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Astute Wonkette readers may recall that earlier this year, state Rep. Heather Scott (R), one of the Gem State’s crazier Republican legislators — and we assure you, there’s a lot of competition for the title — introduced a bill that would strengthen Idaho’s already bizarre law prohibiting cannibalism. Scott, a very credulous person, was scared by internet rumors and a prank video into fretting that there’s a significant problem with people serving other people people, so she wanted to make sure that it’s a crime not just to eat human flesh oneself, but also to serve it to others without their knowledge.
Scott’s bizarre worries made the “weird news” circuit and everyone laughed at her, as it should be. But as Politico notes in a pretty cool report, the wingnuttery also inspired another Idahoan, Democrat Loree Peery, to run against Scott, who’s held office since 2014, and has been on the Idaho Legislative Dingbat List since 2017, when fellow Republicans said they’d seen her removing part of the fire-alarm system in her office two years earlier, because she thought it might be a surveillance device.
But that’s not the point, really. The point is that Ms. Peery decided the cannibalism thing was just too much, so she filed papers to run against Scott, who she correctly says is not a serious lawmaker. Peery, a retired nurse, knows she’s an underdog against the incumbent but is running anyway, because “You can’t win if you don’t run,” and because
“It forces the Republicans to work, it forces [Scott] to get out there and talk to people so they can see what she’s about. It forces Republicans to spend more resources on the races.”
And that’s the whole idea for the new leadership of the Idaho Democratic Party, which has recruited a record number of candidates this year, running a Democrat in every last legislative district for the first time in 30 years.
As Politico notes, Democrats see an opportunity in the current wave of GOP craziness, which has resulted in the extreme abortion ban that was just appealed in the Supreme Court, an anti-trans law that’s almost certainly headed there too, and of course the Lege’s multiple attempts to gut public libraries (and maybe jail librarians, at least in some variations) for stocking books people want to read but shouldn’t.
But all that culture warring has added to the fractures in the state GOP, which has always been divided between the culture war crazies like Scott and the boring conservative Mormon business-n-agriculture Republicans like Gov. Brad Little (that’s our version of a two-party system). What’s more, the crazier the crazies get, the more normies look askance at state government.
So what the hell. With only 18 seats in the state’s 105-seat legislature, Idaho Dems know they aren’t going to break out of minority status any time soon, so they have set a more modest goal: Eliminate the Republican supermajority in the next 10 years, and go from there.
And you won’t even achieve that without a bench of candidates, so as Politico ‘splains,
Democrats’ “compete everywhere” strategy means building campaigns from the bottom up in deeply conservative districts like Scott’s, an area where Trump won by more than 70 percent in 2020. Some of these precincts did not even have a Democratic chair until last year.
Idaho Dems also hope that the backlash to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, with the prospect of more extreme Republican actions to follow, gives them some room to take advantage of disenchantment with the crazies. People are actually starting to notice that as many as 50 obstetricians have thrown in the towel in response to the state’s extreme anti-abortion law, with the result that those remaining are mostly in the more popular counties, while “only half of the state’s 44 counties have access to an obstetrician.” That’s not lost on Democrats:
“It’s really been a hair on fire situation, even for people who are not historically Democrats,” said state House Rep. Ilana Rubel, the Democratic minority leader. “[Republicans] have really overshot the mark in a big way and we’ve seen in other states when Republican supermajorities do this, they can lose.”
So hooray, Idaho Democrats, and we sure hope Dems in other red states are paying attention: If you want to change things, you won’t get anywhere if you don’t first get on the ballot at every level. Especially when there are so many idiots who need a good challenger.
And no matter how tempting it might be, don’t joke about serving Alferd Packer chili at your fundraisers. The crazies will turn it around on you, because that’s how they do.
OPEN THREAD!
[Politico]
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