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There's a Dark Horse Behind Governor's Race

By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
January 1, 1994


This column is to deliver two really timely messages:

* A year-end potpourri of the upcoming gubernatorial race.

* a brief but ever so pungent political Christmas message with a socio-economic eye-opener on the Republican story vs. the Democrat story.

As of today, the four serious contestants for the GOP nomination for governor are Phil Batt of Wilder and Larry Eastland, Chuck Winder and Doug Dorn, all of Boise. Batt is generally conceded by most politicos as way out in the lead, with a much-touted war chest of $200,000 already claimed.

Still, it is first and last like a horse race, i.e., it is far from decided yet, and each contender has told this writer he is really quite confident he will win. It's like a horse race in another respect, too, as there is a dark horse lurking in the background, believe it or not, in the person of Idaho's director of the Department of Commerce, Jim Hawkins, also of Boise.

Hawkins was appointed to his present post by Democrat Gov. Cecil Andrus, which could pose something of a problem, perhaps, with the GOP mossbacks. But then, the popular and extremely competent Commerce Department chief isn't absolutely sure yet that he wants to have his hat in the ring, anyway. Still, if the uneasy feeling persists that Batt may not be able to beat the so-far extra-popular liberal Democrat Attorney General Larry EchoHawk, Hawkins will get a lot more pressure to run.

Batt's big lead, of course, assures him of being shot at by all of the rest of his primary competitors, but most of these "shots" are somewhat typified in a recent interview with Chris Rich, manager of Eastland's campaign.

Rich: "The Batt organization seems content ... scheduling Phil into private fund-raising events while avoiding public or open fortune."

Smeed: "You said they think Batt's name ID is enough to let them coast. ... Hasn't he raised a lot of money?"

Rich: "That's my point. That's all he has done. Have you yet seen a Batt press release dealing with a substantive issue? No, and I doubt you will. EchoHawk's entrance into the race has accelerated the scrutiny of Batt as well as Eastland. It has helped us and hurt Batt ...

Issues are his Achilles' heel; he is a moderate in a conservative primary."

Other considerations no doubt will emerge from both parties' candidates as time goes on.

Here, now, is my above-mentioned Christmastime "eye-opener" on how to view the basics of each party, i.e., GOP vs. Democrat, regardless of who wins the primary next year. It is from P.J. O'Rourke's fantastically insightful book "Parliament of Whores":

"I have only one firm belief about the American political system. ... God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.

"God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable....

He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God's heavenly country club.

"Santa Claus is another matter. He's cute. He's non-threatening. He's always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who's been naughty and who's been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without a thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he's famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus."

In any case, avoid the candidate who implies he's either Santa - or God.



Business Should Seek Free-Market Solutions

By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
January 8, 1994


Easily one of the highlights of last year's public affairs in Idaho was the one prime, if rare, example of an incumbent politician's attempt to reduce government. It took place in Ada County, namely, Boise.

Ada County assesses its cable TV users a 2 percent tax along with some equally unnecessary regulations. Ada County Commissioner Gary Glenn proposed an ordinance repealing both the tax and the regulations, explaining that the county had no business continuing either one. Both of Glenn's fellow commissioners, who tend to love government anyway and who virtually never try to reduce it, arrogantly voted down Glenn's unusual proposal to give the taxpayers a break. Said proposal even had support from the Idaho Statesman whose cheerleading for smaller government is, well, less than spectacular. Nonetheless, my hat's off to them on this one.

But the even bigger news was the thunderous, if chicken-hearted, silence from the Boise Chamber of Commerce on the whole cable TV affair. Why the silence? Hard to say. But the suspicion lingers that their "commercial" organization typically heralds very little market for the market, i.e., the free, private enterprise market and limited government. Consider a parallel event:

Last year the Boise Chamber's representative of their Governmental Affairs Committee came to the Caldwell Chamber's Education Committee. His mission was to get Caldwell's Chamber to support reducing Idaho's constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority vote to approve bond issues to raise taxes for government schools. (Schools get 70.3 percent of the state's entire budget already.)

Mr. Ray Stark, the Boise Chamber's representative, explained that, "since many bond elections fail for lack of a big enough majority it would be great if we could get said 66 2/3 majority requirements reduced to 60 percent. That way the schools could get all the money they needed."

