Full Scale Civil War in Moscow

Okay, this is a bait-and-switch thread headline. The real one is...

Republican Civil War Devastates One Party Politics In Red, Red Idaho



Earlier today we poked around a little in the silliness around the House Republicans quest for an Eric Cantor replacement, a very key job in their obstructionist m.o. We thought the absurdity of Idaho libertarian Raúl Labrador would be the best palate cleanser after Cantor… but not one with even the vaguest of chances to beat the Kevin McCarthy wind-up doll. And whatever chance he may have had-- say one in ten thousand-- was further reduced as reports are an eruption of full scale civil war in Moscow leaked out today. Moscow, Idaho-- the site of this year's Idaho Republican Party convention.

Let's be clear, the last time a Democrat got elected to a federal office in the blood red state-- which elected just 13 Democrats out of 70 in the state House and gave Obama just 33% of its vote in 2012-- it was Blue Dog Walt Minnick in 2008, a former Nixonite who became a "Democrat" in 1996 and who was so far to the right that he almost never voted with Democrats on anything other than naming post offices. He was handily defeated (41.3% of the vote) by Labrador in 2010, after one pathetic term, which did help him get another job he was better suited for-- as a lobbyist for one of Washington's sleaziest firms, the Majority Group. Minnick was the only Democrat to ever receive a perfect score from the Club for Growth and the only congressional Democrat endorsed by the Tea Party, having voted against the Affordable Care Act, against Obama's Stimulus bill and against the clean energy act.

Labrador isn't an improvement, but he has been more interesting, not being part of the corrupt corporate Establishment that has rotted out the core of both Beltway-centric political parties. And he's very popular back hime-- or at least he was until yesterday, when he chaired the state convention.