Vaughn Ward, speaking Friday on the Nate Shelman Show on AM 670 KBOI, a radio station based in Boise, said that Ryan O’Barto, his former campaign manager, was not fired. Ward told Shelman that O’Barto tendered his resignation to the campaign Friday, saying that he didn’t want to be a distraction to the campaign. O’Barto has taken heat in the Idaho press lately for re-releasing a press statement, originally used last September, with a new date stamp. O’Barto later said that a new computer was responsible for the error.
O’Barto also received the blame for a mishap involving Ward’s website in which it was found that Ward’s policy positions were taken, with minimal changes, from the websites of other Republican congressmen.
Ward said that he accepted O’Barto’s resignation with reluctance. It has been confirmed that Mike Tracy, a local media consultant and former aide to Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, will step in to serve as Ward’s new communication director. Al Henderson, who managed Craig’s Senate run in 1990, will step in as Ward’s new campaign manager.
Ward faces off with state Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Eagle, on May 25 in the Republican primary election. Whoever wins that contest will face Democratic incumbent Walt Minnick in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District in November’s general election.
[...] Update: Ward, speaking on a Boise radio station Friday afternoon, said O’Barto was not fired; read about it here. [...]
[...] O’Barto resigned from the Ward campaign Friday, saying that he didn’t want to be a distraction to his candidate’s campaign efforts. Rumors earlier in the day circulated that Ward fired O’Barto, but Ward quashed those notions during a radio appearance on a Boise-based AM talk radio show late Friday afternoon. Ward told Nate Shelman, of AM 670 KBOI, that he accepted O’Barto’s resignation reluctantly. He also confirmed that he is bringing in local media guru Mike Tracy to serve as his campaign spokesman and Al Henderson, who managed former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig’s 1990 run for the U.S. Senate, to work as his new campaign manager. Henderson had been serving as the financial director for the Ward campaign. [...]