Stark was queried as to why Boise didn't ask that his "60 percent" requirement wasn't lowered to a mere 51 percent instead, thus assuring even easier voter approval. He explained they "wanted to give property owners at least some (his emphasis) protection against higher taxes."

Since I was a member of that very Caldwell Chamber Committee I inquired: "If that was the case, why didn't you Boiseans support the recent 1 percent Tax Limit Initiative for tax relief?" He made no response to that excellent and relevant question.

Given Stark's silence on tax limitation I then asked why Boise's Chamber never ever seemed to ask for Caldwell's help to reduce government - always they wanted help for more. Thus I asked Stark: "Doesn't your Chamber represent the business sector?" He willingly answered, "Yes."

"Well, then," I went on, "why don't you people ever push for free-enterprise solutions in the delivery of education if you think the schools are in such dire circumstances?

"If you big-city types were to furnish even a little bit of leadership for privatizing the government school system, then some real progress could be made to relieve the beleaguered schools, plus saving taxes as well.

"Even the educational voucher system (a middle-of-the-road approach, by the way) as advocated by the great Novel laureate Milton Friedman, would seem appropriate for the Boise Chamber's enthusiastic support."

But, given its long history of advocating government interventionism and statism of one kind or another, the prospect for leadership coming out of the Boise Chamber favoring non-government schools is indeed slim. Still, it is no less slim than some informed and public-spirited leadership for free-market capitalism.

All of which brings us, then, around to the question: Just where is Boise's Chamber leadership leading? Toward Congressman Larry LaRocco's now infamous "socialized agenda" perhaps? Think about it.



Nothing Like a Banquet to Bring Parties Together

By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
January 15, 1994


A week or so ago I visited at some length with 1st District Congressman Larry LaRocco, D-Idaho, about his recent flap with our senior U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. The latter's fund-raising letter said LaRocco had a "socialist agenda." Seems honest - OK?

But the statement upset the congressman in no uncertain terms, leading him to go public on several occasions with his vigorous protestations to the contrary.

During the above-mentioned visit I suggested, albeit in a rather lighthearted vein, that LaRocco might want to get even with Craig by calling the senator a capitalist. That would indeed be a label with even less "political correctness" than the label socialist.

The congressman smiled, as he's often wont to do, but with a quizzical sort of grin indicating a suspicion he was about to be had.

"No kidding, Larry," I said. "Craig would either have to admit to or deny the label. Either way he would be in trouble with one group or the other. Presumably he would have to admit to the label and if he did you'd have him, i.e., whenever his vote or his press releases deviate from a free market capitalist position you could blow the whistle on him. Considering how so much of the Senate tends so often to be statist, or if you like, socialist, these occasions would often be embarrassing - if not to Craig, who at least leans towards capitalism, then you could make big points rattling his liberal (read, socialist) Republican colleagues. Goodness knows there's plenty of those."

Well, there were several other mutual friends listening to our little banter and enjoying its entertainment. But then I added a real doozy, maybe even a blockbuster: "Hey, Larry, here's something we really could do. Seriously. And we wouldn't have to call a committee, take a poll or get anyone's permission. It'd only take a small amount of political guts and would surely be great sport. Let's you and I hold a full-blown press conference with all the TV stations, radio stations and newspapers with an enthusiastic public plea calling on the Republican Lincoln Day Banquet Committee to have you, Larry LaRocco, for their main speaker."

Our mutual friends (all this was at a party) then began to gather in closer, not knowing for sure whether Smeed was serious or not.

I hastily continued: "Then we would simultaneously call publicly for the Democrat's Jefferson-Jackson Day Banquet Committee to have Larry Craig for their main speaker. It'd drive the mossbacks up the wall. No joke. I'm dead serious. Let's do it, Larry."

LaRocco laughed uproariously and appropriately, of course, but as the idea's shock wore off a bit, our friends, several of whom were among Boise's major business and professional leaders, began to raise their eyebrows amidst their own considerable amusement with an increasing, almost a crescendo, believe it or not, appeal to LaRocco; "Why don't you do it Larry? It'd be great. Ralph has a splendid idea. Yes, by all means you should give it a try." (They were al amused, but plumb sincere.)

