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Political Hay
Don Quixote Democrat
Nicole LeFavour would love to shake up Idaho’s congressional delegation.
Democratic Idaho State Senate legislator Nicole LeFavour has declined to seek a fifth term representing the 19th District in the Idaho State Senate. She’s abandoning that safe seat to run against incumbent Rep. Mike Simpson for his 2nd Congressional District seat, as the popular Republican seeks a seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives. The question is: Why? “I’m running for Congress because I love Idaho and we can do better,” LeFavour said in a recent Twitter post.
State Senate District 19 takes in the north and east sections of Boise (locally known as the North End and East End); the central downtown; and “the foothills,” a populous suburban area north of the city. The capital and its suburbs being home to bureaucrats, and academics associated with Boise St. University, makes the 19th one of the most reliably Democratic districts in Idaho. In 2008, the same year Obama carried it with 69% of the vote, LeFavour beat Republican Chuck Meissner with a nearly identical 70% (McCain-Palin carried Idaho as a whole 62% to 36%). This after previously serving the same district in the Idaho House, and scoring a two to one margin in her first race in 2004. She ran unopposed in her second House race in 2006.
LeFavour, 48, a lesbian with roots in rural Custer County, was the first openly gay member of the Idaho Legislature, and despite being involved in a number of legislative issues such as education (she’s an ex-teacher), is mostly known as a gay rights advocate. A soft-spoken, yet determined crusader for such, she has conducted a quixotic quest for reforms in employment, housing, and healthcare. LeFavour supported the recent “Add the Words” bill, which GOP Senate members declined to introduce on procedural grounds due to their 28-7 majority. It would have added the phrases “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the mission statement of the Idaho Commission on Human Rights, which administers state and federal anti-discrimination laws in Idaho. A recent provocative act was to send as Christmas gifts 60 copies of the movie Brokeback Mountain to fellow legislators. Needless to say, LeFavour supports gay marriage.
Simpson, 61, married, has represented Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for thirteen years. The Burley, Idaho native and former dentist has a voting record typical of a western conservative when it comes to federal management of public lands. Though his views on such issues are in no way kneejerk. Simpson — after much legislative sausage-making — has supported such wilderness designation projects as the Central Idaho Development and Recreational Act (CIEDRA), which would set aside 312,000 acres in the Boulder-White Clouds area for a variety of uses. The bill is still pending. On cultural issues, Simpson is a Mormon — enough said. This in itself will be a plus for Simpson in a year where Mitt Romney will likely top the ballot in the heavily LDS-populated 2nd.
Simpson has enjoyed a 32-year career in Idaho politics going back to service on the Blackfoot City Council in 1980. He went on to seven terms in the Idaho House of Representatives, serving as House Speaker from 1993 to 1999. Simpson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1999, and boasts a long list of committee and caucus accomplishments. As a former dentist, a favorite battle is taking a tough line against methamphetamine abuse, which degrades teeth and causes what dentists call “Methmouth.” In election years Simpson routinely garners large majorities — maybe the better word is “landslides.” Recent tallies include 71 percent of the vote against Democrat Debbie Holmes in 2008. He beat Democrat Mike Crawford with 69 percent in 2010. Also in 2010, Simpson faced an initial primary challenger, Marvin “Chick” Heileson, who ran under the Tea Party banner and tallied 22 percent of the vote. This year Heileson is repeating this superfluous exercise in Idaho’s May primary.
LeFavour has little to go on except support on her home turf around Boise; Blaine County, home to Sun Valley-Ketchum and its liberal Hollywood glitterati (who are also a good source of campaign funding), though not a populous area; and the same small numbers problem applies to Teton County, an across-the-state-line from Jackson, Wyoming progressive suburban enclave. Simpson runs the rest of the board in an east-northeast crescent of small cities from Mountain Home to Twin Falls, Pocatello, Blackfoot, Idaho Falls, Rexburg, and Lemhi County (Salmon). A noted Idaho political guru, Political Science Professor John Freemuth of Boise St. University recently told Sean Cockerham of McClatchy Newspapers, and reprinted in the Idaho Statesman, that “….most people who run a race think they have a chance to win…. [This race] just strikes me as awfully improbable.”
Has LeFavour done a political calculation that tells her that she can win? Starry-eyed liberal idealism is certainly not enough to beat a popular incumbent, especially one whose supporters would find LeFavour’s cultural social engineering agenda to be anathema to their conservative values. Someone or other of the Mormon faith has served the constituents of Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District since 1951 — sixty-one years.
So how does a liberal lightning rod with that record beat a conservative Mormon in a majority conservative district with a large Mormon population in a year where the GOP presidential nominee will likely be a Mormon and the face of the Democratic Party is Barack Obama?
She doesn’t. But maybe from her point of view tilting at political windmills raises her political profile in the future.
About the Author
Bill Croke, formerly of Cody, Wyoming, is a writer in Salmon, Idaho.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (25) | Leave a comment
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.30.12 @ 7:58AM
A lesbian running for Congress against impossible odds sounds so cliche!
