 Steve Berch |
 Reed DeMordaunt |
Legislative District 14 in Idaho is one of those places in the Northwest familiar to both both parties: An easy get for one party, seemingly impossible for the other. Think of central Portland or Seattle for Republicans; so District 14, which takes in much of northwest Ada County, has been for Idaho Democrats.
There's just very little meaningful data to suggest that this suburban area, which includes Eagle and suburbs near and northwest of Boise, will give Republicans anything less than a big landslide. You might ordinarily figure that a Republican candidate in a general election, any Republican, will get two-thirds of the vote; less would be mediocre.
One of the legislative seats here, the one held by Republican Raul Labrador - now running for Congress - is open, and a busy primary was held. The nominee, Reed DeMordaunt, might be considered the representative-in-waiting.
What's interesting here is DeMordaunt actually has serious opposition, in what might be the strongest Democratic legislative campaign in Idaho this year. Steve Berch, a consultant formerly of Hewlett-Packard, is running a well-worked-out contest in what looks like an impossible situation. How well he does, however well that is, is going to be studied closely. And should be.
The larger point is this: If Idaho Democrats are ever going to become even competitive with Republicans, one of the prerequisites will be winning in the Boise-area suburbs; the population center around Boise is not far from half of the state's overall population, and if it turned Democratic the parties could be competitive in the state.
There's ample Northwest precedent for this, of course. The switch of the Seattle and Portland suburbs from generally Republican to generally Democrats transformed Washington and Oregon politics. (Of course, we'll see what happens this year.) Could it happen in Idaho too?
District 14 may be one of the tougher districts in the Boise area for Democrats to crack; there's little apparent constituency for them. On the other hand, Democrat Walt Minnick won District 14, narrowly, in 2008. Does that indicate some willingness to look at a Democrat running a serious campaign?
Berch has been running hard, and outlined his campaign over coffee in Boise last week. He has been campaigning full time since May, focusing on carefully targeted door to door campaigning, and on conversing at some length with the people he sees. He's not folksy; the technocrat in him shows through. But so does his seriousness and willingness to study what he's doing. His decades of living in the district, and years of work on neighborhood projects, and connections at HP (its main Idaho plant is in the district), could help. This may be the most serious, well-planned and thoroughly-executed campaign by a Democrat this district has ever seen. (more…)