Ridenbaugh Press/Northwest

Jana Kemp

On Betsy Russell’s (Spokesman-Review) blog, new independent gubernatorial candidate Jana Kemp deals with Issue 1 in this way: “Because the Kentucky Derby winner this year was a 50-1 long shot. Because we have the Boise State Broncos who weren’t supposed to win the Fiesta Bowl. Because we have a president of the United States who wasn’t supposed to make it through the primary process. Long shots can win.”

They do, but they’re long shots precisely because it so rarely happens. (The presidential item, it should be noted, wasn’t an especially long shot.) But her point is an efficient enough disposal of the difficulty of trying to run as she is, outside a party structure and presumably shoulder to shoulder with Pro-Life (formerly Marvin Richardson), and competing from the outside in somewhat the sense that Rex Rammell is.

There’s an important difference, though, which makes Kemp’s run more interesting.

Most of these other outsider candidacies have been coming from the right of the mainstream Idaho Republican Party – pretty well to the right, period. Kemp is a different story, because in her one term in the House she was generally considered a moderate among the House Republicans. You get a sense of this from her web page issues section, and statements such as, “my leadership style is to listen, explore, research, analyze, synthesize, and to draw on the people who best know how to solve problems, make innovations, and get done the work that needs to be done.” When she lost her House seat in 2006 to Democrat Les Bock, she was part of an unusual (for Idaho) trend of relatively moderate Boise Republicans swept out by Democrats (which in turn helped nudge the House Republican caucus a bit to the right).

Unusually, she can legitimately argue that she’s positioned more or less between the two main parties, which isn’t where many independents have especially tried to be in recent years in Idaho. That would seem to position her too as a magnet for those Republicans who have seen their party move further to the right than they are.

Kemp appears not to be especially explicit about all that, at least for now. But if she start developing a substantial campaigning presence over the next year-plus, it will be an inevitable component of what she’s doing, and maybe an uncomfortable reminder for some Republican candidates.

Hat tip to the Twin Falls Times News blog Capitol Confidential, which first reported the candidacy.