Well, LaRocco's countenance went from chuckle, to grin, to grimace, and back again, saying: "I'll call you, Ralph. I'll call you." So far, Larry hasn't called. And I'm genuinely sorry. Really I am.

Still, one wonders if it isn't really too much to expect that the biblical "Come let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18) is not really politically correct both on campus and in Congress alike.

That's my opinion. I'd like to hear yours.



Western Ways Rally Reveals Good, Bad Guys

By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
January 22, 1994


There are so many aspects to things going on these days including, but by no means limited to, the Legislature's being in session, that this might be a good time for my Roses and Razzberries awards.

* Roses for U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, U.S. Sen. Dirk Kempthorne, R-Idaho, and Congressman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, all of whom took part last Tuesday in the "Save Western Ways Rally." The big, well-attended event took place at the Boise Centre on The Grove and was held to protest some of the federal government's extremely asinine policies such as making an endangered species lock-up of a huge grazing area near Bruneau. This so-called species is a tiny snail about the size of the head of a pin, believe it or not.

Other policies of the Forest Service and the BLM - both spurred on, of course, by the environmental extremists - also were explained and denounced by the sponsors who included the Idaho Farm Bureau, Idaho Wool Growers, Idaho Cattle Association, J.R. Simplot Co., N.W. Timber Workers Council, Potlatch Corp., Coeur d'Alene Mines, United Paper Workers International Union, CH2M Hill, Craig, Secretary of State Pete Cenarrusa, Idaho Water Users Association, Boise Cascade, Northern State Bank and 30 or 40 others.

* Razzberries for Democrat Gov. Cecil Andrus and Congressman Larry LaRocco, D-Idaho, who were conspicuous by their absence. They boycotted the rally. Why? Because it was to support private property rights as well as to protest what the sponsors and the multipurpose users of government lands see as their being hassled by both state and federal bureaucrats. Andrus and LaRocco tend to love bureaucrats and are definitely soft on private ownership, if, indeed, they don't openly oppose it. No wonder they boycotted.

* Razzberries also for LaRocco and Andrus, who enjoy almost 100 percent of the glandular environmentalist vote, which must account for the governor's taking his party's Idaho office-holders "to the woodshed," warning them to also boycott the property rights and multiple-use rally on peril of his hardball tactics and patronage favors. A pretty rotten partisan ploy, by the way, in sinful and total disregard of the voters, i.e., if one believes in private ownership and Idaho jobs depending on natural resources.

* Roses for the labor union people who supported the rally notwithstanding the fact that LaRocco, Andrus and their absent Democrat cronies, including Attorney General Larry EchoHawk, enjoy probably 80 percent of the labor leader's traditional rubber-stamp support. That may tend to change now after all these years depending upon how the liberal media continues to frame the land-use jobs question.

* Roses for the large number of horse-drawn wagons and coaches and their owner-drivers, some from as far away as Jordan Valley, Ore., who made up a giant protest parade through downtown Boise. ditto for the real live logging trucks loaded with logs and the whole bit. These, along with many others, helped swell the ranks of the parade participants supporting the "Save Western Ways Rally."

* Razzberries for what many call the "watermelon" environmentalists (green on the outside, red on the inside) who staged a negative, albeit much smaller rally. It was characterized quite well by Idaho Statesman senior writer Charles Etlinger in his front page story the day before the rally. He wrote:

"The clash is between the Old West, where the land is worked and its resources developed, and the New West where the land is protected for its intrinsic value." Not bad reporting, I guess.

But I would have had a whole dozen roses for Etlinger had he instead, more accurately, written: "and the New West where the land is locked up."



Blame Loss of Morals on Faith in Government

By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
January 29, 1994


"I know of no way to predict the future," said the sage, "except by knowledge of the past." Well, then, since even the future ain't what it used to be, especially in the case of a growing juvenile delinquency problem, what happened?

The case in point, of course, is the 14-year-old Boise boy who is accused of shooting an immensely popular policeman.

Much could be said about Officer Ronald Wade Feldner's untimely and grisly death, which police suspect took place at the hands of the boy in a stolen car that Feldner was checking out in his hometown of New Plymouth. The huge outpouring of sympathy and respect shown at sympathy and respect shown at the funeral by the policeman's comrades from all over the Northwest was heartwarming at the very least. But where are we headed with our mores?

