What Does it Portend for Idaho Next Week?

The political establishment took it on the chin in yesterday’s primaries in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Arkansas.

Voters said no to long time incumbents and party-endorsed favorites in both parties and forced Sen. Blanche Lincoln into a runoff that she might well lose.

Any lessons for Idaho? Maybe.

The highest profile race next week in Idaho is the GOP battle in the First Congressional district for the chance to take on first-term incumbent Walt Minnick. By any measure, the establishment candidate is Vaughn Ward who hopes to regain his perceived front runner momentum with a last week visit from once and future candidate Sarah Palin. Ward is trying to get up off the canvas after being downed by a truly amazing series of gaffes; the most amazing series I’ve seen in watching 35 years of Idaho politics.

Still, Ward has a long list of establishment endorsements, including Dirk Kempthorne, Phil Batt and Idaho First Lady Lori Otter. He will outspend his primary opponent Raul Labrador in the range of 4-1. National Republicans have tagged him as the best hope against the Blue Dog Minnick. Yet, all that advantage – considering the political background from Tuesday’s primary – may not help Ward all that much this year.

Things to watch in the last week:

1. Can Ward avoid another damaging front page story in the last week? The hits the first time candidate have taken have been fierce, but we’ll see if they have been fatal. They range from his wife’s work for mortgage giant Fannie Mae, while he’s attacking the kind of bank bailouts that saved Fannie Mae. Ward is an Iraq war veteran who has had the Marine Corps chastise him for the way he has presented himself in uniform. He failed to pay taxes on property he owns or properly file a required disclosure form. Spokesman-Review reporter Betsy Russell twice caught his campaign plagiarizing other candidate’s positions on his website. That last offense caused Ward to dismiss his campaign manager. As I said, unprecedented incoming fire. Update: The Statesman’s Dan Popkey has a story today that won’t help Ward’s prmary end game. While touting his Marine credentials, Ward – despite promises to do so – hasn’t released records about this service.
2. Will Ward’s money advantage help him prevail? While the use of a borrowed pickup truck for his first campaign TV spot got Ward some unwelcome attention, the fact remains that he’s been up on TV and Labrador hasn’t. It appears both campaigns, based on the disclosure reports, are running on empty, but many First District voters likely know what they know about the race from seeing a Ward TV spot.
3. Will the sustained negative media coverage of Ward’s mistakes offset his money and endorsements? Or, put another way – have folks been reading the papers? What is often called “earned media” was once considered absolutely critical to a candidate’s ability to to put across his message. But with generally less coverage of politics by the Idaho media, more specialized attention by bloggers and widespread use of social media and the web, whose to say the barrage of negative coverage of Ward has had as much impact on the voting public as it has, for example, on the state’s political elite who have generally watched his campaign with jaws dropped.
4. Does Palin’s visit help? Minnick’s campaign poised the question of why she would be campaigning for Ward when he didn’t vote for the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008, another of his gaffes? Ward managed the McCain campaign in Nevada, but didn’t solve the riddle of getting his hands on an absentee ballot so he could vote. Palin will turn out a crowd, but for whom – Ward or the Wonder from Wasilla?
5. Finally, who shows up to vote next Tuesday? Idaho primaries typically produce the most faithful, most committed voters. Does either campaign have a voter turnout operation? And ultimately will Idaho voters follow the money and big name endorsements, or will they, like in Pennsylvania and Kentucky senate primaries, reject the establishment candidate?

Meanwhile, Minnick continues to pull in his own conservative endorsements and fatten his campaign account.

No predictions here. I’ll just continue to watch with fascination. It’s almost as good as a Red Sox-Yankees game.

Pennsylvania: A Foretaste of What’s to Come in Idaho

One of the most interesting – and toughest – primary elections in the country is nearing an end in Pennsylvania. Party-switcher Arlen Specter, supported by the White House and most heavyweight D’s, is trying to hold off Rep. Joe Sestak and preserve a chance to win his sixth term in the U.S. Senate.

Sestak has put up one of the most effective ads I’ve seen in a while reminding Democratic primary votes in Pennsylvania that Specter was a Republican until two years ago. Sestak, a retired three-star Navy Admiral, has now taken a tiny lead in the race. While Snarlin’ Arlen tries to hold on against charges that he is a conniving opportunist, Sestak is fighting off demands that he release his Navy records against a backdrop that includes the allegation that he was relieved of his command forcing his retirement.

The race shows how tough a primary election can become when candidate are scrapping over the base voters in a party.

The Republican primary races in Idaho’s First District has taken on a similar tone as Vaughn Ward, a Marine Corps reserve major and the favorite of many establishment Republicans, tries to hold off the challenge of very conservative state legislator Raul Labrador. The race could turn in the final days and makes the Tuesday head-on-head debate on Idaho Public Television really important.

