OPINION: Your vote could quiet the chaos crowd
Jim Jones
During these last few years, the Republican Party has strayed far from its traditional roots as a political party dedicated to bipartisanship, equal rights, pragmatism, civility and respect for the rights of others.
The official party is now ruled by Dorothy Moon, her cronies in the ill-named Idaho Freedom Foundation and a collection of regional bosses — Brent Regan in the North and Doyle Beck in the East. Dysfunction and conflict is the name of their game.
Traditional Republicans, like Butch Otter, Bruce Newcomb, Jerry Evans, Lydia Justice Edwards and Ben Ysursa, no longer influence the official party’s direction since the GOP closed its primary election contest in 2011. The closed primary has given Moon and the other bosses inordinate control of the type of Republican who gets elected. Culture warriors who foment chaos and have nothing positive to offer now predominate in the Legislature. That all could change in the May 21 primary.
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