Idaho Democrats Reeling After Election After Gop Sweep, National Democratic Leaders Could Write Off Idaho As A Hopeless Cause

It’s going to be a long, hard battle back for Idaho Democrats.

The party is almost wiped out, reeling from its third straight defeat in Idaho elections. Worse yet, there’s not even a hint that things will get better soon.

Democrats usually are at a huge cash disadvantage with Republicans. But this election was different, thanks to Walt Minnick’s successful fund-raising efforts, piles of money from labor unions and hefty contributions from the national Democratic Party.

And it produced nothing.

Democratic congressional candidate Dan Williams lost a race the party needed him to win, giving controversial Republican Rep. Helen Chenoweth a second term.

That creates the real prospect that national Democratic leaders will write Idaho off as hopeless and channel the money and other supports to states where it will produce results.

If the Democrats can’t beat Chenoweth in an election marked by months of negative ads against her and a respectable, well-financed campaign by Williams, they have little hope beyond her keeping the promise she has made frequently that she will run for no more than three terms.

Barring the unexpected emergence of a hot Democratic candidate, that still means the party has no realistic shot at the 1st Congressional District seat until 2000.

If there’s any Democratic hope in the 1st District, it’s the way Williams lost by about 6,500 votes.

Williams’ strategy was to carry Ada County by 10,000 votes and hold down Chenoweth’s margin in traditionally GOP Canyon County so he could offset her support in the rest of the district.

He stopped her margin at 6,000 votes in Canyon County, one-third less than she had two years ago, only to lose Ada by 1,800.

Then the young, environmentally minded Boise lawyer did surprisingly well in the rural areas of the district. That suggests that sometimes-friendly Ada County cannot be taken for granted by Democrats and that something short of advocating resource extraction at nearly any price is not rejected out-of-hand outside the population center.

Democratic prospects are even dimmer in the 2nd Congressional District, where popular GOP Rep. Michael Crapo coasted to his third victory. The only question was whether he would reach 70 percent against unknown challenger John Seidl.

Seidl held Crapo to 69 percent, but it remains to be seen whether the campaign stamped Seidl as a legitimate contender for the future. And a third-party candidate kept his total under 30 percent.

The election results left state Controller J.D. Williams shaking his head. He remains alone - the only Democrat in Idaho holding a major elective office.

Which makes him the obvious target for Republicans in 1998. Just the Democrat behind his name on the ballot in two years makes Williams the underdog in an increasingly GOP atmosphere, no matter who runs against him. He hasn’t decided yet whether to seek another term, run for the Idaho Supreme Court or get out of politics.

State Democratic Chairman Bill Mauk has already decided to step down at the end of his second term early next year, and the party may have a hard time finding a successor for what promises to be a daunting and thankless rebuilding task.

Democrats were shellshocked after the legislative elections. They lost their traditional strongholds and some legislative veterans in northern Idaho. And Bannock County, which went Democratic with Franklin D. Roosevelt and stayed there until Tuesday, no longer can be counted on by the party.

Of the nine legislative seats in the Pocatello area, only four remain in Democratic hands.

And 1998 offers no indication of a turnaround.

Democrats would be hard-pressed to oust Republican Gov. Phil Batt if he seeks re-election as he indicated several days ago he might. And popular Republican Sen. Dirk Kempthorne is an equally imposing incumbent.

Minnick ran a better race than his 40 percent showing indicates, but if he challenges Batt or Kempthorne - something he says he won’t do - he could still be as much of an underdog as he was against Craig. Not an appealing prospect, and he may not want to put another $1 million of his personal fortune into a long-shot race.

What’s ahead for the Democrats?

They need some strong leaders, strong candidates. Most of all, they need a campaign theme for the party to rally around like the save-theenvironment pitch used by Cecil Andrus to win the 1970 governor’s race.

But it could be a long time before Idaho Democrats can compete on an equal footing with the deeply entrenched Republicans, let alone win the big ones.