Presenting new same-old Idaho politics.

[Q3JR4]

The dust has settled and the smoke has cleared. The winds of political change blew through this country in the last election and left Idaho, well, unchanged. Idaho Democrats gained many seats in the house and the senate. Not enough, fortunately for all of us righteous folk, to change the power play of politics in the statehouse. The only other thing of merit that we have to mention is the Republican takeover of the only “constitutional office” they haven’t held for the last 12 years. If you guessed the office of the Superintendent of Public Schools give yourself five stars. Here we have a great and noble man with no background in public school administration in charge of, well, public school administration. Maybe that’s a bad thing, but as a Republican I don’t think I really care. Educated people tend to vote Democrat, and this will only serve to make the public school system crappier. What that means for you and I is more Republican voters, and when they get old enough we can send them to another stupid president’s war while using fear tactics to continue to increase our political power.

The only other change of merit worth mentioning is the elevation of C.L. “Butch” Otter as Idaho’s new governor elect. Now I didn’t know too much about “Butch,” so I went to his Otter for governor website. A couple of things caught my eye and I just wanted to bring them to your attention.

Butch Otter is against government violations of your constitutional rights. Isn’t that a very Republican way to be? Of course that doesn’t apply if you happen to be a woman, Democrat, person of color, or a member the GLBT persuasion. That’s how we Republicans like it. Yes sir. We’re the party of the big tent. Just make sure you’re a white, married, Christian with three kids and no history of watching Ted Haggard on television (don’t want you to catch “the gay”). Of course if you’re gay and you want to give us your money, that’s okay too. But like Dick Cheney’s treats his lesbian daughter at most of the political shindigs, don’t expect us to know you when our friends come into town.

Butch Otter is for the rights of parents. Yes sir. As a Republican if you have sex Butch Otter probably doesn’t want you to use Birth control. That’s a pretty logical statement considering that he’s voted to increase funding to sex until marriage education with no mention of effective contraceptive use. The Traditional Values Coalition likes his stance on abortion so suffice it to say if you get pregnant after your protection-less romps you’re having the baby. That means that Otter supports the rights of the parents only after the government forces them to become parents.

As you can all see from the information I’ve laid out here, Idaho voters have bought themselves a conservative voice to represent them in the statehouse. Of course, Otter’s stance is probably not much more different than our former governor turned Secretary of the Interior. That probably means that nothing much has changed as far as Idaho’s governor is concerned either. Yep, politics as usual in our backwoods, redneck, god-fearing (when it means that we Republicans get your vote) state.