Local Republicans should denounce ad

I am writing to endorse the sentiments expressed in the letter published in the Western News on Tuesday, Oct. 30, by Laurie Boehler Walsh, responding to the “divisive” Republican ad about “Republicans vs. Others.” The ad demonizes any of us who are not “true Republicans” and accuses us of “corruption, waste and criminality,” among other evils.

Ms. Boehler Walsh states that she recently relocated here. I have lived and worked in this community since 1975, when I first came here as a law student and then began practicing law with Lloyd Evans. I later was the law partner of former District Judge Robert Keller. Both of those men were active in local community organizations and politics and I know that neither would have stooped to the new lows shown in this ad.

Lincoln County has had a rich tradition of bipartisan activity. One of the most memorable was our fight to prevent the “reregulation dam” from destroying our beloved Kootenai River, which is now a major tourism attraction and sanctuary for wildlife. Republicans and Democrats worked together in a federal suit which stopped that ill-conceived project.

I grew up in Butte, long a bastion of Democratic politics, in a Republican household, so I know about healthy debates and differences. We are friends, relatives and neighbors and I frankly cannot believe that local people had anything to do with the writing of this ad, in which neighbors accuse “others” of atrocities.

I call on local Republicans to denounce the ad’s message.

—Ann German,

Libby