One pauses to remember our capital city of Washington, D.C., said to be the murder capital of the world. That item, alongside the fact America already has more people in prison per capita than any other industrialized nation, demands real "change," to borrow a much overused word from President Clinton.

But what sort of real change are the people, led by that self-same Clinton, actually demanding? Build more jails. Enact more laws. Pass more rules and regulations. but what about the risk of a police state? Is it real or merely the rantings of right-wing extremists or the National Rifle Association?

Well, it is so bad now that even the liberals (including the left-wing extremists about whom the liberal media is still almost rigidly silent) are demanding we "get tough on crime."

What is the problematic thread that runs though all this? More government. That's what we're hearing, folks. In spades.

We run to Big Brother government for nearly everything. Indeed, we've actually made a religion of government. We seem to have adopted a basic religious premise for its use - blind faith. That, my friends, may very well work in spiritual matters, but where government, i.e., power, is concerned, look out. Healthy skepticism is far better.

So extreme has the worship of government become that our high priests of it have even outlawed most meaningful reference to religion in our schools. Tell you something?

Ask yourself if your own church has not actually been a party to installing the welfare-state at all three levels of government. The mainline churches were often first in line to get government to take over their traditional role of welfare - caring for the poor, and, neither last nor least, education. Remember Harvard College in 1636 was actually a religious organization. Many say it's now a citadel of the secular humanists, if not the anti-religious.

Well, not the gutsy Rev. D. James Kennedy of coral Ridge Presbyterian church, fort Lauderdale, Fla., who broadcasts from there each Sunday morning on ABC-TV. To me he actually suggests a real "real change" by asking church members such questions as:

"Do you think American families are weakened by overtaxation? Would you be willing to pay additional taxes for more prisons and police to comply with the biblical mandate to punish crime? Do you believe that legalized gambling (lotteries, horse/dog racing and casinos) is a moral way to reduce crime? Do you think Christian ministers should speak out on today's pressing national issues?"

Regarding Kennedy's last question, I doubt most preachers have the guts. But separation of church and state was also meant to keep the two power-hungry entities from ganging up against the people - not to disembowel religious education about morality.



Big Brother Encroaches on Our Property Rights

By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
February 5, 1994


In all probability the San Francisco news this past week will not impress many Idahoans. But it most certainly should.

Was it another severe California earthquake? No. Well, sort of. Still, it was more like a governmental "earthquake," one with which, by the way, I have an uneasy sympathy as a reformed, or if you'd rather, ex-smoker. Here's why.

The onslaught against property rights got a big boost last week from people who, one supposes, have no intention of destroying or even diminishing property rights or the peaceful enjoyment thereof.

The AP story read: "Smokers in San Francisco businesses were forced out of their buildings and onto the streets Tuesday, as a city ordinance banning smoking in all workplaces took effect." This has far-reaching repercussions, big ones, so read on, carefully:

"While past ordinances have outlawed smoking in public areas and restricted smoking to private offices and designated rooms, the new ordinance knocks out the last indoor refuges for employees and employers who smoke..." said the city's senior health inspector, "I can't think of a building in San Francisco that won't be covered."

All in the name of the "pee-pull's" rights to health, one supposes. OK? Well, maybe. But stay tuned and I'll show you how this must affect Idahoans. The AP storyteller went on:

Anne Peterson, standing outside her building on Market Street, said, "It's very inconvenient. I just don't agree with the government telling us what we can and cannot do." At least Peterson's perception was more accurate than that of another San Francisco smoker, Edwina Brazier, who said, "The non-smokers have taken away all our rights."

Not so. It is not the non-smokers who are doing away with Brazier's rights. It is the government. Or, if you'd rather, it is only 51 percent of the San Franciscans. Maybe less. In all probability, if, indeed there was a vote at all, it is likely only a minority percentage turned out to vote. Of these then, it is likely from them some 51 percent was gleaned. Rule by consensus? rule by majority? Perhaps. Yet the bigger Big Brother gets, the smaller the little individual gets with his or her place in the sun. You can see it happening all over America.

