District 6 Update

Things are pretty interesting here in Idaho's sixth district, Latah County. Latah County Dems are on the front lines of one of the most important races in Idaho this election.

The District 6 Senate Seat.

The interesting thing about this race is that the seat in question is currently held by Republican Gary Schroeder. Representative Schroeder is one of the very few moderate Republicans serving in the Senate. It is for this reason that some of the Tea Party radicals in this area mounted a primary challenged against Rep. Schroeder.

Schroeder lost to Gresham Bouma, a Tea Party radical.



Just so you can get a feel for this guy's wingnut cred, check out this next image, garnered from Mr. Bouma's facebook feed:



That's right. He supports Rex Rammel for Governor. I'm sure many reading this have a fairly strong recollection of just how . . .intriguing . . .of a candidate Rex Rammell is.

Anyway, I did some research into this race and found that Rep. Schroeder won his last election in 08 57-43. For an Idaho race with a long-time incumbent, that's pretty darned close. A couple of things lean in our favor. First of all, the fact that this is an open seat. It is much easier for us Dems to win an open seat that it is for us to try to unseat an incumbent. Second, the fact that Gresham Bouma really is so far to the right that it turns off many of the Republicans who would have otherwise likely voted for Schroeder.

Of course, this is by no means in the bag. Everyone knows that Republican voters are motivated and Democratic voters are disillusioned this election cycle. Still, Latah County Democrats and UI Democrats are doing whatever they can to get out the message and the vote. This is a race where Democrats actually stand a chance of picking up a seat. If you are going to donate to any local race in Idaho this election cycle, I humbly suggest that you make it this one.

By doing so, we can help Dems pick up another seat by putting a great guy, Dan Schmidt, in there. At the same time we will be preventing a radical rightwing Tea Party extremist from making law in the Idaho State Senate. I'm telling y'all, the more Tea Party nutbaggers get into the Idaho Senate, the more the Idaho Senate will start to resemble the Idaho House. A scary prospect.



I think Democrats in Latah County would do well to emphasize to voters the extremist nature of Mr. Bouma. I've also heard rumblings that Bouma may be connected to Moscow's controversial Conservative-oriented Christ Church, which is lead by the even more controversial Doug Wilson, who once wrote a book in defense of southern slavery.

Any thoughts on this race? Or on races in your own district?