Mad Voter: Is Idaho shifting purple?

This is what happens when people have one-party rule for too long. Since 1994, Idaho hasn't had a prominent Democratic statewide elected official, no governors, lieutenant governors, attorney generals, secretaries of state. The only statewide office they've held recently is the superintendent of public instruction, from 1999-2006. Among the 70 current House members, there are 19 Democrats (after a gain of six Dems in 2006). In a Senate of 35, there are seven Democrats.

What's more, a study last year found that Idaho's legislature is the oldest in the nation. No, not the one that has been around the longest, the one that has the most elderly membership. There are no term limits in Idaho's legislature, and when you get a seat, it pretty much ends up being for life unless you have grander ambitions. It's a heavily rural and male dominated group, and one that is increasingly out of touch. Idaho has had the nation's fourth fastest growth rate for the past three years, and that growth is in urban areas.

Idaho is quickly outgrowing its leadership and is clamoring for change. How do I know? 21,224 Idahoans turned out to caucus in last week's Dems only event. In 2004, 4,920 caucused. This is possibly the first time in Idaho history that there was a Democratic caucus in every one of Idaho's 44 counties. Idaho history maven, Jim Weatherby, doesn't remember it ever happening before, so that's enough for me.

One caucus-goer summed up the general mood:

"I want to get as far away from Bush as you can get," said David Walgren, a Boise Democrat. "Obama is as far away from Bush as you can get."

Living in as deeply Republican-entrenched state as Idaho is, it's likely that it's not just Democrats who feel that way. Even some Republicans are coming around to the idea that their representation leaves a lot to be desired. A friend e-mailed to tell me about his father who caucused for Obama. He apparently got a lot of strange looks in his caucus, considering he's a fixture in Republican politics in the state, having even been considered for an appointment to a vacated seat in the legislature by former acting Gov. Risch.

Idaho's Republican-dominated state legislature refuses to keep up with the tremendous changes that the state's growth is demanding. For these voters, Barack Obama is about as far away from the Republicans as they can imagine. It also makes you wonder if people are listening to the message Obama is sending. Walgren doesn't hear "we can work together," he just doesn't want any more Republicans.

This brings me to an important question, one raised by Sharon Fisher here on the pages at New West:

"In a state where some people say they’re afraid to put a Democratic bumper sticker on their cars, 6,500 people in Ada County alone were shouting “We are Democrats!”

But this was in a room full of other shouting people. A safe place. How to get them to shout it outside the room as well?

That’s the question that state and county Democratic organizations should be grappling with now. There is no doubt that Obama brought in many new people, and that many of the Idahoans for Obama organizers were not traditional Idaho Democrats. Can the existing party organization leverage these new resources and mobilize these new people to support state and district-level Democrats as well?

In what might be an ominous clue, in Ada County many of the new Obama supporters left after the first ballot, and many more left after the second, leaving just a few people around to be chosen as Obama delegates for the state convention."

Joan McCarter is a contributing editor of DailyKos.com and a researcher of Western politics

That's really the critical question for this state. Bush is likelier to resign in shame before his term is up than Obama would be to win Idaho in a general election, were he the nominee. Idaho hasn't voted for a Democratic president since Johnson in 1964 (it went for Nixon in 1960). But what the people who turned out to caucus for him last Tuesday could do, if they were mobilized to work statewide, is elect Larry LaRocco to the Senate. It could give Idaho's 1st congressional district back to the Democrats. (Idaho, like many mountain west states, is a state of ticket-splitters, much more likely to vote Dem down ticket than at the top.)

There's no doubt that there's an opening for Democrats. Consider the fundraising woes of Bill Sali in the state's 1st Congressional district. Sali, a sitting congressman, raised just $58,775 in the last quarter, having gone into the quarter carrying significant debt.

Then there's the Senate seat Larry Craig is abandoning. Nine Republicans don't like the idea of the GOP leaders once again handpicking their nominee, and are challenging the anointed one, Jim Risch. Despite frequent, and rather desperate sounding e-mail appeals from Risch and fellow Republicans, Risch trails the Democratic candidate, Larry LaRocco in cash on hand.

It's going to take more than a "post-partisan" presidential candidate and grumbling Republicans to turn Idaho purple, but the state is ripe to at least start considering a change, and for Idaho Dems who have been in the wilderness for far too long, that's enough to at least start to hope.

Editor’s note: Joan McCarter's weekly blogs are part of a feature on PoliticsWest called "Diary of a Mad Voter." The group blog, published in partnership with NewWest.Net/Politics, is intended to give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the 2008 election year.

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