It’s a beautiful, sunny spring day in Boise, and with no Republican event scheduled to celebrate last night’s election results, the other parties are busy making hay of them.

Idaho Democrats gathered on the Statehouse steps to celebrate their primary election results, and Democratic nominee for governor Jerry Brady took the opportunity to attack his opponent, Congressman Butch Otter, for contributing to high gas prices because he has “voted consistently with big oil since he got there.” Brady also put out a press release stating, “After raising almost ten times more than his primary opponents, Otter received less than 70% of the vote in last night’s primary. It’s a clear sign of weakness.” Brady took 83 percent of the vote against his primary challenger.

Democratic candidate for state controller Jackie Groves Twilegar got applause for this comment: “We will make history in November, when the first woman is elected state controller.” She’s right – because the nominees from both parties, the only two candidates running, are women. Donna Jones beat longtime CPA Royce Chigbrow for the Republican nomination, so Jones and Twilegar will face off in November.

State Democratic Chairman Richard Stallings promised a clean, issue-oriented campaign from the Democrats, unlike the Republican primary for Congress, which Stallings called “the food fight they called a campaign.”

Meanwhile, from a third party, Andy Hedden-Nicely, who’s running for the 1st District congressional seat on the United/Natural Law Party ticket, had this spin on Bill Sali’s victory in the Republican primary: “Less than 25% of the vote? Can Bill Sali really celebrate that? Depending on the final figures, it appears that nearly 76% of Republicans who voted in the GOP’s bitter primary in the First Congressional District did NOT want Sali to be the party’s representative in November.”

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