Local election mirrors statewide trends

SANDPOINT — With less than a week to go until Election Day, party officials at both the state and local levels say that 2014 has had more than its share of surprises for Republicans and Democrats alike.

For one thing, Bonner County Democratic candidates — historically prone to more or less pack up their tents after the primaries — are campaigning hard right to the finish line. Different, too, are the traditionally red or blue lawns around town, many of which sport signs that feature a hybrid of cross-party affiliations.

Republicans, meanwhile, have had their own, internal dust-up in what Idaho Republican Party executive director Dave Johnston called “a larger than normal family feud.”

Democrats, for their part, sense that disaffection within the GOP has created a breach in the Gem State’s formerly unassailable party unity — one they say sets the stage for a break in the ranks that could tip the scales their way through crossover votes.

The View from Boise

“Bonner County is a microcosm of what’s going on statewide,” Johnston said, referring to hot-button issues as well as the overall political environment.

The schism within his party’s membership, he believes, points more to cohesion than chaos.

“The squabbles and infighting are a sign of strength,” said Johnston. “We had a big ‘family fight’ and I’m sure the Democrats are motivated by that and trying to take advantage of it.”

From his office at the Idaho Democratic Party headquarters, communications director Dean Ferguson agreed that there are strong similarities between the way the election is shaping up North Idaho and how the end game looks across the rest of the state.

“The same dynamic you see up north — the Constitutionalists running against the more establishment Republicans — is taking place all over Idaho,” he said. “And it’s a risk for the Republican Party.”

The Local Level

“It all goes back to the primaries,” said Gil Beyer, Legislative Dist. 1 Democratic chair. “Everything is determined in the primary. Most folks sit on their hands and don’t vote, because they want to see who comes out of the pack.

“But when George Eskridge lost and Shawn Keough got the scare of her life, the candidates the GOP fielded actually scared the GOP,” he added.

Voter turnout for the 2014 primaries — where fewer than 7,000 votes were cast for a turnout of less than 32 percent — was highly tilted toward “voters who were anti-everything,” according to Eskridge, who lost his primary bid to retain his place on the ballot for the Idaho House, Dist. 1, Seat B, to challenger Sage Dixon.

Also tying into wider trends, he said, his defeat was part of an effort to purge the GOP of its more moderate voices.

“I would categorize it as people using the Tea Party umbrella who are extremists,” Eskridge said. “They used the themes of Obamacare, ownership of federal public lands and Common Core to defeat moderate candidates.”

Surprised as much as he was disappointed by the defeat, the Idaho House representative said his record, along with Keough’s, was “miscategorized” in the primaries, especially when it came to Obamacare, which he said both candidates “fought all the way through.”

Bonner County Republican Central Committee chairman Danielle Ahrens sees the reported schism in her party as less a risk than a healthy shift.

“To me, it’s inspiring to see everybody out there wanting their voice to be heard — it’s refreshing,” she said. “I don’t see it as a full-blown split. I see it more as people defining their ideals: Where do I stand and why?”

Of RINOs and  Republicans

Despite former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s recent entreaty for his party to stop using the pejorative acronym, the term RINO — short for Republican In Name Only — is as popular as ever rolling up to the election. First coined by a new breed of GOP members who felt that moderates had fallen away from party principles, it now flies both ways, as the old guard GOP hangs it around the neck of current Republican candidates they say actually hail from the ranks of Constitutionalists, Libertarians and the Tea Party.

“I’ve been called a RINO, which I vehemently object to,” said Eskridge. “The people who are running now — the ones who use that term — it really applies to them.”

In the midst of all the labeling, Idaho Democrats have welcomed disaffected Republicans with open arms, holding themselves out as a progressive-minded option to rancor and political stalemate. The resulting confluence of party affiliation has resulted in some unusual combinations of campaign signs sprouting up around Bonner County.

“How often have you seen this?” queried local Democratic chair Beyer. “Around town, you’ll see lawns with a Shawn Keough sign right next to an Andrew Sorg and a Laura Bry sign.”

The BCRCC’s Ahrens, who ran two aggressive but ultimately unsuccessful primary campaigns to unseat Keough, was careful with her language when addressing the cross-party sign phenomenon. As the group’s chairperson, Ahrens noted, her official response is that she “supports all Republican candidates.”

“I will say that the average voter is more educated now,” she added. “They’re looking into how people vote and what they’ll do once they get elected.”

The Crossover Vote

There’s an old saying in the Gem State that goes something like this: To be a Democrat in Idaho is to be eternally optimistic.

According to the Idaho Democratic Party’s Ferguson, the party faithful are more optimistic this year than they have been for a very long time. Polls that show a tightening race between Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter and his Democratic challenger A.J. Balukoff have been one source of optimism. Similarly, the closing gaps in the state races for Superintendent of Public Instruction and Secretary of State have the party feeling uncharacteristically positive.

Ferguson went so far as to say Democrats are getting a whiff of GOP fear on the air.

“For sure,” he said. “And they’re right to be concerned.”

Not surprisingly, given his post, the communications director pointed to Democratic candidates who “fully outshine” the competition as the main reason for the sunny outlook. Beyond that, there is the prospect of another deciding factor — the chance that some Republicans will allow their pencils to stray into the heretofore unimaginable “D” column once they enter the sanctity of the voting booth.

Not likely, according to the GOP’s Johnston.

“At the end of the day, it comes down to two names on the ballot — the Republicans’ nominee and the Democrats’ nominee,” he said. “I think, when they get into the ballot box, Republicans will be Republicans.”

Ferguson, though, believes that scenario fails to take into account just how deep the divide is in the other party.

“If the moderate Republicans turn out, you will find them voting for some Democratic candidates,” the Democratic spokesman said. “They’re going to do that because they see that highly illogical candidates create more problems than solutions — and we’re hearing from a lot of them who are saying, ‘I’ve had enough of this.’”

Locally, Ahrens doubts that GOP voters will cross over.

“Yes, there is a perceived ideological divide in the Republican Party and people see that as transferring over into votes,” she said. “I think it’s much ado about nothing — Republicans will vote for Republicans.”

Or not vote at all, which is what one local GOP women’s organization official — who declined to be quoted for this article — said she plans to do. In the case of at least a couple of her party’s choices, she stated, she’s simply going leave those spaces blank.

“I think we have the potential for one of two things to happen,” the Democrats’ Beyer said. “Either Republicans won’t vote at all, or they’ll hold their nose and vote for a Democrat. Either way is a vote for us.”

Post-election Politics

No matter where the chips fall on Nov. 4, the GOP in Bonner County may continue to resemble a two-sided coin — one with distinct factions that represent the views of moderates and espouse the ideals of new voices.

The ongoing split can be seen in the two, separate Republican women’s groups that now operate in the county. Thought they have virtually identical websites, neither organization links to the other. Only one of them — the Bonner County Republican Women — gets mentioned on the central committee website. The new group — known as the North Idaho Federated Republican Women — lists officers whose names include several longtime GOP movers and shakers at the county level.

The organizations meet at different times on different days in different locations. Ahrens stopped short of saying they also have different political agendas.

“My official statement as the chairman of the Bonner County Republican Central Committee is that we have a daytime group and a nighttime group,” she said.

Asked whether there has been disaffection among Republicans at the local level, the chairman was more direct.

“Very much so, “ she said. “I’ve heard the comment from some longtime Republicans that, ‘This isn’t fun any more.’

Those GOP members who “don’t like conflict and controversy” might well feel alienated under the current central committee leadership, she allowed.

 “What’s happened here is that people who put principles over politics have become very active,” Ahrens said. “It’s not the country club mentality any more.”