That, my friends, includes Idahoans. Boise, Nampa, Caldwell and people all over the state are being affected by government exploiting the lack of understanding, if not also the dull-wittedness and the envy of the lumpen-proletariat, a Russian term for ordinary people, but one that is becoming alarmingly more appropriate here in America. Thanks mostly to the liberal educators, by the way.

Take for a fine example, one out of many, the newly authorized recreation complex now under way in Nampa. Its admitted cost is $6.5 million plus another big chunk for the senior citizens center. Hard to say what the final cost will be after the typical cost overruns, but the facility will be 100 percent Nampa city government-owned. How would you like to be a little entrepreneur with your life's savings invested in one of the many competing private recreation centers already in the surrounding area? And guess how many private new ones are likely to compete now.

OK then, here are my recommendations for Idaho citizens in general and Boise property owners in particular. Be concerned and give moral support, publicly, to others whose private property rights are also currently under attack, e.g., Boise's recently defeated recreational park bond election, the first of a massive proposed $100 million series. The timid Boise Chamber of Commerce should please take note that it is both freedom and people's property rights that are at issue, not just property taxes or the smoker's pleasure-driven habit.

And now you smokers should remember, somebody's property rights breathed life into your freedom to stink up the whole place for everyone else. That may be partly why private property itself is under attack.



Race Has No Place in Political Campaigns

By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
February 12, 1994


The big headline on the front page of the local section of the Feb. 5 Statesman read: "EchoHawk asks Indians to back his campaign." The story underneath was pretty well reflected by the headline. But while one cannot guarantee that will always be the case, said headline not only wrapped up the story's main thrust, it opened a political Pandora's Box.

As far as I know, Idaho Attorney General Larry EchoHawk's bid for the Democrats' nomination for governor is every bit as appropriate for that party as any other politician in the state. furthermore, I think he is a nice man, in all probability good to his wife and his children and no doubt wants to do good for his state, his country and his countrymen - of whatever race, creed or color.

Still, one wonders what would happen if Secretary of State Pete Cenarrusa, probably the only politician in the state anywhere near as popular statewide as EchoHawk, campaigned for re-election based on an appeal to his race.
Cenarrusa is every inch a Basque, and while their numbers are probably somewhat less than the Indians' voting population, the Basques are also active politically and likewise popular and influential in their respective communities.

Please don't misunderstand me; both the attorney general and secretary of state are without doubt fine, patriotic gentlemen. Both no doubt want to get all the votes they can along with all the campaign funds they can. Money usually translates into votes, of course, but whatever happened to ideas, issues, principles and party platforms?

And what, may we ask, does it add to a proper political campaign to so plainly introduce into such an important political contest the element of race? Cenarrusa can no more avoid the fact he is of Basque descent than EchoHawk can avoid the fact he is of Indian descent - not that either of them would want to avoid or even downplay each one's respective race. These are mere facts of life. Accidents of birth, if you like. Happily, however, Cenarrusa doesn't exploit race.

Early reports make no secret of EchoHawk's appeal for funds from fellow Indians and Indian tribes, including those who reside in other states. These reports, while just as understandable perhaps as other political appeals for funds from out of state, hold within them some uneasy parallels with other better-known special interests. Some of the latter are financial, some religious, some may be said to be moral, even spiritual, but there is one rather dramatic difference.
The non-liberal issues get to be seen in light of the media's penetrating spotlight.

The fact that the United States recognizes the Vatican in Rome, though by no means universally popular, does get discussed, openly, for the most part. Other religious questions - for example, prayer in the schools - tend to get openly questioned. Campaign contributions, ethics and motives of corporation lobbyists and others are spotlighted and questioned, quite properly.

But liberals such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, for example, tend to be asked all sorts of questions by the liberal media, except:
Why do he and his crowd insist on claiming, even shouting, to do away with racial discrimination by demanding simple-minded reverse discrimination? Is EchoHawk now that same type of racial liberal?

What would The Statesman's next headline say if all EchoHawk's competitors were to plead publicly for their own white comrades' vote, based precisely on race?

How about this for a hopeful headline: "All politicians should plead and pray for color-blind voters."



Governments Act As If They Owned the Country

By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
February 19, 1994


There is something of an alarming tendency among the political bodies of our society that needs desperately to be identified, analyzed and, if you like, resisted. Said tendency also pertains to all our quasi-governmental, quasi-public, and advisory boards and commissions.

