I just posted this to the Political State Report. If you haven't seen this blog yet, check it out.
It was suggested to me that it might be interesting to try and show what really drives Idaho politics. News of a political nature is really limited in non-election years, so I thought I would just put this out as an opinion piece of sorts. I hope I can give you a sense of Idaho from the viewpoint of an East Coast Liberal.
I moved to Idaho about 3.5 years ago from Santa Fe. Before that I lived in Berkeley and I don't recommend this exact series of moves. A brief cooling off period, perhaps in Denver or Salt Lake City, would have eased the transition to Southeast Idaho.
I didn't really expect when I moved to Idaho that it would be so dominated by the Republican party and by conservatives in particular. It is no exaggeration to say that there is no place in the Idaho Republican party for Lincoln Chaffee. In fact, he might very well be considered a librul, as Molly Ivins would say it. Ok, that is a little unfair. People here in Idaho don't sound like Texans when they say the word, but the disdain is the same.
Anyway, the state, at least the southern part, is dominated by agricultural concerns. Farming is huge here. Potatoes, cattle, wheat, barley, if it requires a lot of space or responds well to irrigation, we grow it here. Is it a problem? Well, farmers and ranchers are overrepresented in the legislature and they get some tax breaks, but I am sure it is no different than in a lot of midwestern states. The northern part of the state is far less agricultural and far more dominated by industries like logging or mining. I will return to this point a bit later.
Idaho really is a bit of a sandbox for conservatives. Republicans dominate the bi-cameral legislature and we pretty much get the total package. Tax cuts, right-to-work, low welfare payments, you name a conservative talking point of the last 10 years and it has probably either passed the legislature or been seriously considered.
But this isn't really shocking. Once you understand how much Republicans dominate the landscape here, the rest just follows. What didn't occur to me before I moved here was the massive importance of federal lands and resource management issues. This may be the only Republican state where Bill Clinton is hated as much for his roadless policy as for his moral lapses. I am only now starting to see the depth and breadth of this and it is something I may never come to fully understand. I hope never to come to the position where the federal government is an evil entity only here to steal my money, my water, and my livelihood in resource development.
I haven't said much about Democrats, and there isn't much to say. Support for Democrats is really centered in only four or five places in the state and there is a long tough road ahead if Democrats want to become relevant again.
I hope I have said something you might not have known about Idaho. We may never be relevant in presidential politics, but we do have something to contribute. I think any Democratic candidate who is palatable to a significant number of Idaho voters is likely to do well anywhere. Ok, maybe not Berkeley. Who is that candidate for 2004? Probably none of the front-runners. They are all too East Coast (Lieberman, Kerry, Dean) or too much like Bill Clinton (Edwards). Wesley Clark or Bob Graham might do alright here. I am still not sure. I will try to keep everyone updated on how they are coming across here. I don't think I need to say that the President is still massively popular among the majority of residents.
