Egan

There’s a Trend Here…

Now that Idaho’s statewide elected officials have taken the oath of office for the next four years, we can safely start the speculation about four years from now.

You won’t find many “political observers” in Idaho who wouldn’t make book on the fact that the state’s current Lt. Gov. Brad Little is the prohibitive favorite to be the state’s next chief executive when current Gov. Butch Otter is ready to ride to the sunset.

While Gov. Otter is, appropriately, receiving most of the attention at the moment as the state struggles with another year of bleak revenue forecasts, shrinking budgets and many, many tough decisions, Little grabbed a bit of the political spotlight with a very well attended fundraising breakfast in Boise on January 7. That just happened to be the morning that he, Otter and the rest of the statewide electeds were sworn in for their new terms.

While it is dangerous to assume anything in politics, I’m betting that nearly everyone at the Lt. Governor’s breakfast earlier this month entertains the expectation that the affable Little is the odds-on heir apparent. After all, while taking nothing away from his obvious political talents and demonstrated appeal, Little seems to be part of the now established trend in Idaho of the “Light” Governor having the leg up on moving up.

Four of the last six Idaho governors, including Otter, have served as Lt. Governor before gaining the big job. This trend really began when John Evans succeeded Cecil Andrus in 1977 when Andrus went to Washington to serve as Secretary of the Interior. Before Evans got his chance to move into the big office in the west wing of the Statehouse, you have to go all the way back to Arnold Williams in the late 1940’s to find an Idaho Lt. Governor who become Governor.

Andrus returned to the governorship in 1986 and Phil Batt, who had been Lt. Governor under Evans, followed him. Jim Risch, now in the U.S. Senate, was appointed Lt. Governor and moved up when Dirk Kempthorne went to the Bush cabinet. Then it became Otter’s turn in 2006.

Kempthorne is the outlier in this group. He went from the U.S. Senate to the governorship, the first person in Idaho history to do that. Interestingly, only one Idahoan, three-term GOP Gov. Bob Smylie, moved up from the Attorney Generals’ office.

Prior to Evans moving up in the 1980’s, conventional wisdom held that the surest road to the governorship was through the state legislature. Andrus made that move, as did Don Samuelson before him. In fact, of the 19 men who have served as Idaho’s governor since 1920, 13 of them served in the legislature before becoming governor.

So, you want to be governor of Idaho – this sounds simpler than it is – do your time in the state legislature, as Little has done (the Senate is a generally a better stepping stone than the House) and then get yourself elected to the Number Two job. Nothing is ever pre-determined in politics – nothing – but that path is now pretty well-worn in Idaho.

Idaho GOP More Firmly in Control

If yesterday’s election in Idaho had been a Little League baseball game, it would have been called on account of the ten run rule.

Republicans gained four seats in the state House of Representatives, held all the Constitutional offices and recaptured the Congressional seat held for the last two years by Democrat Walt Minnick.

As elections go, this one was a tidal wave.

The huge Republican majorities in the Idaho Legislature will soon enough face big challenges, including more budget cutting – potentially including education and social services – but the GOP and Gov. Butch Otter can bask, for a while at least, in the sure knowledge that voters were in no mood to punish them for historic cuts in school spending or for presiding over a still struggling economy. Quite the contrary, Idaho Republicans seem more dominate than ever against a dispirited, disorganized opposition.

Otter’s victory was nothing short of astounding. He won just over 59% of the vote against four opponents and held Democrat Keith Allred to the worst showing for a Democratic gubernatorial candidate since 1998. Allred’s eastern Idaho and Magic Valley strategy was a bust. The governor polled nearly exactly the same number of votes in Bonneville County (Idaho Falls) as he did in 2006, but Allred didn’t come close to matching the vote Democrat Jerry Brady managed in the same area four years earlier.

With his LDS faith becoming a focus of attention in October, Allred carried not a single county in heavily Mormon eastern Idaho. He only came close in Bannock County (Pocatello) where Brady beat Otter four years ago. When all was said and done, Allred won only two counties – dependably Democratic Blaine (Sun Valley) and Latah (Moscow) by a narrow margins.

In the Raul Labrador – Minnick race, there will be, I suspect, a good deal of analysis of Minnick’s hard hitting television attacks on the Republican, but the backlash factor – and there was a backlash – can’t entirely account for Labrador’s comfortable ten point win. Minnick, always an uncomfortable Democrat in a very conservative district, won by the wave in 2008 and lost by it, as well. In a year when the GOP was headed to a nearly 60 seat pickup in the U.S. House of Representatives, it was – in perfect hindsight – nearly impossible that one of those seats was not going to be in the First District of Idaho.

