An elephant looks into a crystal ball

Donald Trump is your next president.

At the moment, The Donald isn't merely the darling of the GOP. The infatuation is in full bloom right here in Kootenai County, one of the most Republican counties in one of the most Republican states in the known universe.

We met with the North Idaho Pachyderm Club last Friday in Coeur d'Alene and, just for fun, conducted a little straw poll. Our thinking: This group is pretty representative of Republicanism in these parts. Let's see how they're leaning politically.

As mentioned, Trump was victorious among the group of 20 Pachys in attendance. Trump garnered 35 percent of the vote, nipping Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who earned 29 percent. Ted Cruz was third at 18 percent, and one of the names that didn't tally a single vote was Jeb Bush.

The group was asked how confident they are that a Republican will be our next president. A couple were 100 percent confident; another person expressed zero percent confidence. But as a whole, the Pachys' confidence level was quite high, at 69 percent.

They also were asked to name and rank the three issues they think are the most important or greatest challenges facing our nation. While several cited employment specifically, regulations and regulatory agencies, and of course, Obamacare, the No. 1 issue in America is immigration, according to our local Pachyderms. No. 2 is debt and government spending; No. 3 is ISIS/terrorism/Iran all lumped together.

Just for the heck of it, we also asked them to rate The Press as either too liberal, too conservative or just about right. Almost two-thirds said the paper is just about right; the other third rated it as too liberal. One member wrote down "fonie," but we weren't quite sure where to stick that one.

On the day we visited, the group's average age was 74 and two-thirds of the membership was male. Nobody identified as transgender, although they were given that option.

It's going to be interesting over the next 14 months to see how this all shakes out. After eight years of their presidential misery, maybe the North Idaho Pachyderms will finally be able to say, "I told you so."