Let's see if we can identify some of these and what a growing number of observances see as a kind of "threatening thread" running back and forth throughout these various groups.

Our Congress is hell-bent to pass laws as if they owned America. Our Idaho Legislature is similarly bent upon passing laws as if they owned the state. Our 44 county commissions pass ordinances as if they owned their counties. the city councils pass their legislation as if they owned their respective cities. And it's getting worse.

A case in point concerns two of the above-mentioned quasi-governmental boards, i.e., the county fair boards of two of the state's most important counties - Canyon and Ada.

The former has received the nod to host the huge Western Regional U.S. Team Roping Championship contest to be held Aug. 25-28 at Caldwell. They expect 2,000 teams to compete, thus a need for some 500 horse stalls to house the huge number of horses. since Caldwell has only about 250 horse stalls, the event's promoters asked for and received the blessing of the manager of Les Bois race track facility, which is a part of Ada County's fair board complex, to rent 300 of their 700 stalls.

Dr. Chris Christian, manager and lessee of Ada County's horse stalls, showed an exemplary attitude of quasi-governmental cooperation.

Well, it was cooperation. At least apparently until some politician's political turf was threatened. Two of the three Ada County commissioners (Commissioner Gary Glenn was in favor) vetoed Christian's written approval to rent out the stalls so critical to Caldwell's big upcoming event.

In fairness to commissioners Roger Simmons and Vern Bisterfeldt, who vetoed the plan, they claimed such an agreement to rent the horse stalls might interfere with the Ada County fair, which takes place that same week. Still, observers note that the Les Bois stalls can be reached easily by an entrance separate from the fair.

What's all this have to do with private property, you ask? Well, there are two ways to conduct management of property: (1) via bureaucrats and politicians or (2) by profit and loss. I submit, privatization is in trouble, and government-owned property is on the rise. Witness the Nampa city government's new multi-million dollar recreation center soon to be competing with private enterprise.

I am simply suggesting that all these items are but battles in a war of ideas arising largely from an insidious anti-business, anti-capitalist mentality. A recent statement by Bisterfeldt may make the Boise Chamber of Commerce blush, but it illuminates one of those threatening threads. He said:

"Government in this country has been in existence since 1776, and if privatization was such a great thing and hadn't been tried 65,000 times since 1776, it'd work. But it has been tried, every facet of it, everything.

"And it winds up when the private sector's doing it, they cheat the public, they cheat the government, and I don't give a damn what you say, they're in it for money, and when they can't get it legitimately, they will cheat to get it."

Egad.



Wallop Speaks Wisely of Errant Government

By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
February 26, 1994


Not since the great Congressman Dr. Walter Judd of Minnesota visited Idaho once in 1950 and later for Barry Goldwater's presidential bid in 1964, has the Republican party of Idaho heard such brains and talent.

U.S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop, R-Wyo., was the keynote speaker at the GOP Lincoln Day banquet in Boise last week for a packed house of cheering, chanting, applauding political Idahoans.

The huge crowd would no doubt have been glad to cheer as they have for years for almost any medium-quality, if well-spoken, Republican bigwig so long as he or she was from at least 200 miles away. But Wallop's speech may well have packed more political "wallop" than many of the party regulars had bargained for. Certainly it was more than the party's liberals expected.

Often billed as the brightest member of the U.S. Senate, the Wyoming solon is just completing his 18th year of a frustrating tenure as his state's chief Republican, but he's "had it" with a government that "touches almost everything in America and harms almost everything it touches." He's calling it quits and will not be a candidate for re-election to the office otherwise almost surely his again just for the asking. Here are a few of the reasons:

The education lobby, the welfare culture and public-employee unions seem hell-bent on working only for themselves and not for the people as a whole. "Most Americans," he says, "sense that our ever-rising taxes are feeding a machine hostile to our values."

"Over one generation," according to the outspoken Wyoming senator, "the government has doubled the amount of money it takes from us ... turned our public spaces over to criminals and our public schools into factories of ignorance. It has driven us apart on the basis of race and even of sex and, in the name of tolerance, made us intolerant."

