Now that we're starting the 43rd week before the next Idaho primary election - yep, it's way off on May 25, 2010 - the candidates for governor have begun emerging. Six already have filed preliminary paperwork with the Secretary of State's office (you can read about them all here in my Sunday column in Handle Extra). Today is the day that one of them, 58-year-old Ron "Pete" Peterson, an amateur comedian and retired state employee, will announce his gubernatorial candidacy at a Boise bikini bar, the "Torch 2." Why there? "Why not?" he asks. "Like everything else in my campaign, it sets me apart."

So does his arrest record. Back in the '70s, he was arrested and convicted for "defrauding an innkeeper" after leaving the Red Lion Riverside without paying for a meal ("I was kind of drunk that night," he said) and, also in the '70s, there was a disturbing-the-peace conviction related to his involuntary commitment to State Hospital South at Blackfoot for four months for "being a danger to myself and/or others." "I'm a manic-depressive," Peterson explained. "The way I always phrase it, is they took advantage of the fact that I was crazy to commit me." You can read more here at Eye on Boise.

Question: If you're running for governor, does it help to be crazy?