ID-Sen: LaRocco Working for Senate

It's not all hypocrisy and strange hot dog and baking spud activities in Idaho. While Craig continues his one-man ego show (with the side benefit of making life very unpleasant for the Republican leadership) and 29 Idaho Republicans who thought the job should have been theirs pout, one Idaho politician is working.

The only declared candidate for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Craig is Larry LaRocco. Since June, Larry has been criss-crossing the state, spending the day doing the jobs that thousands of Idahoans do, from manning a garbage truck to nursing to sugar beet processing to home construction (watch the video here.)

His latest job was at John Peavey's sheep ranch in Blaine County, Idaho.

Running a small livestock operation actually isn't a job that too many Idahoans, or westerners in general, do anymore. Family ranches, just like family farms, are being overtaken by huge agribusiness, unable to compete. What's lost when a family farm or ranch is consumed by a corporate operation isn't just the network of small businesses and small towns that support and are supported by farmers and ranchers. It's more than just this way of life that's dying out. It's a generational knowledge of and respect and love for the land. It's an understanding of what stewardship of the land and its resources means. Because if it's abused, it won't be there for the next generation. Now, not all family farmers and ranchers really get that, and are paragons of conservation. But the successful ones do get it, and practice it.

LaRocco gets it. Larry Craig has been industry's and corporate ag's best friend in Idaho for the three terms he's been in the Senate. And if any of those 29 Republicans vying for his job actually get it, they'll follow in his footsteps, because that's where the big money is in Idaho. The contrast LaRocco presents couldn't be clearer. Help him get to the Senate.