JEERS ... to Idaho state schools Superintendent Sherri Ybarra.
Halloween came early last week when the Republican incumbent held a cringe-worthy campaign event.
Exhibit A: The setting - an Eagle bar called the Gathering Place.
What's the face of Idaho school children doing holding a fundraiser in a watering hole?
And why impose this campaign rally on about three dozen unsuspecting customers who merely wanted to blow off some steam at the end of a work week?
According to Idaho Education News' Clark Corbin , they "didn't know Ybarra and were not aware a campaign event was taking place that night. Eventually, a group of pool players grabbed Ybarra signs and posed for photos with Ybarra after she urged them to participate in a fundraiser."
Exhibit B: The host - former Mountain Home Junior High School Principal William McCarrel Jr. He owns the Gathering Place.
In 2011, the Professional Standards Commission yanked his teaching and administrator's certificates amid allegations that he:
- Subjected a staffer to questions about posing nude in pictures, joining in a "threesome" and flashing her breasts.
- Asked a worker if she "liked it rough" while he grabbed her hair from behind.
- Inquired whether an employee would allow him to view her pumping breast milk.
McCarrel worked with Ybarra at Mountain Home.
"He was punished for that, and he's still a friend of mine," Ybarra told IEN. "We're not around kids right now, we're at a fundraiser."
Exhibit C: The ghost - that would be Ybarra, who has pulled a disappearing act, claiming she's too busy to attend forums with her Democratic opponent, Cindy Wilson.
This goes beyond the stumbling, bumbling Ybarra Idaho has tolerated for the past four years. But as a Republican in a one-party state, she is favored to win a second term.
Now that truly is frightening.
CHEERS ... to Lewiston School District Superintendent Bob Donaldson and Assistant Superintendent Lance Hansen.
Considering all the turmoil with the airport, city fee increases and county elections, Lewiston has enjoyed one bright spot - movement toward building its new high school.
That picture got even brighter earlier this week when the administrators announced a memorandum of understanding with the Idaho Division of Career and Technical Education.
In essence, it means a center of Lewiston excellence - the new career and technical education center - will expand its reach.
Lewiston is building new layers of synergy between public education and Lewis-Clark State College.
This benefits young people beyond Lewiston, potentially frees up resources for a more robust regional program and provides north central Idaho industry with trained workers.
JEERS ... to Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden.
As Betsy Russell of the Idaho Press pointed out, the Republican incumbent has placed his wife, Tracey, on the payroll as his campaign manager.
So far, she has been paid about $5,800.
That's taking a page from Congressman Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, who paid his wife, Rebecca, about $2,000 a month for doing the campaign books during the bulk of his eight-year run, as well as Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, who allocated about $200,000 worth of contributions from his political action committee, Freedom Fund, to his wife, Susan, during two decades.
In other words, they took special interest cash and converted it toward paying mortgages and buying groceries.
In Wasden's case, we're talking about a less serious offense.
Tracey Wasden will be on her husband's re-election campaign staff for the duration of the election season and then move on.
Wasden's campaign has raised almost $50,000 so far - a pittance compared to the sums Labrador and Crapo deal with.
Just the same, the arrangement means some of the money from organizations such as PhRMA, the National Beer Wholesalers Association, Idaho Forest Group and Citi Group will find its way into the Wasden family budget.
No one in Idaho government has a keener sense of what's ethical and what's not. If Wasden is willing to behave in this manner, you can bet others will eagerly follow his example.
JEERS ... to state Reps. Priscilla Giddings, R-White Bird, and Paul Shepherd, R-Riggins.
If they want to oppose Proposition 2 - the antidote to six years of Republican legislative intransigence to the plight of an estimated 62,000 Idaho adults who will remain uninsured unless Medicaid is expanded - that's one thing.
But why are they playing along with a hypocrite?
Giddings and Shepherd have joined with State Rep. Bryan Zollinger, R-Idaho Falls, who rounded up about 20 House conservatives to urge Prop 2's defeat in the Nov. 6 election.
If Prop 2 wins, he loses. Zollinger is an attorney with the firm of Smith, Driscoll & Associates. Along with Idaho Republican Party Second Vice Chairman Bryan Smith of Idaho Falls, he is engaged in the practice of hunting down people who can't pay their medical bills.
Give people Medicaid and Zollinger and Smith will lose business.
Are Giddings and Shepherd such anti-Obamacare zealots that they're willing to put this medical bill chaser's business model before the best interests of their own communities?
JEERS ... to Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter.
He just locked the state into another four years of going along with the Bonneville Power Administration's fish recovery policies.
Essentially, it continues Otter's decade-long agreement under which Idaho would accept BPA's millions in exchange for not challenging the agency in court.
Whether you support the lower Snake River dams or believe plummeting stocks of salmon and steelhead warrant a more confrontational tone, this much is beyond dispute:
Otter won't be governor these next four years.
He's out the door in about 10 weeks. Why is he preventing his would-be successors - Republican Lt. Gov. Brad Little or Democrat Paulette Jordan - from forging their own course? If Otter's so sure he knows best, why didn't he run for re-election? - M.T.
