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Watching Idaho’s assorted Republican candidates fighting to be the most conservative kid on the block is really pretty funny.
Hilarious, even.
You can actually begin giggling at the prospect of a debate ahead of the primary in the lieutenant governor race.
If Candidate No. 1 claims: “I’m the most conservative person in this contest,” then Candidate No. 2 might be forced to say: “Yeah, well I’m a doggone fascist, so there!”
Which, of course, leaves Candidate No. 3 no option but to announce: “You’re all wimps. I’m more conservative than Attila the Hun!”
Since there are five people running in that particular GOP primary — which we all know is the final — those last two folks to the podium would have to break a lot of astounding records for conservatism.
They’d be forced to make Ronald Reagan sound like Karl Marx.
AT SOME point, of course, having everyone in the race claiming to be the most conservative becomes a bit boring, even for political junkies.
That’s why your humble correspondent caught up with state Sen. Bob Nonini of Coeur d’Alene this week to ask exactly what benefit he was getting by saying, “I’m the most conservative choice for lieutenant governor.”
Does that truly help in a primary where all four of his opponents argue forcefully that they deserve the same title?
It’s true: Janice McGeachin, Marv Hagedorn, Kelley Packer and Steve Yates each has stated, at one time or another, that no one in the race possibly could match them for conservative values.
So we asked Nonini, an able and respected member of the Idaho Legislature: Isn’t there some better description to fit you?
He thought briefly about the obvious puzzle of five people claiming the same title and replied: “Well, in my case, I’d say that I’m the most ‘effective conservative.’
“There’s a difference in that.”
Hmmm...
Is there, really?
If each of the candidates weren’t relatively “effective” in some area, they wouldn’t be in the race.
Nonini is an open-minded guy, so we asked if he would embrace the tag of “Common Sense Conservative.”
He admitted that the phrase had the logical kind of ring to it, but…
“Well, maybe…”
We’re sure he was worried it didn’t sound “hard-guy” enough for Idaho.
BUT HERE’S the thing: Nonini actually could grab that “common sense” title and run with it, because unlike a lot of Republican candidates for various offices, he actually has bucked conservative orthodoxy when it didn’t make sense to him.
“That’s definitely true,” he said, finally beginning to unload the dreaded most-conservative-in-the-race squabble. “I went against the Idaho Freedom Foundation on the quagga mussel issue.
“They were claiming it was just more government overreach, but I believe that this could be such a danger to Idaho’s waterways that I wanted to be proactive rather than reactive.
“We need to toughen our defenses against these mussels, and the threat they pose by getting west of the Continental Divide. I stand by that.”
Nonini also admitted that the far-right position that Idaho should “take back” all its land from the federal government makes little sense to him.
“It was never ours to take back,” he said. “Now, could we work out arrangements to manage some of the land better than the feds? Certainly, and we ought to do that.
“But we can’t claim ownership of something we never had.”
See, Bob, that wasn’t so hard.
And trust us, no one is going to mistake you for a Berkeley liberal.
If people don’t know you’re a bona fide conservative by now, they’re not even likely to vote.
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Steve Cameron is a columnist for The Press. Please reach Steve at: [email protected]