Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Tom Sullivan says he is in the race for the long haul.
"I'm running this race to actually win," Sullivan said in an interview. "I might win this time, but if not, I'll try again."
The candidate "barnstormed" Blaine County on Wednesday with a day of events and receptions designed to allow mingling with voters and local Democrats, and stopped to discuss various campaign issues with the Mountain Express.
Sullivan is running against incumbent Republican Mike Crapo in the November election. He won the Democratic primary election handily in May, gaining 75 percent of the vote to beat Brooklyn resident William Bryk (who has never been to Idaho).
Crapo has been in the U.S. Senate since 1999 and served in the U.S. House of Representatives for three terms, preceded by eight years in the Idaho Senate.
But Sullivan said Crapo's well-established incumbency may prove to be a weak spot.
"Mike Crapo has lost touch," he said, claiming the senator's 18 years in Congress has caused him to drift away from the interests of Idaho voters and toward those of Wall Street.
Though Sullivan has articulated his positions on gun control, religion and health care on his website, www.tomsullivanforsenate.com, he continually turned the conversation toward job creation and the economy.
"We need to put Americans to work," he said. "People value their dignity, and they'd rather be working."
<
Sullivan said the solution for job creation is to focus on infrastructure building.
His main plan involves the development of programs that seem to borrow from the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, involving road and railway construction and repair, as well as construction of wind turbines and other alternative energy-related structures that would reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.
Jim Hansen, executive director of the Idaho Democratic Party, said Sullivan's experience as a small-business owner makes him well-suited for the Senate.
"Tom Sullivan knows what it's like to earn a living, start a business, take risks," Hansen said.
Even though Sullivan owes the state and federal government $95,000 in unpaid 2009 taxes, neither he nor Hansen see that having any impact on the candidate's chance of success.
"2008 was a difficult year," Sullivan said. "I got hit, I got hit hard ...[but] I am paying my bill."
Sullivan disclosed in June that he owed the IRS between $470,000 and $525,000 and the Idaho Tax Commission between $215,000 and $220,000.
Since then, Sullivan said, he has reduced his debt significantly. Voters should be more concerned about the decisions Crapo makes on the Senate Finance Committee than his own unpaid taxes, he said.
"Mike Crapo made decisions that ran this country into $7 trillion worth of debt," Sullivan said. "That is not a fiscal conservative."
Sullivan said his own "progressive fiscal conservatism" will help lure moderate and independent voters, but his overarching strategy for winning is even simpler.
"How do I plan to beat him?" Sullivan said. "A lot of hard work and a lot of telling the truth."
Katherine Wutz: kwutz@mtexpress.com
Who is Tom Sullivan?
Tom Sullivan is the Democratic candidate for Idaho's U.S. Senate seat held by two-term Republican Mike Crapo. Sullivan is originally from Teton Valley, Idaho, and is both the owner of a credit card processing firm and a partner in a small weekly paper called the Valley Citizen, based in Driggs. Sullivan, a lifelong Catholic, is married and has two children, ages 13 and 10. He's expressed support for gun ownership, relisting of wolves under the Endangered Species Act and protecting wilderness without unduly restricting use. He has also said he supports the Obama administration's healthcare plan, calling it the single greatest deficit-reduction bill since 1993.
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Tom Sullivan, right, discusses issues with voter Jeff Ballou during a reception Wednesday at the Ski & Heritage Museum in Ketchum. The reception was one of three stops Sullivan made in Blaine County to meet with voters and drum up support for his campaign. Photo by David N. Seelig