But his own party ... and here is where almost all big-shot GOP politicians get sickeningly fainthearted - comes in for a big share of the blame. "Once in power," he says, "many Republicans promptly put on their tuxedos and became concerned with governance." Because Republicans were in power then, the liberal left agenda now had a perfect cover-up.

"The conservatives are bad, too," said Wallop. "George Will, the famous conservative columnist decrying what he calls 'pillage and burn conservatism' calls it 'unlovely.' But Will and many other conservatives merely assume big government is here to stay and the only question is who will run it. Well, they are wrong," says Wallop. "Disdain for modern government is wise, patriotic - yes, even lovely."

According to Wallop the Democrat Party has no choice but to be the party of big government. If the Republican Party refuses to express the people's opposition to this mess, then someone else will. A case in point is the people's fascination with Ross Perot who expressed people's discontent more clearly than either traditional party.

"I'm afraid," said Wallop to the Idaho GOPers, "that our party has too often become socialists with a smile." His reference, of course, was that the Democrats had already endorsed the socialist agenda and that the old "me-too" Republicanism was phony and therefore simply an abnegation of principles political leadership.

"Clinton's administration is forcing ... outrageous racial quotas and political correctness upon us (and) the American people have to tune in to Rush Limbaugh on the radio to hear their pretentious masters dissected.

"Where are the Republican leaders? Most of them just plain see themselves as rulers - exactly like the Democrats. Those who believe in principles now feel like outsiders."

So, hats off to Wallop who said a lot more, in spades, but most of it seems to go right over the heads of Idaho's Republican-controlled Legislature now in session.



BSU Curriculum Short on Private Enterprise

By Ralph Smeed
The Idaho Statesman
March 5, 1994


One wonders if there is a single topic that gets more heat and less light both in the usually statist news columns and on the editorial pages of The Statesman than the subject of government schools.

These are most often referred to as "public" schools, but, sad to say, such euphemistic rhetoric is almost never challenged because (1) education, undefined of course, has become such a sacred cow and (2) the typical media people, being really quite liberal, are mostly in sympathy with the likewise awfully liberal school system.

To their credit, there have been a few significant exceptions to the typical blank-check treatment given the financing of schooling on the edit-pages of the state's largest daily paper, but on the matter of curriculum and course content only scarce scrutiny is provided. They could and should do better.

A case in point might well be Boise State University's recent Local Government Training Institute presented by that school's Public Affairs Program in cooperation with Idaho Association of Counties and the Idaho Association of Clerks and Recorders. The program was headed up by BSU Professor Jim Weatherby, formerly the state director of the Idaho Association of Cities, one of a growing number of trade associations, by the way, for bureaucrats who never, ever advocate less government.

The institute was a seminar held over parts of three days at the Owyhee Plaza Hotel and was attended by about 75 county officials plus a miscellaneous few others interested in county affairs. I attended most of the institute's proceedings, about which here are a few observations:

the presentations were almost entirely given by professors whose schooling credentials seemed to be more abundantly heralded in advance than the subjects they were to cover, the Ph.D. degrees being highest in terms of "qualifications" offered. The subjects however, covered a larger spectrum of what the county taxing entities could do to expand their turf rather than how to lessen the taxpayer's burden. The latter subject was hardly even touched upon, which is why these affairs should get better scrutiny in the media.

Perhaps the best workshop, in my opinion by far the most substantive one, was "Natural Resources and Federal Lands" presented by Dr. John Freemuth. The BSU associate professor in political science has been the coordinator of the Frank Church Conference on Public Affairs since 1990; hence, one suspects he would not be expected to appeal to those interested in expanding the state's privately owned, tax-producing property base. Nor, by the way, would any of the institute's other workshops or presentations.

There was one small, if meaningful, exception to the dearth of references to any good or bad effects of local government on the private sectors of the state during the three-day affair. That was a fairly short speech by Barrett Rainey in which he called for substantial reduction in several facets of government. Rainey is president and CEO of Idaho Health Care Association. Presumably any private organization such as Rainey's would not be expected to call for leadership toward less government, but at least his was a refreshing reference to the institute's generally statist thrust.

In fairness to the affable and enthusiastic Weatherby, his whole professional life is the govern-mentality, I also think he is sincere in the pursuit of almost always more government, which he studies and loves. He is also intelligent.
 

The Pragmatic Side of Principle in Pursuit of Public Policy