GOP leadership, ideology to be challenged at state convention

Conservatives promise ‘battle for heart and soul’ of party

SANDPOINT — State political conventions tend to be dry, predetermined events. Delegates gather, officers are elected, resolutions are introduced and party platforms are revised gently if at all.

The gathering taking place this week in Sandpoint — where about 500 Idaho Republican Party delegates and officials are expected to converge — could more than make up for any lack of action at past conventions. After years of whooping up on Democrats and not getting much in the way of a fight in return, the state’s GOP members are now slugging it out amongst themselves.

Although there is much in the way of governmental minutiae to be addressed through the weekend, the bigger question is whether the party’s moderates and conservatives can find common ground and present a unified front heading into the national elections or, as one local GOP member fears, the state convention will become “a bloodbath.”

If it’s going to that kind of a donnybrook, conservatives have drawn first blood with this week’s news of an ersatz coalition forming to force the ouster of three-term Idaho Republican Party Chairman Kirk Sullivan. The chairman had been challenged by former state Senate Majority Leader Rod Beck over the issue of closing the republican primary elections out of suspicion that democrats were crossing over to nip the chances of more conservative candidates in the bud.

Angered that Sullivan had not taken action to implement overwhelming party support to close the primaries – and just as miffed that elected GOP officials such as Gov. Butch Otter, U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson and Lt. Gov. Jim Risch publicly supported the chairman’s position – Beck announced he would run for the seat at this week’s convention. Some party members floated the name of Norm Semanko, a city council member from Eagle, Idaho, as a “centrist” compromise to the two extremes, but Semanko seemed content to stay out of the contest.

In an 11th-hour twist, he announced his candidacy at the beginning of this week by calling on Sullivan to step aside and give him the job. When the current chairman declined, Beck withdrew his name on Tuesday and threw his support behind the new player.

To an outsider, it all looks like political wrangling as usual. To delegates and other interested parties inside the GOP tent, however, the issue carries far greater meaning. If Semanko wins the day, this family feud could be the conservatives’ first step in calling what they refer to as the “GOP elite” to heel.

“If that happens, it’s going to be an embarrassing loss for the republican establishment and, in particular, for Gov. Otter,” said Bryan Fischer, who has become an influential voice on conservative issues as executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance.

Through his blog, Fischer has become one of the primary spokespeople for the state’s conservative, grassroots contingent. His group supports more stringent anti-abortion legislation, broad gun-owner rights and strict judicial oversight, while vocally opposing gay rights and the teaching of evolution in schools.

For a growing number of Idaho conservatives, this political checklist has come to represent a test for who is a “real” republican and who is a moderate imposter in GOP clothing.

“They’ve taken it for granted that disgruntled conservatives will stay in the party because we have nowhere else to go,” Fischer said. “Grassroots republicans who really care about conservative principles of governance are dissatisfied with the GOP establishment in general. They see this year’s state convention as a centerpiece in the battle for party control.”

“It’s a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party,” said Cornel Rasor, a convention delegate who was the successful GOP candidate for the District 1 county commissioner race in the May 27 primary elections. “The party has lost its way. We’ve become the party of big business and we’ve abandoned our conservative principles.

“There’s a new influx of people who have felt disenfranchised – rank-and-file folks who are tired of getting run over by big government,” Rasor added. “And the republicans have been aiding and abetting big government for a long time now.”

Having Idaho’s elected GOP officials tagged as agents of big government who lean so far left that “maybe their political sensibilities would be a better fit in the Democratic Party,” to quote Fischer, is a strange turn of events that is playing itself out at other state conventions across the U.S. The common bond, for the most part, is an indefatigable level of support for the unsuccessful presidential bid of Ron Paul.

In Idaho, Paul’s supporters plan to turn out in force at the state convention, continuing a strategy aimed at, if not capturing the Oval Office, at least forcing a more conservative platform on John McCain as he seeks to capture it.

“These people believe there’s a benefit to standing by their candidate all the way to the national convention,” said Dan Young, a member of Bonner County’s GOP Central Committee. “You have to admire that kind of passion. You didn’t see that with Mike Huckabee. You didn’t see that with Mitt Romney.”

Young disagrees with his party’s officials who have either written off the Ron Paul supporters or saddled them with pejorative names like “wingnuts” or “Paulies.”

“They’re expecting 200 Ron Paul supporters at the fairgrounds for this convention – I think it’s short-sighted to discount those supporters,” he said. “They believe that by taking part in the system, they have a vote, they have a say. Anybody can stand outside the hall and scream, but it makes more sense to have a seat at the table.”

What seems to concern Young and others who have been involved in GOP affairs over the years is the preparedness of this new crop of conservative delegates to understand how political machinery actually works. Young, a Realtor who spends hundreds of hours volunteering for local causes as an organizer, DJ and announcer, is also a political gadfly at the state level who has office walls filled with photos of himself eating, socializing and recreating with just about every top elected republican in the state.

The affiliations run so deep that Gov. Otter doffed his cowboy regalia and suited up to perform Young’s wedding ceremony.

While respectful of the newcomers, Young wondered aloud whether their grassroots enthusiasm will trump tried-and-true political connections and help the GOP offset what appears to be a favoring tide for Democrats. In particular, longtime party faithful express concern about the wisdom of forcing an ideological laundry list on Republicans as a whole in an effort to separate conservative wheat from moderate chaff. Or the other way around – Young thinks the GOP has become polarized to the point where both sides want to test the loyalty of its members.

“The far left and the far right in the party want to have a litmus test for who is a ‘true Republican’ and who is not,” he said. “Let me know when doing that can get our party turnout above 15 percent for an election. Once that happens, I’ll be the monkey screaming ‘I’m a believer!’ at the top of my lungs.”

If the Idaho Republican Party veers strongly toward a more conservative platform, Young said, Democrats could start to do something they haven’t done for a long time – win more elections.

“Idaho is one-third Republican, one-third Democrat and one-third Independent,” he listed. “And 85 percent of those voters describe themselves as being moderate. The republican brand is in trouble nationwide. If the GOP becomes more conservative, the democrats have an advantage.

“I think it’s critical that we come out of this convention as a unified party, prepared to roll up our sleeves and get to work,” he added.

State Democrats, on the other hand, are happy to stand by and watch their rivals roll up their sleeves for what could be a prolonged battle on convention floors in Idaho and beyond.

“I’m perfectly content to let the republican’s fight among themselves for as long and as hard as they’d like to,” said R. Keith Roark, chair of the Idaho State Democratic Party. “I would like nothing better than to see that far right-wing element prevail at their state convention. Because, when you have a litmus test for members of your party – when you demand a kind of ‘doctrinal purity’ – you are appealing to fewer and fewer people. The tent gets smaller and the opening to the tent starts to close.”

For conservatives like Bryan Fischer, though, simply being renowned as “the reddest of the red states” in the U.S. is no longer enough. Going forward, entering Republican tent could require subscribing to a roster of “grassroots” principles.

“Just because it’s the most Republican state in the union doesn’t mean it’s the most conservative state in the union,” he said. “It’s time to switch that around and take control of the Republican Party.”