Supposedly, a political vacuum tends to be filled

After the endless craziness of Florida, let it never be said that your vote does not count.

The number of registered voters in Bonner County is teetering near the 20,000 mark. (In 1990, the county population was only 27,000.) And 71 percent of them made the pilgrimage to the voting booth in November, proving that Bonner County is anything but apathetic.

This typically active voting created a startling result: every single race Bonner County voted in was won by a Republican. Not just local, not just state and not just national but every single race.

In a brief survey of county records, I could not find that this has ever happened. Discounting the Bud Mueller and Larry Allen election of 1996, the last time two Republicans had been elected county commissioner was a distant 1974. The last time all of our area's state officials were Republican was sometime before the sinking of the Maine.

Anyway you cut it, it was a landslide for the GOP. Polling a staggeringly poor 24.5 percent statewide and 39 percent locally, defeated Democratic State Rep. June Judd of St. Maries put it bluntly and succinctly: They (the Republicans) have organized their party so well, and ours isn't. Ours is in shambles.

Quite so.

I don't have the benefit of supercomputers, independent consultants or exit polling to make my analysis. All I can do is look at a few numbers, read a few clippings and remember bits of my own 10 years here.

Bonner County had been designated by the state Democratic Party as having a strong Democratic base. And certainly, the history justified that description. In the 1986 governor's election that was very close statewide, Bonner County voters went 2-1 for Democrats. Not just any Democrat, of course, but Cecil Andrus.

Then, just two years ago, four local Democrats won major contested races, polling 55 percent of voters that year. Adding to that former Democratic Rep. Jim Stoicheff's decades in the House, most would say that this was still a Democratic county.

But I wonder if anyone, particularly the Democrats, were really watching by what slim margins this was barely holding true. Democrat Susan MacLeod had won in 1988 and 1990 but by tight margins of only 400 votes. And in 1994, Steve Klatt beat challenger Bill Denman by a margin of only 324 votes.

Then in 1992 the wake-up call came: four-term incumbent Commissioner Jim McNall lost in the primary to political newcomer Norm Bonner. But it didn't stop there. The resulting explosive turmoil in the party led to the disaffection of valuable supporters and potential leadership.

Then Steve Klatt was throttled by another political newcomer, Mueller. And as this election became the last act in the drama, Dale Van Stone lost to the newest of the newcomers, Jerry Clemons.

The Democrats are, if not out, on the ropes.

Republicans have had their own share of struggles. As the traditional bridesmaid party and with no strong leadership, in the mid-1990s they were ripe for being influenced by issue-specific factions and, not surprisingly, disenfranchised and fringe conservatives redirected its focus.

They became the throw-the-bums-out party, the power-to-the-people party but with a far-right spin weaved by such people as tax resister Bill Denman and anti-regulation Gene Brown and Mueller.

Promises of massive deregulation and tax cuts never materialized but amid the lawsuits and name calling, neither brought about any other substantive policy direction.

For us, on the sidelines of a process that too often seems to be a combination of "The Drew Carey Show" and the Monica Lewinsky hearings, suffering through this decade of political confusion, what are we to think?

Copyright 2000 Cowles Publishing Company
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