Take nothing away from Congressman-elect Labrador. Out spent 5 to 1, he pulled two “upsets” this year – a primary and a general election win, neither of which he was expected to accomplish.

There was nothing anti-incumbent about this election. It was anti-Democrat. Idaho is painted deep RED today and it is likely to stay that way for a long, long time.

A Nice Guy and Pretty Fair Legislator

I long ago began to apply a simple test to any Idaho Democrat who aspired to statewide office. Could the wanabee candidate walk into the VFW Hall in an Idaho rural community and “work the room” effectively or could they campaign at the Bear Lake County Fair and not look out of place? If you could be authentic and comfortable in those kinds of settings, you might have a future in Idaho politics.

Clint Stennett, who died last week at age 54, was nothing if not authentic. He passed with flying colors the VFW – Bear Lake County Fair test. He wore his cowboy boots naturally and under this Stetson was a sharp mind, a good sense of humor and the rare ability, particularly in today’s political world, to find and keep friends across the aisle.

Stennett was dealt a very, very tough hand when he was diagnosed with cancer early in 2008, but by all accounts he bore the personal and health burdens with grace and determination. His partner in life and politics, Michelle, carried on for him in the State Senate and she now seeks the seat he occupied so well for so long.

I was touched, as many will be I suspect, to read this letter from former Idaho House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, a Republican, endorsing Michelle Stennett. It speaks volumes about Mr. Speaker Newcomb, but also the Stennetts. This, my friends, is decency and substance trumping party and partisanship. We could use a good deal more of that.

Clint Stennett’s passing is a big loss for the Idaho Senate, his central Idaho constituents, his friends, family and, of course, for beleaguered Idaho Democrats, but it is also a cold, hard reminder that life is very short and full of only the sureness of uncertainty.

Stennett toyed more than once with those inevitable statewide ambitions that tend to swirl around a person with smarts, style and charisma. Too bad he didn’t take the plunge and sad for all of us that now we won’t know just how good he might have been on a statewide stage. I suspect very good.

It is too true, the good do die young.

Five Vie for Idaho Governor

All the attention two weeks before the November 2nd gubernatorial election in Idaho has been focused on the two major party candidates, incumbent Republican C.L. “Butch” Otter and independent-turned-Democrat Keith Allred.

Not surprisingly, considering the voting habits of Idahoans for the last 16 years, Otter has consistently been ahead in the public polls. But, there is at least one wild card in this political deck this year – three other candidates are on the ballot.

The recent Mason-Dixon poll in the governor’s race, conducted over a month ago, had Otter ahead 45% to Allred’s 29% with 20% undecided. The three minor party candidates were taking a total of 6%. The Rasmussen Poll has consistently had Otter over 50% and Rasmussen’s latest numbers (early September) show the minor candidates getting 7% with a much smaller number of undecideds – 5%.

Historically, an independent or third party candidate for Idaho governor (and there have be a lot of them) has taken about 3% of the total vote. In 1986, an independent candidate named James A. Miller pulled just over 1% of the total vote cast for governor. Miller’s total vote was 4,203. Democrat Cecil D. Andrus won that close 1986 election defeating then-Lt. Governor David Leroy by only 3,635 votes out of more than 387,000 total votes cast. It’s hard to say whether Miller really impacted the outcome or explain why 4,200 Idahoans voted for a guy who never really campaigned, but merely put his name on the ballot. Still, had the lion’s share of Miller’s vote total gone to Leroy, history might have been very different.

Idaho gubernatorial elections in 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006 were not nearly as close as that 1986 race, but each of these later races featured a minor candidate who, in all but one election, got at least 3% of the total.

I think the argument can be made that in the 1994, 2002 and 2006 races, the independent candidates where, generally speaking, positioned to the right of the Republican standard bearer. Anti-tax gadfly Ron Rankin, for example, who as a Republican had been a Kootenai County Commissioner, garnered close to 16,000 votes, or close to 4% of the total, in 1994. While it’s all conjecture, one assumes that most of Rankin’s votes came from among his anti-tax followers around the state and at the expense of the successful GOP candidate Phil Batt who won with just over 51% of the vote.

So, what about 2010?

Of the three minor candidates on the Idaho ballot, only former GOP legislator Jana Kemp has put on much of a campaign. She handled herself well in a recent three-way debate and, while hampered by a lack of money, Kemp has managed to get mentioned in much of the press coverage of the campaign. Under normal circumstances, and given Idaho’s election history, Kemp’s independent effort should almost automatically be good for 3% of the votes. Just by showing up and having her name on the ballot, she should takes that number of votes from the established party contenders. But what of the other two candidates?

