Now that Larry Craig has stepped down, the great state of Idaho has an opportunity to help establish a new tone in the Senate and set the country on the right course. Or Idaho can drive us all deeper into the ditch.
If Idaho sends a square shooter to the Senate - somebody more intellectually honest than Craig -- the Senate might be able to set some differences aside and begin tackling our pressing national agenda.
On the other hand, if they send an arrogant, scandal-prone party hack -- somebody more interested in partisan politics, reelection and campaign fund raising than taking care of the people's business -- things might get much worse -- and stay that way longer.
So, can Idaho resist the urge to send a douche bag to the Senate? We know the new senator will be male and white. We know he will have accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior (something that's come in very handy for sin-and-scandal-smacked Republicans these past few years).
Fine. We can live with a white male Christian senator from Idaho. But does he have to be an iconoclast? An ideologue? A bully? A douche bag? For the good of the country, let's hope not.
Please, Idaho -- somewhere in the vast empty tracts between Pocatello, Boise, and Coeur d'Alene, find us somebody thoughtful, deliberate and open-minded. Somebody who is intellectually honest. Somebody to discuss -- not argue -- the issues with. Somebody who can look across the aisle without sneering.
We're not asking you to send us some slack-wristed East-or-West Coast type liberal. We're just asking you to send us someone cut in the mold of a Chuck Hegel -- or even a John McCain -- instead another Conrad Burns or Ted Stevens or (cough) Larry Craig.
This is one of those moments in American history where one state can do something for the good of all fifty states. Please, Idaho, just this once, send us gravitas. Ix-nay on the ouche-bags-day.
http://lgo.idaho.gov/biography.html
former governor, current lt. gov. Excerpt below from his website. Might be a choice that meets your hopes? He's Catholic of all things too:
"In another highlight from his term as Governor, Risch designed a plan to manage Idaho’s designated Roadless Areas that won unanimous approval by the US Department of Agriculture’s RACNAC Committee in Washington, DC. Governor Risch also supervised the adoption of an Idaho rule which effectively prohibited the construction of traditional mercury-releasing pulverized coal power plants. Both of these measures earned Governor Risch bipartisan acclaim for his pragmatic approach to natural resource issues and land management."
However,religious zealots now outnumber progressives and from them we get pols like Larry Craig.From Twin Falls draw a line across Idaho to Pocatello and that is the red part of the state where his people vote enbloc and every time.It's now time for the progressives to start showing up to vote to offset the power of the zealots.
The republican party in Washington was seized by Pat Robertson supporters who elected kindred spirits.Progressives were insulted and energized and turned out in sufficient numbers to fight them off at the national level,but they still control the eastern part of the state with some of the most ineffective and reactionary bums ever to hold office.