How low can they go? Clownishly low

Usually when people talk about demonizing others, they don’t mean it literally.

Leave it to some deranged, pathetic and anonymous practitioner of local politics to climb out of the black lagoon at election time.

After a respected Rathdrum couple had seen enough of school board chair Michelle Thompson’s leadership style, they took the uncomfortable step in August of launching a recall campaign. The couple, Tim and Terri Skubitz, were immediately painted by some as choking on sour grapes. A longtime Lakeland Unified School District trustee, Tim had lost in November 2019 to Thompson, 198-180.

The Skubitzes aren’t alone in believing Thompson should be replaced. But support or opposition to the recall is not the point of this editorial. It’s the cowardly and malicious personal attack on the Skubitzes, an assault that only deepens the political cesspool that seems to be spreading in Kootenai County.

The Skubitzes, who own the McDonald’s restaurant in Rathdrum, are literally being portrayed as horned Ronald McDonald demons by their assailant, who has co-opted the Skubitzes’ “Save the Lakeland Way” Facebook page with another of the same name. Some screen shots from the social media site were included in a Press front-page story last Friday, and they looked like something out of a horror movie. Which was clearly the objective.

While Thompson denies any involvement whatsoever in the social media attack on the Skubitzes, she also has said and done nothing to have it stopped. That silence is deafening, even above the noise of the anonymous assailant.

Voters in Lakeland School District, you’ll have your say next week.

For those who live outside the district, it might not be a bad idea to patronize a certain burger establishment next time you’re in Rathdrum. Consider it voting with your pocketbook.