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Posts published in “Day: March 17, 2006”

Idaho’s score card

Filing time is over, and it's time for a quick overview of where parties and candidates stand as campaign season formally kicks in.

You can check the full and final candidate list as well - it's just been posted - and various points will be worth dwelling upon. For now, consider these . . .

Vacancies. Before reviewing the Idaho vacancy rate, let's place it in context. Ten days ago candidate filing ended in Oregon; there, with 75 legislative seats up for election, Republicans failed to fill nine ballot spots (a miss rate of 12%) and Democrats failed to fill four (5.3%). Now, in Idaho? Of 105 legislative seats up for election, Republicans filed to fill 11 (10.5%) while Democrats failed to fill 36 (34.3%). (Three of the seats unchallenged by Democrats are actually open seats, including those of retiring Speaker Bruce Newcomb and congressional candidate Bill Sali). The blank rate is much higher in Idaho, and we can easily see to whose advantage.

Having said that, the surprise here isn't the number of vacancies allowed by the Democrats - 36 isn't especially unusual, and better than in some years - but rather those allowed by the Republicans. After all, there are only 20 Democrats in the whole legislature, and more than half of them have been given a pass.

At least for now. Slots can still be filled at the primary election through write-in. But ordinarily, only a few slots per cycle are filled that way. Mostly, what we see now is what we get.

Among major and statewide offices, just one - secretary of state - lacks a major-party contest. Even if some others are placeholders, that's a better record than usual. (more…)

“She called me a bitch”

Lest you forget, there's still an Idaho legislative session going on. Brandi Swindell, pro-life activist and former Boise city council candidate, has not forgotten, nor has she forgotten that the current favorite congressional candidate of the pro-life community, Bill Sali, still has a piece of pro-life legislation floating around the House. So she held a press conference, attended by reporters on the steps of the statehouse to announce that she was going to schedule a meeting to, uh, presuambly, get that bill moving. Of course reporters showed up, an announcement of intent to schedule a meeting being such important news.

All of which did in fact lead to a meeting, of Swindell with House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, to which the speaker didn't admit reporters but after which he probably wished he had. The usually amiable speaker reported to the Lewiston Morning Tribune: "She called me a bitch. I didn't know the speaker of the House could be a bitch."

Swindell's version of events at the meeting is at odds with Newcomb's. (The story is in the March 17 Tribune; no free link available.) The speaker is undoubtedly right, though, that Swindell was after not a meeting or a negotiation or an effort at compromise, but rather a confrontation and a media event. The intended beneficiary, presumably (whether Swindell acknowledges it or not) would be Sali - the narrative being that his efforts to champion pro-life legislation are being squashed again by those squishies in the legislative leadership. (Never mind that similar legislation has been repeatedly thrown out by courts, and that Sali hasn't yet come up with a version of it that even he's willing to stand by.)

That's how politics is played these days - as the news media, which will tomorrow be blasted once again by conservatives as "liberal," gets used like their child's plaything once again. Or, in the language of pro-life meetings these days, like their bitch.

Risch takes a pass

The frustration must be immense. Jim Risch will (very likely) become governor of Idaho in a few weeks, replacing Interior Secretary-designate Dirk Kempthorne, only to relinquish the job at the end of the year. A job for which, not so long ago, he was set to run this year. And then go back to being the light-gov, the fill-in, the understudy.

Jim RischThis is the last day of candidate filing in Idaho (and we'll file on that later today too), and Risch still had barely enough time to have withdrawn his candidacy for a second term as lieutenant governor and filed for governor. His announcement this morning that he will not do that, but seek re-election instead, may end some overnight suspense in Boise, but in spite of it all doesn't come as a surprise.

Risch is a pragmatic guy, no tilter at windmills. By saying, as he did in November, that he would not run for governor, he effectively released all his supporters to run over to the camp of C.L. "Butch" Otter, whose campaign juggernaut is extremely well funded and organized at this point. With two months left until the primary election, the odds against success had to be overwhelming, even with the incumbency advantage. Risch, one of the smarter political analysts in the state, must understand that as well as anyone.

There is another factor, though, that follows from a thread running through Risch's many years in and around public office: His respect for institutions. His regard for the institution of the state Senate, as an institution, surfaced often in his years of debate, observation and voting there. Risch has been one of the leading voices in support of preserving the old Ada County courthouse - again, a regard for tradition and institution. Many of Risch's predecessors as lieutenant governor have spoken, at some point or another, of abolishing the office; Risch (to our knowledge) never has, but does seem to have some regard for the office as such. Looking across the hallway to the governor's office, the same thought processes probably carry through: That the office itself is something worthy of treating with high respect, and not casually.

In explaining his decision for a re-elect campaign, Risch was quoted as saying this morning, "The decision comes down to this: Do I want to engage in a difficult campaign or do I want to discharge the duties of governor? I've chosen the latter." Risch's personal history suggests that framing had to do with more than lofty rhetoric, and it may speak well of his prospects as he prepares for his new, albeit temporary, job.