Both candidates have roots in the southern part of the huge district making populous Canyon County the battleground and both candidates are clearly trying to out appeal the other with the Tea Party crowd.

Last week, Labrador gained the endorsement and help of long-time conservative activist Dennis Mansfield who claims the momentum in the race is moving Labrador’s direction. Labrador also picked up endorsements in Canyon County. Again, like the Pennsylvania race, the GOP primary battle in the First District reflects the fault lines in the increasingly conservative Republican Party.

Expect some tough shots in the final days. These guys, like Specter and Sestak back east, are battling for the heart and soul of their party and it’s winner take all.

The winner in Idaho goes against first term Democrat Walt Minnick who has had the luxury of not facing a primary challenge allowing him to build his ample war chest for the fall.

Passing the Litmus Test

With apologies to Reed Smoot – the Smoot of the Smoot-Hawley tariff – a once powerful U.S. Senator from Utah, by the weekend an even more powerful U.S. Senator from Utah may join Smoot in the history books.

If the tea leaves are correct, three-term Senator Bob Bennett is close to being history. He’s having trouble passing the litmus test.

The popular Republican governor of Florida is no longer a Republican. The leading candidate for governor in Rhode Island is an independent. Idaho’s lone Democratic office holder is too conservative for some of the puny band that call themselves Idaho Democrats.

What’s going on here? Think of it as the further polarization of American politics. The far right dominates the GOP, the far left the Democratic Party and the broad middle ground is increasingly becoming no candidate land.

What do Republicans like Bennett, Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida and former Senator Lincoln Chafee have in common? Each is apparently too liberal for the GOP in their states. Calling Bennett a liberal is a little like calling Babe Ruth a good singles hitter. The label doesn’t fit the man, yet Bennett may well not survive this weekend’s Republican convention in Utah where the party insiders pick the candidates.

Polls indicate Bennett’s standing is OK with most Utahans, but not the very conservative majority that will attend the convention this weekend. The Salt Lake Tribune recently quoted a delegate, Kristina Talbott, as saying: “We need some new blood. Most of it is anger toward Washington and the Republican Party … because people think our party has been letting us down lately. And a lot of people think Bob Bennett is back there and he’s not stepping up to the plate like he should be.”

Crist has abandoned the Republican Party in Florida and will seek the senate seat there as an independent. Chafee is taking the same path in Rhode Island.

Litmus tests go down the ballot, too. In Idaho’s most populous county, the Republican Central Committee recently took the unprecedented step of endorsing candidates in a contested primary for, of all things, two county commission seats. The challengers to two incumbents were not deemed Republican enough even though current Boise City Council member Vern Bisterfeldt and former GOP commissioner Roger Simmons have been elected in the past as Republicans. Simmons even served in an appointed position in Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s administration. Bisterfeldt and Simmons sin, apparently, was that they have had the independence a time or two to actually support Democrats, thereby failing the litmus test. Oh, and they haven’t shown up for Central Committee meetings.

Some of this reminds me of the storm kicked off in 1986 when my old boss, Cecil Andrus, rolled out a list of “Republicans for Andrus,” including the then-GOP Senator from Washington State Dan Evans.

Andrus’ GOP supporters also included, among others, Harry Magnuson of Wallace, often referred to by the press as a “mining magnate,” wood products operator Dick Bennett of Princeton and former GOP legislator and gubernatorial candidate Larry Jackson of Boise. Some may remember Jackson from his 14-year Major League baseball pitching career with the Cardinals, Cubs and Phillies. He had an impressive career in politics, too, including serving as Chairman of the Idaho House Appropriations Committee and seeking the governorship in 1978.

Andrus won that election only because he was able to appeal to moderate Republicans and independents who, I still believe, appreciated the fact that he, too, was an independent spirit often at odds with his national party. Former Sen. Steve Symms walked into my office in the Statehouse in 1991 and remarked upon seeing the framed newspaper ad of the Republicans for Cecil hanging on the wall, that the “ad elected him governor.”

Republicans certainly smarted from the fact that some of their own had abandoned the party’s candidate in 1986 and the GOP-controlled State Senate subsequently refused to confirm Jackson to the state tax commission or several other of the GOP turncoats to other state boards or commissions.

There is an old saying in politics: Don’t get mad, get even. But, in this case the “getting even” only served to cement the Andrus reputation as a Democrat who could attract Republican support. The Republicans who publicly supported him were denied some jobs, but that hardly hurt the governor who continued to enjoy a lot of Republican support.

In any event, it’s clear that both parties are finding it harder and harder to put up with anything other than political orthodoxy as defined by the extremes on the Republican right and the Democratic left. The broad middle is up for grabs, but few dare venture there – its a political minefield these days.

And we wonder why there is so little bipartisanship.