Kos ran an
excellent story on the front page today about Democratic prospects in the deep red of the Country, particularly in Idaho. His optimism revolved arround Bill Sali's atrocious fundraising and lack of respect within the Idaho political establishment. I believe that under the right conditions this seat could be in play, but it will not be, because the Idaho Democratic Party is in dissarray, below is my story of how I tried to help out in the ID-01 this summer, but was unable to thanks to an unresponsive local party.
I grew up in the bluest county in the reddest State in the country. Latah County Idaho. The county is home to the University of Idaho, and that influence allows the county to lean well to the left of the rest of the State. In 2004 it had the highest percentage for Kerry in the First Congressional District, and the second highest in the State. Democrats have success here, and we routinely elect Democrats to local offices as well as sending them to face an overwhelming Republican majority in the State legislature. The Republicans we elect are moderate and serve as a defacto opposition party in this one party State, helping to defend against public education cuts and constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.
You would think that in this county the Democratic Party would be strong and active, even if that is not the case anywhere else in the State. You would think wrong.
I came home to Latah County for the summer returning from my second year of college in Oregon, and decided I wanted to work for a campaign at home. After I had been home for a week I wandered down to the local Democratic Party headquarters. It was buried downtown, you couldn't find it unless you already had the address, up a tiny staircase between two stores. I went up and knocked on the door. No answer, upon returning hom I made a phone call to the phone number listed on the website, no one answered, and I left a message saying I would like to help. I never recieved any follow up to the message.
I let it go for another two weeks when I encountered the chairman at a play. I told him I was interested in working on a campaign, and he gave me his home phone number and told me to call him so they could contact me and get me to work. He was very friendly and seemed glad to have my help.
A few days later I called his number, he wasn't home and upon reaching an answering machine I left a message. To this date I have not recieved any response.
At this point most of the summer is over, and if I were finally contacted I probably could not do much to help because I will be returning to school at the end of August. By ignoring my efforts to contact them they lost the opportunity to get help from an energetic interested college student home for the summer.
All this in the bluest county in the State of Idaho. If the Party is this disorganized in Latah County I hate to see what it is like in the others. Howard Dean is to be commended for his efforts with the 50 State strategy, but one fundamental problem must change, local Parties in red States need to be more available to gaining help from local people interested in working to elect Democrats. Until that happens the 50 State strategy will fail. I have volunteered with the local Democratic Party in McMinnville Oregon and not had any problems like this, suggesting that at least in this case a heavily Republican county in a blue district is far more active and responsive than a heavily Democratic county in a red district.
Sali is weak, any time fellow Republicans say this of their candidate Democrats should have a strong chance of a pickup.
That idiot is just an absolute idiot. He doesn't have one ounce of empathy in his whole fricking body. And you can put that in the paper.
But when the local parties are in this much dissarray that they aren't open to people trying to volunteer, pickups in districts like this one become nearly impossible.