Kitty | 3.30.12 @ 8:18AM
Bill Croke reads tweets? =:O
JAWilson| 3.30.12 @ 8:41AM
"We can do better". I'm very tired of progressively arrogant statements of superiority. Perhaps Simpson is doing better for his constituents already than this example of vapidness could ever hope to do.
albert constantine jr.| 3.30.12 @ 10:37AM
Many of the lefty trolls who both hit and run or post regularly display that same superior attitude of smugness. Though it is not limited to the left (William Tucker seems to have embraced it at TAS), most have yet to show me anything in the realm of ideas or true accomplishments that seems to justify it.
Doctor Right| 3.30.12 @ 9:13AM
She's a lesbian??
Gee... You'd never know from her picture (...snort!...)
SUBVET| 3.30.12 @ 6:36PM
Lesbian ! whats worng with that.......I thought every lesbian was traped in a man's body.
Dick Nome| 3.31.12 @ 6:51PM
Yep, nothing odd here. Just one of the guys.
albert constantine jr.| 3.30.12 @ 10:43AM
Once upon a time, Montana was thought to be a conservative bastion. Then Ted Turner and the Hollywood types showed up.
Don't think that Ben Stein is the only Hollywood type who likes Idaho, as the Blaine County description above indicates. As the liberals destroy the areas they've previously occupied, they move like a cancer into healthy hosts.
While it seems difficult to imagine after the departure of the Aryan Nations from Hayden Lake that Idaho could experience worse new arrivals, be warned.
Minuteman78| 3.30.12 @ 10:52AM
Amen, brother! I've said for years liberalism is a traveling road-trip frat party - trash the place you're at, then move on to trash the next place. That's how places like Montana, Idaho, and Colorado have little pockets of leftism. Your analogy does me one better as it's more visceral, but I think maybe that parasite (the name escapes me - someone that knows, please help out here) that attaches itself to a fish, drains all the nutrients out until the fish dies, then discards the dead carcass and goes on to the next one might be even better. Mike Simpson's campaign manager should work up some ads with a picture of this parasite alongside of LeFavour's, and a simple explanation at the bottom.
SCM| 3.30.12 @ 1:50PM
Lamprey?
Howard| 4.1.12 @ 1:59PM
Vermont has experienced the same. Formerly a solid GOP state. Over the last 30 or so years, it has become a "Progressive" bastion. Plenty of New York and Boston types looking to impart big city values.
gearjammer| 3.30.12 @ 11:09AM
Have babies-lot's of all American babies-and run for local office-school committee. Right to work-including teacher. Beware any any NGO with a nice sounding name-you know like Sierra Club. And, make allies in her camp. Plenty of gays and private sector and proud of American traditions. This is tricky for some of you.
Paul A'Barge| 3.30.12 @ 4:18PM
Punch up. Always punch up.
Or as Barack Hussein Obama describes every country with which the USA has international relations, she's punching above her weight class.
Dick Nome| 4.1.12 @ 1:54PM
Obama could't carry her jockstrap.
Nick| 3.30.12 @ 8:07PM
When I first saw the picture, on the home page, I thought it was Hugh Hewitt!
Oops!
Kitty | 3.31.12 @ 10:30AM
You're right -- HA HA HA !!!
idalily| 3.31.12 @ 12:28AM
I live in Simpson's district. LaFavour hasn't got a prayer.
idarose| 4.1.12 @ 4:15AM
I agree. But Simpson is hardly a Mormon or a conservative. He just uses those words to describe himself to get votes.
POST American| 3.31.12 @ 1:26AM
"70% of ALLLLL British legislation
these days comes DIRECTLY from
the UN with NO public input or
consultation whatsoever. That's
from the national level to local
village councils. Remember folks,
Stalin, Hitler nor MAO were
EVER overthrown by their people.
When this NWO is fully functional
there will be NO sovereign states to
stand in its way. NONE."
-Informed Online
----tick! ---tick! ----tick! ----tick! -----tick!
In this, the 11th hour of the CFR-RED China
handover, takedown, TREASON and EUGENICS
OP -----are we getting it? ----YET?
AND SO
"It was a clear, cold day in April
and the clocks were striking 13 o'clock."
-George Orwell
1984
(opening line)
----tick! ---tick! ---tick! ---tick! ---tick!
Bubba T. | 3.31.12 @ 12:41PM
Actually, I thought the photo was from a Dykes On Bikes parade poster. Maybe it is. Could be San Francisco's Poke Street people has an East Boise chapter.
I'll have to get back to 'ya.
Dick Nome| 3.31.12 @ 6:49PM
She's one of the Van Dyke sisters. You can call her Butch.
PCP Smoker| 3.31.12 @ 3:52PM
Liberal and lesbian. Do not Barbara Mulkouskly, Nancy Pelosi, and Rosa DeLauro meet that criteria already?
Howard| 4.1.12 @ 2:01PM
DeLauro is straight. She used to be the New Haven mayors squeeze. She has been married to Clinton's pollster for years. A nice lady, who will never win a beauty contest.
Father of Marines| 3.31.12 @ 7:02PM
Do I smell Soros money and a soon to be revealed
"October Surprise" (probably fabricated) to be played in the media against the incumbent?
Ravenbran| 4.7.12 @ 5:27PM
Why not? She has as much chance of winning against Simpson as a Republican did running against Barney Frank. But if a your party isn't on the ballot, you're not in the game and your issues don't get talked about. She'll have fun driving around Idaho this summer. She's quite a rock star among Idaho Dems, and she'll draw a crowd.