Libertarian Ted Dunlap is on the ballot again this year and he pulled 1.6% in a four-way race in 2006, as did Pro-Life candidate Marvin Richardson who has now officially changed his name to Pro-Life. Neither candidate has really mounted a campaign this time around, but the same level of effort four years ago still ensured that together they pulled the nearly automatic 3%.

Do the three minor candidates split the magic three percent this year? Or, do the weird Tea Party dynamics of 2010 mean that there are more “protest votes” up for grabs than is normally the case in Idaho gubernatorial elections? Will more Idahoans be interested in a self-proclaimed Libertarian? Will an articulate, independent woman draw votes from a Republican or a Democrat or both? With the economy dominating the issues, will a single-issue, pro-life candidate register? What if Kemp, Dunlap and Pro-Life collectively pull seven or eight of even more percent? At whose expense will those votes come? And in which parts of the state?

If this gubernatorial election turns out to a close one, it will be interesting to see the election night totals in the handful of counties where Otter ran neck-in-neck with his hard right GOP primary opponent Rex Rammell. Rammell actually beat Otter in the GOP primary in Benewah and Idaho Counties and came within a few hundred votes of the governor in Twin Falls and Cassia Counties. All told, nearly 45% of all Republican voters in the May primary voted for someone other than Butch Otter.

On November 2nd will these folks “come home” to the GOP candidate? They usually do. Will they decide in some numbers simply not to vote, or might they decide, in the spirit of “none of the above” with regard to the major candidates, to cast their lot with one of the three minor candidates on the ballot?

If Kemp, Dunlap and Pro-Life start to collectively accumulate votes above the historic threshold for minor party candidates in Idaho, and if there is a sizable undecided group that breaks in the next week to Allred or to the minor candidates, election night could be long and interesting. Under this scenario, Allred would need every vote Democrat Jerry Brady got against Otter in 2006 and three or four percentage points more to make it interesting. Brady polled just over 44% four years ago.

Twice in modern times – 1966 and 1986 – a winning candidate for governor of Idaho polled less than 50% of the vote. Both elections involved Andrus who won one and lost one. Could it happen again?

The only obvious path to a win for Allred is to keep Otter close to that 45% number in the recent Mason-Dixon survey and hope that the minor candidates do succeed in grabbing substantially more than their historic fair share of the total vote. Call it the less than 50% solution for Allred.

Then again with a major national tidal wave building for the GOP and with a tradition of Republican-leaning voters returning to their political roots on election day, Otter should be in the catbird seat.

We’ll have to wait and read the Tea Party tea leaves on November 3rd and see if the top spot on the Idaho ballot has been impacted by the automatic 3% or maybe even more.

One of the Good Guys

When I became chief of staff to the Governor of Idaho in 1991 it was a case of good news and bad news. It was an honor and responsibility and therefore good news to have that job and title. The bad news was I had to follow Mike Mitchell.

There is a dinner in Lewiston tonight honoring the long-time state legislator, state transportation board member, former candidate for Lt. Governor and chief of staff to Cecil Andrus. Mike Mitchell deserves to take some bows and enjoy the limelight. He has it coming. Those of us lucky enough to have worked with and enjoyed the friendship and company of the “little giant,” know Mitchell simply as a state government expert. The guy has forgotten more about how things work in state government than most legislators ever learn.

During my time covering the Idaho Legislature and later working for Andrus, I saw Mike master the state budget process as a member of the legislature’s most powerful and important committee – Joint Finance and Appropriations. He knew the ins and outs of the correction system, he served with real distinction on the Transportation Board, he knew public school funding and where the higher education system worked and didn’t. Few legislators or executive branch officials worked harder to master the details, that is to understand why things work well or need to be fixed, than Mike Mitchell.

Mitchell is a committed Democrat with friends all over the political spectrum in part, I think, because he was scrupulously fair and honest in his dealings with everyone – even reporters with half-baked notions – and he has a sense of humor.

A favorite story: Mike once placed an expensive cigar on a chair side table near a swimming pool and, while dozing in the sun, the cigar rolled off onto the deck near his chair. Waking from the nap, and anticipating re-lighting the cigar, he inadvertently stepped on the stogie while standing up. There was a very noticeable crunch and the frugal and funny Mitchell immediately quipped, “I sure hope that was my watch…”

It is an easy talking point for politicians to criticize government. We all have our pet peeves. But a guy like Mike Mitchell proves the truth of the old notion that public service, in all of its manifestations, can be, and with good people on the job truly is, a noble calling.

