Andrus Blames Demo Losses On Special Interests
After winning an unprecedented four gubernatorial elections, Democrat Cecil Andrus left office on Monday with his party in a shambles.
Reflecting on more than three decades of political partisanship and activism within his party, Andrus sees the Democrats compounding their historical handicap of inadequate financing by catering to liberal factions that lack broad support throughout the West.
He believes the only hope is to wrest control of the party from those factions and put it back in the hands of what he calls “blue-collar worker-farmer Democrats who had a natural concern and compassion for our neighbors and our fellow man.”
“You cannot let narrow single interest groups dictate overall policy,” said the former Carter administration Interior secretary, whose recent run-ins with environmentalists over wilderness, the Air Force training range expansion and federal landuse reforms stand in stark contrast to the cooperation and accolades they gave him previously.
All too often, those he refers to as single-issue elitists seek gain at the expense of the very people who traditionally formed a broad base for Democrats. The willingness to compromise and accept incremental advances toward an ultimate goal, which he credits for his success, are missing.
“Basically, there is no such thing as a liberal - as you people in the media know them - in either political party in Idaho or in most of the Western United States,” the governor said. “But they have tainted us nationally to the point where it rubs off.
“Frankly, we find ourselves being forced to defend something that has happened against our will.”
Only strong, independent individuals able to develop their own campaign organizations that project their unequivocal views - as his has done - or crucial policy mistakes by the GOP as occurred in the mid- and late-1980s will return any semblance of influence to Idaho Democrats, he believes.
“I cannot remember in my time in politics, nor do I see any change on the horizon for the rest of my lifetime, for us to have a strong, viable party in the state of Idaho,” the 63-year-old Andrus said in an interview during his waning days as the state’s 28th chief executive.
“I paid lip service to the party organization because I could help in some of the legislative races, but every time they wanted me to give matching funds … they wasted the money, so I just donated the minimum amount and went on with my business,” he said.
“I built my own political work force out there,” said Andrus, who has been a member of the Democratic minority since entering Idaho elective politics in the 1960s as a state senator. “And I would say anybody who is thinking about jumping into Democratic politics right now, they better be prepared to do the same because it’s basically in a shambles.”
That view - possibly not as harshly stated - is shared by any number of other Democrats, who see their party split between what one partisan veteran calls the lunchbucket crowd Andrus identifies with and the wine-and-cheese set whose views are much less conservative.
“We’ve got to go back to meat and potatoes and blue collar where we started out - what we cared about was kids and jobs and the quality of life,” Andrus said. “You don’t kick anybody out, but you make it very plain to them that, ‘Hey, you’re better off supporting the Democratic Party than the other because you’re not going to get what you want but you’ll get a better opportunity for success from us.”’
While Republicans face their own internal conflict between conservative and moderate blocs, they have managed to create a cadre of grassroots campaign workers, tap a sympathetic business community for cash support and establish a campaign machine that seems easily passed on from one major candidate to the next.
The spokeswoman for Attorney General Larry EchoHawk, the man Andrus backed as his successor, acknowledged the vitality of that GOP political ethic in assessing this fall’s loss to Republican Gov.-elect Phil Batt.
“Phil Batt successfully reached the small towns through massive radio buys, National Republican Committee-funded direct mail pieces, phone banks and good oldfashioned hand-to-hand campaigning,” Amy Stahl recently wrote.
Known for his political acumen, a knack for remembering supporters from Bonners Ferry to Montpelier and never forgetting those who crossed him, Andrus raised over $1 million to narrowly reclaim the governor’s office in 1986 during the most financially draining campaign Idaho has ever seen. That year’s U.S. Senate race cost $6 million and the Right-to-Work Referendum $3.5 million.
With his victory came an end to the first veto-proof Republican Legislature in over 30 years and set the stage for 1990 and one of the biggest Democratic victories ever.
But considering November’s Republican tide, no one is really willing to speculate on just what effect Andrus’ view or his impending retirement had on the worst Democratic defeat in more than 50 years.
“Some people would blame me who say I’m basically doing my own thing,” Andrus acknowledged. “But you can’t blame one person for it. It takes … a group of people who care enough about issues to do the campaigning. Campaign work is hard. It’s drudgery. It’s getting out the signs. It’s writing letters to the editor. It’s doing all the things these Republicans do so very well.”
His ire with the party has intensified in the last two years as he saw Democrat Bill Clinton seemingly go out of his way to alienate key supporters in the West where the president had marginal support to begin with.
“I’m talking about some of us western governors who are Democrats who have survived in the political world out here because we’re not way out at the end of the spectrum - we recognize that you’ve got to make a living,” Andrus said.
“Now they’re Democrats, and I’m a Democrat, but they’re not the same breed of Democrat that I am,” he said. “I’m not going to leave the party, but I’m not going to, just because I happen to be of the same political affiliation, rubber stamp every idiotic activity that takes place inside that Beltway.”