Arrogant and Out of Touch

Everyone seems to be all atwitter about Larry Craig and his refusal to give up his Senate seat, partly because it's so, ah, revealing, and partly because of the issues it's raised about his succession. But it's perhaps more useful for progressives to keep their eye on the ball and look at how the unfolding melodrama reveals the way the tide is shifting on the conservative movement.

Look at Idaho. It is, in media parlance, the "reddest of red states." Yet it is that very redness, in fact, that creates an opportunity for change. Idaho is a state in which Republican rule has dominated for the better part of the past half-century -- and because of that, Republians have become fat and arrogant and out of touch, and ripe for a plucking.

See, for instance, the Larry Craig situtation. The operative assumption was that Craig would step down within a few weeks and Gov. Butch Otter would name someone to replace him. There was even some shuffling of political bigwigs beforehand, with Idaho's two congressmen, Bill Sali and Mike Simpson, jockeying for possible position, but Simpson later backed out while Sali remains interested. The conventional wisdom, though, is that James Risch, the onetime fill-in governor and current lieutenant governor, would be the choice.

But no. Larry Craig, it seems, has other ideas. In spite of a judge's ruling Minneapolis denying his attempt to withdraw his guilty plea there for cruising a men's room at the airport, he's announced he's staying put [1] through the end of his term, in 2009. Never mind, of course, that large majority of Idahoans [1] want him out and are tired of dealing with the embarrassment he's cost them.

Craig is too arrogant to care, and too out of touch to understand how deep the feelings are about his continued tenure. Among those he's hurting are his fellow Republicans, especially those lining up to fill his seat. Otter has been left sputtering, noting he had already made a choice. [1] And of course, the operative assumption was that whoever he named would continue to be Idaho's senator for the foreseeable future:

If they said no, that immediately disqualified them. I wanted that 15 months of seniority. The more I see what’s going on in Congress, the more important that is. We’ve now got five Republicans [retiring or resigning], and I guess there’s a few more that may make a statement, from what [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell’s told me.

The reality now is that whoever wants to run for Craig's seat is going to be going in without the perks of incumbency and will almost certainly face a bruising primary. Risch is the odds-on favorite, largely because his brief tenure as governor was widely acclaimed; but Sali covets the seat as well, and will almost certainly have the big nasty bucks of the Club for Growth behind him again, so if he runs, figure on it being ugly.

In the meantime, the Democrats are unusually well positioned. There's only one candidate in the race on their side so far, and probably through the primary: Larry LaRocco. [1] He's a former Democratic congressman (he was Helen Chenoweth's predecessor in the 1st District) and an unusually thoughtful, competent, and likable man.

I've had a number of interesting conversations in the past few weeks with people in Idaho, which is where I grew up and most of my family and many longtime friends and colleagues remain. One of these was with Larry LaRocco (the transcript of which I'll post later this week at my blog), who I've known since the late 1970s, when he was Sen. Frank Church's field representative and I was the editor of the Sandpoint Daily Bee.

LaRocco is avoiding much discussion of the Craig affair in the run-up to the election, for a couple of reasons: he knows something about having your personal life exposed, having been the victim in 1994 of revelations about an extramarital affair prior to his election to Congress; and for another, he knows that voters aren't going to be picking a new senator based on anything Larry Craig did, so making it an issue is a waste of his time.

But he recognizes that Craig's recalcitrance is creating chaos for Idaho Republicans, while he in rather stark contrast is in the process of getting his campaign running smoothly. The key has been in doing something he did back in 1982, when he first ran for Congress (against Craig): spending a week working at various blue-collar jobs, including being on the line in a sugar factory and fighting forest fires with summer crews.

It's the antithesis of Republican governance in Idaho, which has largely entailed oligarchical fatcats pulling the state's political strings to get whatever they want, working people be damned. And on my recent visits home, that's what I've been hearing a lot about from family and friends: a lot of people, including many self-described conservatives, are getting sick and tired of Republican arrogance. They've grown out of touch with what ordinary voters are concerned about.

The same could be said of Republicans nationally. Thanks to the 2006 election, they've finally been forced to relinquish control of Congress and could face real disaster with the Bush Albatross dangling from their necks in the 2008 election cycle. But rather than harken to the nation's voice in demanding a change of course, the conservatives in power -- from the White House to the Supreme Court, as well as those in Congress who have successfully stymied Democrats so far -- have arrogantly maintained their perverse course and have, when possible, upped the ante (the most recent example being the looming war with Iran).

The anger and frustration is growing palpable, even in places like Idaho. The tide is moving out, and the sands are shifting rapidly beneath the conservative movement's feet.