The defeat for re-election of Idaho Senate President pro tem Chuck Winder in the recent Republican primary was widely described as an upset. And it was, in the sense that it was widely unexpected.
But it also was very much of a piece with the results overall in the Idaho primary. Those include the ouster of 15 legislators by voters of their own party.
If attention has focused a bit on Winder, who has been a prominent figure in Idaho public life for more than three decades, one reason may be that few people seem to know much about the man who prevailed in that race, Josh Keyser.
He didn’t, in the campaign, seem to establish a clear identity. A basic resume is out there, but you get little feel for who the guy is or what he would do in office: His campaign seemed more an effort to say as little as possible and keep it generic and inoffensive. His website describes his vision as: “Protect our Rights. Empower the Family. Strengthen Idaho.” The site doesn’t even have much of anything to say about the veteran legislator he was trying to defeat. Keyser almost comes across as a noncombatant.
Nor did his campaign seem overwhelming: Current finance reports show he raised $28,081 and spent $12,212, in total. Winder raised several times as much.
Cutting to the chase: In political terms, Keyser is a cipher. He didn’t win, really. Winder was beaten, beaten up, mostly by forces - contributing mass money, mailers, videos and more - far outside his district.
Why this happened is a complex story. One immediate trigger concerned some activity, likely obscure to most Idahoans, from inside the Senate Republican caucus. Some months back, some members of his caucus (from the extreme Freedom Caucus wing) started firing shots at other Republican legislators from outside their group. Winder, whose job as pro tem implicitly includes keeping the caucus membership at peace, warned them that was improper behavior for a legislator (as it was), and he exacted punishment through changes in committee assignments. That in turn led to the Idaho Freedom Foundation and related groups aiming fire at Winder, and assembling the artillery from all over the place. This was, of course, just one incident; much more background underlay it.
Around and around it goes. Idaho politics now is not about what you want to do (or even stop doing) or what kind of track record you may have (living in a district for mere weeks or months now seems qualification enough to represent it). What’s relevant: Who’s your enemy? The needs and interests of the state and the people in it barely enter in.
That’s story of the Winder race maps directly or indirectly onto many of the other 14 ousted legislator taxes, and the half-dozen or so close calls.
The 15 Republican legislators defeated this month join 20 defeated two years ago. This is beginning to look like a pattern. (A side note: The one major region in the state where this dynamic seemed not to hold was eastern Idaho, near Idaho Falls. It’d be worth sussing out why.)
And that’s especially true when the voter turnout was notably low, as it was in this election.
Voters in Idaho are better off turning out in larger numbers for primaries than for generals, because most of the real decisions now seem to be made in May rather than November. Barring unexpected developments in the next few months, the path to the next legislative term looks clear: A couple of additional steps toward the extremes, and passage of some measures (school vouchers comes to mind as one possibility) that were barely stopped last time. Idaho education policy in particular is likely to head toward the extreme in the next term.
Why did the Republican voters of Winder’s district choose to kick him to the curb? Was there an actual reason that relates to what the legislature should do? Or was it about power plays and the artificial generation of voter anger?
See you in November.
Most of what I have heard about blockchains has been in the context of cryptocurrency - a topic notable in the last few years for associations with uncertainty and untrustworthiness. (That sound of dismissal isn't entirely warranted, though cases like that of 
He begins with a quick review of the last 30 years or so if the online world and how it developed into the one we know, transitioning from a system dominated by protocols (meaning, generally, e-mail, websites and a few others services) to one dominated by a handful of tech giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon. Those mega-companies, he points out, started out by building networks of users, which became enormous with time, and transitioned from an effort to add people and groups to their networks, to trying to squeeze as much revenue as possible out of them (the "take"). So much money is being pulled in this current extractive phase, he says (and he's clearly right) that much of the commerce and creativity of our world is being diminished, and our society and democracy are being weakened.
After all the primary campaign season drama this year, most of the Oregon results tended toward the familiar in both parties.
As a curmudgeon of the first order, I've found a lot to bitch about over the last few years. "Complaint fodder" has been growing and there's been a seemingly endless supply of division and political chaos.
Political contests in Idaho seem to be getting uglier with each passing year. The closing of the Republican primary in 2011 deserves a great deal of the blame. Extremist candidates found that they could win by brandishing fake culture war issues against traditional Republicans who were interested in solving problems. Stoking fear and outrage produces more votes than pledging to fix roads and schools in a low-turnout closed primary.
Idaho laws are clear about being a mother in this state. So, on this Mother’s Day, let us be clear how we celebrate you.