Sali election keeps district’s reputation intact

Growing up in the 1960s, I loved everything Simon and Garfunkel did. One year my high school yearbook ended with the lyrics from “Old Friends.” Our unofficial theme song was “America.” I remember a heated argument with my literature teacher my senior year over how good a poem “The Sound of Silence” was – I think that “Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again” is even better 36 years later.

I was brought into this reminiscence after the recent midterm elections. Idaho’s 1st Congressional District made it into the national headlines a second time in just a few weeks on Nov. 10, this time with the Paul Simon title “Still Crazy After all These Years,” and with the subtitle “The nuttiest congressional district in America keeps its reputation intact.” The headline from Oct. 17 was “The craziest Congressional District in the Country.” Both articles are political commentary from the online magazine, Slate, by former Idahoan Bruce Reed.

I wrote about Reed’s first article Nov. 4 in which he reviewed Helen Chenoweth-Hage’s history as Idaho’s 1st District representative from 1995 to 2000 and Bill Sali’s 16-year tenure in the Idaho Legislature. I ended that article with a quote from San Francisco Examiner sports columnist Art Spander: “The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.”

On election day, 1st District voters did just that. Come January, Sali will be taking Butch Otter’s seat in the U. S. House of Representatives, and as Chenoweth-Hage’s heir, Sali will have the chance to reclaim the congressional notoriety she once fostered.

I’m sure that his Republican colleagues in the Idaho Legislature are relieved to have Sali leaving. Recall that Republican Speaker of the Idaho House Bruce Newcomb stumbled all over himself in describing Sali as “that idiot (who) is just an absolute idiot.”

Also recall that the previous Republican speaker of the Idaho House and the current 2nd Congressional District representative, Mike Simpson, the man who will work most closely with the new junior representative from Idaho, had threatened, in frustration, to throw Sali out a third-floor window. Republican House colleagues had suggested the fourth floor would have been better.

With the Idaho Republican establishment solidly against Sali in the primary, he was still able to win in a field of six candidates, but with the help of large campaign donations from out-of-state social conservative groups. Sali was the top money-raiser in that primary and had raised $244,000 by the end of 2005, according to Dan Popkey, writing in the April 7 Idaho Statesman.

In Reed’s second article on the 1st District, “Still Crazy After all These Years,” he notes that while Republicans were going down in flames all over the country, “Idaho Republicans enjoyed a historic night. They held both congressional seats and the governorship with ease and won every statewide office for the first time since the Hoover landslide in 1928.”

As Reed went on to point out, “The rest of America may be hungry for common-sense centrists who’ll change the tone and solve the country’s problems. But in Idaho, voters looked at the extremism of the last six years and said, ‘Bring it on,’ ‘Stay the course,’ and ‘Full steam ahead!’ “

In all of this, I am reminded of several more Simon and Garfunkel tunes. While the rest of the country is humming “We’ve Got A Groovy Thing Goin’ ” after the election, Idaho Democrats are still crying “Slip Slidin’ Away.”

But now that Idaho voters have spoken, I hope they don’t think their responsibility is over for another two years. Idaho constituents of the 1st Congressional District have planted their own roadside bomb in the U. S. House of Representatives, so I am counting on them to pay attention to what Sali does with himself and with our representation.

On the relatively obscure stage of the Idaho Legislature, Sali could parade his ignorance and irresponsibility with impunity. But now he has a much larger stage from which to humiliate our district and continue the legacy of our other clown representative, Helen Chenoweth-Hage.

“Sali boasts that he’s the one guy who’ll have the backbone to stand up to Nancy Pelosi,” writes Reed. “Visitors might want to avoid the Capitol grounds beneath her window.”

Sali has said: “Politics is a full-contact sport, and I think people are smart enough to figure out who’s right and who’s not.” The recently concluded midterm elections would seem to bear that out, but Idaho, unlike the majority of the country, seems a little slow on the uptake.

If Sali performs in Washington the way he did in Boise, he’ll be whistling “Fakin’ It” in no time. For now, says Reed, “The craziest congressional district in America has kept its reputation intact.” We can only hope that a watchful 1st District electorate will reconsider their choice of Simon and Garfunkel titles and will send Sali off singing “Homeward Bound” in November, two years hence.