A lot of the hard and essential work Mike Mitchell performed for Idaho for the last several decades won’t ever get recorded in the history books. Too bad. But he can know as he takes a bow in Lewiston tonight that it made a big difference to thousands and thousands of people. Mike Mitchell gets the title he most deserves – he is one of the good guys who has made a real difference in Idaho.

Charlie Russell for Governor

The great western artist Charlie Russell – that’s him in a tent with a paint brush – never, as far as I know, contemplated a political life. Considering that he spent many early years as a cowboy in the tough country of central Montana, he would have been a shoo-in. Russell, a great artist, was by all accounts also a great story teller and he could ride a horse. Russell was a legit cowboy. That might just have been good enough to win high public office.

Russell is remembered today for his iconic paintings of cowboys, Native Americans and, perhaps his masterpiece, Lewis and Clark meeting the Flatheads at Ross’s Hole. The huge painting – 25 by 12 feet – hangs in the Montana State Capitol in Helena. Go see it if you get close.

But back to cowboys and politics. Amid all the position papers, TV commercials and editorial endorsements, a political race always comes down to two people and a choice. That choice can be influenced by a lot of factors. Who do you most agree with? Do you desire to punish someone for something and, as a result, “vote the SOB’s out?” Maybe you make your election choice, as I think many do, on the basis of who seems the most likable, the most easy to identify with.

Running for public office is not an IQ test. The smartest guy seldom wins. Think President Bill Bradley. And, while experience counts, maybe it counts less this year than it has before. Running for public office often comes down to defining your brand. Who is this person? Do I trust him or her? Are they authentic? Can they ride a horse, like say, Charlie Russell?

Speaking of that, the cowboy factor has become a factor in the Idaho gubernatorial campaign. As the Associated Press’s John Miller reported recently, incumbent Butch Otter (a team roper) and challenger Keith Allred (a successful cutting horse competitor) seem at times to be contending for the Cowboy-in-Chief label.

Call me crazy, but the Miller story provides about as much nuance and insight into the two competitors as we’ve seen so far from the reporting of this race that has been dominated by taxes and education spending. Otter favors Stetson, Allred is a Resistol man.

As Miller notes in his story, by the way it was picked up far and wide from the L.A. Times to Salon, the cowboy thing has often worked in western politics. Montana’s Brian Schweitzer did commercials on horse back and often wears a bolo tie when he’s not wearing a plaid shirt. New Mexico’s Bill Richardson fancies cowboy duds. No wingtips for former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, who is working on a comeback. Kitzhaber is a jeans and boots kinda guy.

“They have castrated thousands of calves,” Miller wrote of the Idaho contenders. “They spend free time riding the range on horseback or hunting with shotguns slung over their shoulders. Cowboy hats, oversized belt buckles and scuffed-up boots are standard attire.”

Each of the Idaho candidates has photos on their websites of them totin’ a gun and riding a horse. One picture each in a blue suit.

As Steve Crump pointed out in a Times-News editorial, the cowboy thing is harder for a Democrat to pull of. After all, the ultimate cowboy politician was the Great Communicator, a Republican.

“Like Ronald Reagan, Allred gets it about cowboys. Reagan would never have tried to brand a calf, but he always looked like the Marlboro man whenever he mounted his Arabian gelding El Alamein. And the president forever wore his Stetson askew, tilted to the left, like Alan Ladd in Shane.”

The normally reliable Crump – a good student of Idaho history – did get one thing wrong in his editorial last Sunday. After analyzing the cowboy cred of the two political cow punchers running for governor, he brought another guy who sits a horse pretty well into the analysis, former Gov. Cecil D. Andrus.

“Hell’s bells,” Crump wrote with regard to the Otter-Allred race, “nothing like this dust-up has happened in Idaho since a mule owned by then-Lt. Gov. Otter kicked then-Gov. Cecil Andrus, a Democrat, on a camping trip.”

Say what?

First, that wasn’t a camping trip. Real Idahoans don’t call an elk hunt a camping trip and that mule that did the kicking in Andrus’s elk camp wasn’t owned by Butch, but by Cecil. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen in his 1988 debate with Dan Qualye: I knew Ruthie the mule. Ruthie was, well sort of, a friend of mine and Butch Otter didn’t own Ruthie.

I note this both for the historical record and in order that I can posit what I consider the real test of political viability in Idaho.

Which of the two cowboy candidates actually did what real Idahoans do in the fall – head for the hills, set up the elk camp and hunt the mighty Wapati? I am awaiting an answer on that.

Both these guys – Otter and Allred – look good in a hat on a horse, but can they make camp coffee? Now, there’s a question for their next debate. Charlie Russell shoulda run for something. You gotta know that guy knew his way around an elk camp.