When I was a young boy living in Columbus Ohio in 1964, my father put his business on hold for 1 year and became Barry Goldwater’s campaign manager. Prior to the primary, he was in charge of the Midwestern States and after the primary, he was in charge of the Goldwater campaign for the State of Ohio. His friend Ray Bliss was for many years the head of the Ohio Republican party, but after the Republican Convention at the San Francisco Cow Palace he became head of the Republican National Committee and was in charge of the national Goldwater Campaign. The 1964 Presidential Campaign was a “butt whipping” of epic proportions. As I recall the only State that Goldwater won was his own State—Arizona.
In retrospect, what we found out was that Mr. Bliss and Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney had all along been working against Senator Goldwater and on several occasions actively and behind the scenes planted stories in the press that placed Senator Goldwater in a bad light. The Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party controlled the politics in the party until Ronald Regan was able to wrest control from the liberal Eastern Establishment. They didn’t go away and President’s Bush the Sr. and Jr. and now Liz Cheney, John Kasich GW and his brother, Paul Ryan and John Boehner, and Mitt Romney are still waiting in the wings. Not since Goldwater and Regan has the establishment of the Republican Party felt more threatened. This is true at both the State and National levels. Let’s make them sweat a little.
That is exactly what DJT was all about. He fought the corruption in Washington and the corrupt people in the swamp wanted to destroy him—still do. He knew they were corrupt—they know they are corrupt—and they found out that he knew they were corrupt. We have the same exact situation in Idaho. The political establishment—mostly RINO Republicans in Idaho are afraid of the conservative candidates for the same reasons the swamp in DC has been afraid.
I tell this story because the political State of affairs in Idaho today is very much analogous to the National Republican landscape in 1964. The establishment good old boys control the money and the media. Though many conservatives won’t agree with me they also control the party apparatus with Mr. Luna at the head. Last time the Romney—Otter—Little wing of the party triangulated the election. Governor Little won 37% of the vote in the primary and Tommy Ahlquist and Raul Labrador won a combined 62%. Can we all together say “triangulation”?
I believe we have two choices as conservative Republicans moving forward. The 1st choice and the one I believe that would be the easiest to execute would be to make a rule that anybody winning a primary would be required to win at least 50% of the party vote. If they don’t the top two candidates need to run off in a second primary until one of them gets over the bar.
The second choice in my opinion is interesting, and the legalities would have to be worked out by the candidate’s lawyers. I would create an organization—it would be called the Idaho Conservative Caucus. Conservative candidates could agree to participate in the caucus. There would be 6-8 debates between the candidates and after the last debate members of the caucus could take a straw vote. Citizens could join the Conservative Caucus—maybe at a $20 fee. All the conservative candidates would agree ahead of time that whoever wins the vote of the caucus would run against Governor Little and the other candidates would drop out of the race and agree to support and campaign for the winner.
If we could get 100,000 conservative citizens to join the caucus, the candidate that comes out ahead would have $2million to use in the general election.
Another advantage of this process would be that the candidates could travel all around the State and debate each other in local towns and cities, they could hone their debating skills against each other and be ready to debate the Governor. I am supporting our Lt, Governor, but I believe any one of the declared candidates would be better than allowing the establishment—lobbyists and the teachers unions along with the IMA/IHA/ IACI/CofC, to once again control the process and take the election out of the hands of the “we the people”.
No more winning the Governorship with 37% of the vote of the majority party.
One last thing: How about the night or the week of the caucus having a Trump come into a rally in support of the Conservative candidate? Talk about fun and energy going into the general election.
If we have enough citizens joining the Conservative Caucus maybe we could raise enough money to have Mitt Romney and John Kasich and Liz Cheney and Paul Ryan come into Idaho for a BRAD LITTLE RALLY. That should seal the deal for the conservative candidate don’t you think? That could be called ‘Reverse Triangulation”.
The time to plan is now. Let’s not let the conservatives eat themselves out of a Governorship.
MAGA “Fight Like Hell”
