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Huckleberries: Let’s put this one to bed before we talk of more

Councilwoman Kerri Thoreson, who lost the Post Falls mayor’s race to Ron Jacobson on Tuesday, had the best line following the city elections. And we’ll get to it in a moment.

On her Facebook wall after the election, Kerri talked about putting on her “game face” and heading out to face the public. First, she attended the Local Issues Committee of the Chamber of Commerce. Next, she retrieved signs and returned phone calls, texts and emails. Many were talking about her future election prospects.

Summed up Kerri: “Talking about future elections the day after one that ended badly is like asking a woman who’s just given birth if she plans to have more children.”

‘The Boob Blog’

Former Spokesman-Review colleague Linda Ball has transformed a blog she wrote while battling breast cancer into a book, “The Boob Blog.” It’s getting good reviews at Amazon.com (also available on the Barnes & Noble website and on Kindle). Linda tells Huckleberries: “I found strength I didn’t know I had. I’m hoping it can give others who are dealing with cancer a boost and encouragement to keep living.” You’ll find Linda’s sense of humor interwoven in this intense personal drama … That ha-huge, inflatable eagle with the Mary Souza-for-Mayor sign on its red-white-and-blue chest that roosted in the Coeur d’Alene Army-Navy store lot was down less than 16 hours after Mary’s defeat Tuesday. But many fans of Mayor-elect Steve Widmyer won’t be forgetting about it (#BadBusinessDecision) … A wag at the celebration for the victorious Balance North Idaho ticket asked Coeur d’Alene City Attorney Mike Gridley if he planned to quit sending out resumes. Mike’s head would have been one of those that would have rolled had Souza and the Reagan Republican ticket swept into office.

Huckleberries

Poet’s Corner: “Goodbye to sun and lake/and park;/hello to Holidays/and dark” – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Heading Toward Winter”) … And: “In civics class they taught her, quote:/‘Good citizens should always vote’;/So each Election Day she goes,/though sometimes she may hold her nose” – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Her Duty”) … The answer is – absolutely not. The question to three-term Coeur d’Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem: “Do you regret the decision not to run again?” … Atlas Elementary fourth-grader Taylor Rider received an unexpected bonus when he opted out of school to meet Gov. Butch Otter at the Coeur d’Alene Resort on Thursday: a personal tutorial from Idaho’s chief executive on how to tie a tie. Which Otter handled as dexterously as he and his rodeo partner manage their calf-roping maneuvers … That new beard growing on Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d’Alene, is growing on me, too – as long as he doesn’t default to a “Duck Dynasty” setting … Bumpersnicker (on a black Kia parked near North Idaho College during lunch Friday): “Not all dumbs are blonde” … Kootenai County isn’t as Republican as you think. An analysis of the registered voters by S-R colleague Scott Maben breaks them down this way: 61 percent unaffiliated, 32 percent Republican, and 7 percent Democrat. Which means there’s a near supermajority who could be looking for a candidate other than the usual Hard Right ideologues that the Kootenai County GOP trots out to run in primaries.

Parting shot

The Reagan Republican faithful, who watched all six of their endorsees crash and burn in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls elections, aren’t doing much better with their newspaper boycott. Becky Funk, campaign manager for Mary Souza, posted on Facebook that she was canceling her Coeur d’Alene Press subscription due to (imagined) bias in that paper’s coverage of the Coeur d’Alene mayoral campaign. She inspired only one or two others to follow suit.

Read Dave Oliveria’s North Idaho blog, Huckleberries Online, at spokesman.com/hbo.

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