The South Fork of the Boise River

Blue Broad in a Red State

Another two days on the road in D23. If you want to see first hand a hard-working people and an incredible landscape--this is the place to do it. Everywhere we went today we saw families shopping and working and eating at Burger King; everywhere people were laughing. Like many parts of Idaho, however, the historic downtowns were struggling and there are closed signs on many businesses. These small businesses, Mexican restaraunts and steakhouses, florists, and gift shops, the Old Kings "five and dime," coffee shops with wi-fi, diners with specials of the day, city newspapers, even bars and groceries have become few and far between. 

Yesterday I worked on Jody's logo (help any graphic artists!!!!) which is a version of the Democratic "Kicking Donkey) 

which we are adapting to a kicking Jack Rabbit (these are a strange and fascinating local creature you should look up if you don't have them where you live - they look like a cartoon creation).

Right now we are trying to meet people who are democrats in order to get committments from as many individuals as possible to write-in "Jody Bickle" on their ballot May 15th. This is more difficult than it seems because this year only democrats can vote in a democratic primary -- independts (and there are many in Idaho,) have only a few judges on their ballot and Republicans cannot cross over as in past years when one could take the ballot of their choice on the Primary vote.  Thus the Dem ballot is fairly empty; no one is running for most positions leaving Republicans unopposed. This empty ballot is a long list of blank spaces with "WRITE-IN" printed on it, and getting Jody's name in the right space is not as easy as it sounds.

We have printed a card showing how the write in should look with a copy of our section of the ballot on one side and the proper spelling of her name on the other. 

 

Right now this is the most important thing, but we hope to have our palm cards soon so that we can begin to make contact with independent and Republican voters. Our opponent, upopposed in the last election, still got 7000 votes and we only have 3400 Dems in the Distrtict. There are, however, 14,000 UNKNOWN voters in the district -- that means a lot who are not registered, or who have not participated enough to show up on registries. 

I got the first pages up on our website www.jodybickle.com

Here is the slide show we are using on the webpage to track our travels, the places and people we meet. Soon I hope to have portrait and stories of families, community businesses and individuals included on the photo blog. Today we are off again to Twin Falls, one of my favorite towns in the state, (unfortunately not included in our D23 district as a more substantial few hundred dems live there. Tonight is the Democratic meeting, however, and we hope to make contact with a people willing to help the campaign, perhaps host a house party, or at least to meet people from the surrounding area to the west just outside of town, which IS in our district. After the meeting we will go on to Jackpot, Nevada where we have coupon for a free room for the night and there is a two-for-one buffet! Maybe we can play the nickel slots (I like the Mermaids game where the girls in the cartoon are so delighted when I get a bonus) and win enough to pay for our next palm card.  

Blue Girl in a Red State: Visions of District 23

I live in Idaho. I came here when I was 14, when my father took a position at Boise State University, teaching Theatre. After living in Arkansas for some years I returned home in 2010 to work as co-campaign manager for the Democratic primary campaign of my friend Cherie Buckner Webb. We won that primary with 79% of the vote and she won the seat also by a large margin that November after taking on a real campaign manager. Cherie lives in one of the few districts in Idaho that consistently does elect a democrat, but the work was hard, nevertheless, and she never let any of her staff forget that it takes constant work, dedication, integrity, and committment to win-- even in District 19, Idaho's "liberal" enclave. The work goes on in the State Legislature.

Today I began a journey with my sister-in-law and friend Jody Bickle as she went public with her write-in campaign for Idaho State Representative, Legislative Seat A in District 23. If she can get 50 people in D23 to correctly write her name on their democratic ballot, she can go up against long-time a incumbent in this conservative district, Rich Wills, in the general election in November. I joked all day that they call it D23 because there are only 23 Democrats in region.  It isn't that funny of a joke, since the recent re-districting drew careful outlines around the population centers in the area like Buhl (pop. 4122) and Twin Falls (pop. 44,145) so that no possible wild groups of unruly democrats might threaten to run a sucessful campaign.

downtown Mountain Home, the main population center for the district and near Mountain Home AFB

Right now the Idaho Legislature isn't really a two-party system -- Democrats holding 7 out of 35 seats in the Senate, and 13 out of 70 seats in the Legislature. Because of severe and debilitating cuts to education, and our recent prominence in the National News due to a propose pre-natal ultra-sound bill and the related shocking comments by Sen. Chuck Winder (see Huffington post article) there are four write-in campaigns being prepared this month. I am proud to be friends with three out of the four citizens who have come forward to take on this challenge: Victoria Brown in Canyon County d11, James Mace challenging Winder in  d20, and Jody Bickle in D23. I am also taking campaign portraits for those races and several others.

I am acting as campaign manager for the Primary write-in race for Jody, and if the soreness of my feet and head tonight are any indication, it is going to be a difficult and exciting six weeks until May 15. By that time we must have found the elusive 50 dems in D23 and persuaded them to approach the ballot box with pen in hand to write in Jody Bickle's name and give us a shot at the general election in November.

So, I'm putting this blog to work. For my own sanity, and to record the incredible travels we will be making across the backroad and rural farmlands of one of the most beautiful areas of the state, I plan to document -- mostly in photos, our progress.

Here are the first photos from today. And here, for the curious, is a little information about District 23 (9374.8 Population per sq. mile: 4.9.) -- yes you read that right square miles 9374.8. OMG! On the map you can see how the district has been neatly cut out to exlude those teeming liberal metropolises of Buhl and Twin Falls.

fields near Grandview, late afternoon

barely spring branches

irrigation ditch at dusk near Grandview

w whistle pigs in a vacant lot in Mountain Home

A Few More Recent iPhone Ballet

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