Who is Idaho’s governor?
I’m not asking, “who is Brad Little?”. Everyone knows who he is because he hung around the Capitol for two decades waiting for Butch Otter to retire. What I want to know is who I am really running against for governor.
After Brad Little’s State of State speech, I am pretty sure the real decision-makers are not elected by the public at all: Republican Chair Dorothy Moon and Idaho Freedom Foundation head Ron Nate.
Mr. Little has proposed fixing bridges, fixing schools, and running the internet to rural Idaho. (I am, of course, all for that). But a real leader–one who has been a top Idaho politician since the last century–would have accomplished those things already. In his speech, Mr. Little admitted that he has let problems fester so badly that raw sewage now runs beneath one Idaho school cafeteria. That’s a problem that a responsible true leader would never, ever, let happen in the first place. It’s beyond appalling–it’s unforgivable.
But it’s not just his feckless leadership that tells us Mr. Little is not our real governor; it’s the meanness.
Mr. Little bragged about using the Government to persecute a group that is the most powerless, most frightened, most bullied, and smallest in number in the state: transgender kids. That’s Dorothy Moon for sure.
Mr. Little also proposed cutting Health and Welfare to pay for schools. That just creates more problems. Cut today and to hell with tomorrow: that’s the kind of budgeting that made Ron Nate and the Idaho Freedom Foundation famous.
And of course, Mr. Little’s promise to fight for obscene anti-abortion laws that make Idaho the deadliest state in the nation for a woman is clearly the work of governors Moon and Nate.
One thing Mr. Little said that I agree with: We can do better.