Dang: I'd also like to postulate that the Idaho Democrats have to face an electorate conditioned to think of the likes of Schumer, Rangel, Kennedy, Kerry, Pelosi and other far-left liberals as being what the Party is all about. In my experience, many of the Idaho Dems I've met are as mainstream as anyone else in Idaho, sometimes even more conservative than the Republican candidate. The Big Government, Insider, Cushy-Life, Take-your-guns, Tax-raising, Anti-Father, Anti-Entrepreneur, Abortion-at-all-costs, Anti-Religion Democrat is a tough image to fight.

DFO: Dan of the County did a survey a month or so ago in which he matched the winning and losing percentage of every local race contested by the major parties. He discovered that a Demo starts out about 20 percentage points behind a Repub in every race. In other words, you have to be a strong Demo with bipartisan appeal to have any hope of prevailing locally. I might add that you'd better be running in Coeur d'Alene, too, because the Lake City appears to be one of the few places in North Idaho where a D has a fighting chance (read: George Sayler and a few years ago Bonnie Douglas).

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