 30.

"If he (Sali) enters the race, then there are a certain number of people that would actually support him, and those people would likely support us as well," Roberts said. "It's a bit of a challenge."

Ryan O'Barto, a spokesman for Ward, cited Ward's fund-raising lead. In an e-mail, O'Barto wrote, "We aren't going to speculate on whether Sali is going to enter the race or not ... Our campaign is continuing to create a great deal of excitement."

Despite Sali's statement in Coeur d'Alene that the rumors have been fueled by others, he has contributed. In April, Sali asked supporters to pray for him and his family as he considered a rematch with Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick, who bested Sali by just 4,211 votes out of almost 348,000 cast in 2008.

In the April e-mail to supporters with the subject line, "Our future," Sali wrote that people at two Treasure Valley events where he'd appeared "repeatedly encouraged" him to "make the run for Congress again."

In his Coeur d'Alene speech Thursday, Sali urged the GOP to acknowledge doing a poor job when the party controlled Congress and the White House.

"We didn't handle things well when were in power," Sali said. "We should go out on the steps of the Capitol building and say, 'You know what, we kind of lost track of where we should have been.'"

Sali also said Republicans should unite and work to strengthen the GOP's commitment to conservative values.

"We need to remind them of that," Sali said. "A guy who utters the words 'wealth redistribution' should cause a collective gasp from the public that would have been deafening, I would think. (President Barack Obama's) socialist proposals were clearly presented during the campaign and now particularly since he's been in office. And when the public saw that, he should have never been elected."

Added Sali: "All that talk about bipartisanship that you hear in the media all the time — the public doesn't want us to be bipartisan. They want us to go fight for what we believe in."

Dan Popkey: 377-6438