In their twilight years, former Vice President Hubert Humphrey (very liberal) and former Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (very conservative) carried out a nimble-witted exchange of good-natured insults that bespoke an affectionate personal friendship.
One Humphrey wisecrack that Goldwater relished repeating was the observations that "Barry would've been a great success in movies working for 18th Century Fox," a putdown of Goldwater's supposed backward-looking Republican philosophy.
The Humphrey perspective of Goldwater came to mind last weekend while reading reports about the state GOP convention and delegate proposals that might strike most people as, well, wildly askew, if not crackpot.
There was a movement to form an Idaho state militia to sub for the Idaho National Guard during natural disasters. (Article 14 of the Idaho Constitution already requires such a militia, but statutes to implement it have not been passed in all these years.) This latest gambit smells like a copycat version proposed in other states to "resist" the federal government, whatever that means.
Another GOP proposal would allow citizens to pay local and state tax bills in silver and gold. This an old standby of the rancorous hate-government right wing. Is there enough instantly available silver and gold to pay taxes? Where?
Delegates lined up behind a resolution supporting repeal of the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1913 to allow for popular election of U.S. senators instead of appointment by state legislators. Idaho's GOP delegates apparently yearn for smoke-filled backroom deals to pick U.S. senators, not citizen elections.
Another proposal would shut down public schools and end school health programs.
There's also the loyalty oath requiring allegiance by politicians to the party platform—or an explanation of why they aren't.
A call Tuesday morning to the state GOP headquarters to find out which proposals were adopted wasn't productive. GOP Executive Director Jonathan Parker said it would be next week before a final tally is distributed.
However, one delegate, Jim Hollingsworth, of very conservative Kootenai County, cheerfully boasted to the AP that "we voted down anything that would've made us look foolish."
Not quite.
Merely proposing these musty old shibboleths, and endorsing some of them, makes the state GOP look foolish anyway. With control of the state party apparatus firmly held by cranky right-wingers whose minds are stuck in a twilight zone, Idaho Republicans are abandoning the state's real needs in favor of silly, self-indulgent, ideological exhibitionism that makes Sarah Palin look like a high-IQ member of Mensa.
