Always Look Under the Hood

Late last week, several Republican voters received a mailer attacking the Idaho Republican Party and Chairwoman Dorothy Moon. It accused Moon of disenfranchising active duty military by not giving them a way to vote in the upcoming presidential caucus.

This mailer presents itself as a disinterested group of veterans who are concerned about the right to vote. But a closer look reveals a bigger picture.

According to the Secretary of State’s business lookup, Veterans for Idaho Voters was incorporated as an LLC on September 6, 2023, shortly before the caucus rules were finalized. The agent who filed the LLC, as well as one of the three directors, is Theodore “Todd” Achilles, newly-appointed state representative for legislative district 16, a Democrat.

Achilles was one of the original promoters of the blanket primary / ranked choice voting initiative. KMVT in Twin Falls referred to him then as part of the “Idaho Task Force of Veterans for Political Innovation”. Achilles touts his association with Veterans for Idaho Voters on his campaign website.

The mailer called Veterans for Idaho Voters a “cross-partisan and independent group”. However, Achilles is a Democratic legislator and the other two members, George Moses and Gordon Trounson, voted Democrat until 2022.

Achilles himself seems to be having trouble figuring out which Twitter account is his. He recently renamed vets4IDvoters from “Veterans for Idaho Voters” to “Todd Achilles” and appeared to be using it for his campaign. After I and several others tweeted about it, he restored the original name and appears to have set up a new account, Achilles4Idaho. He also has another account, toddachilles, since 2012. So who knows what’s going on.

What is undeniable is that Veterans for Idaho Voters is little more than a sockpuppet for a sitting Democratic lawmaker, which calls into question his interest in the Republican presidential caucus. These mailers are clearly designed to discredit Dorothy Moon and the Idaho Republican Party in the eyes of the voters who will soon be asked to approve an initiative that completely changes the way we conduct our elections and cuts out political parties from the process.

This is a leftist organization, no matter what they call it. Three leftists created an organization to promote open primaries and attack the Idaho GOP, but they put “veterans” in the name as a shield from criticism. They quoted a former Republican legislator to make it seem like the call was coming from inside the house.

The same people who are fighting the closed primary, and who are trying to erase the partisan primary entirely, have a problem with the Republican Party hosting a private caucus. Rather than being honest and up-front with you, they’re trying to hoodwink you into thinking they are merely veterans with good faith concerns about a political process. They know that you and I support the military and support our veterans, so they are using that to their advantage. Personally, I think that’s manipulative and wrong.

Always look under the hood, because all is often not what it seems.

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