{"id":13655,"date":"2020-06-24T00:35:45","date_gmt":"2020-06-24T06:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=13655"},"modified":"2020-06-24T00:35:45","modified_gmt":"2020-06-24T06:35:45","slug":"the-evolution-of-eric-parker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/06\/24\/the-evolution-of-eric-parker\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evolution Of Eric Parker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three-percenter goes from federal custody to campaigning for Idaho Senate<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Eric Parker \u2018pounds the pavement\u2019 on his bid to be elected to the Idaho State Legislature. Photo credit: Eric Parker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In April 2014, Hailey resident Eric Parker became an icon. That\u2019s when Reuters photographer Jim Urquhart pointed his camera lens at a prone-positioned Parker lying between concrete roadside barriers with his high-capacity rifle aimed at federal officers who were in a standoff at Cliven Bundy\u2019s ranch.<\/p>\n

By 2016, Parker\u2019s involvement in the matter put him in hot water with federal authorities and nearly landed him in prison for decades. Two hung-jury trials later and facing a third trial, Parker pled guilty to misdemeanor obstruction of a court order.<\/p>\n

Cut to 2020: And now, Parker has his sight set on the Idaho State Legislature; specifically, the Senate seat occupied since 2010 by Michelle Stennett (D\/Ketchum) who, if it were not for Parker, would be running unopposed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m strongly against the idea of anyone running unopposed. I want to give District 26 a second option,\u201d Parker said.<\/p>\n

Parker, 36, describes his chances of winning as \u201cprobably pretty low\u201d and says polls and which candidate has more financial backing or endorsements are things he doesn\u2019t \u201cthink about much.\u201d Nonetheless, given the events of the last two months\u2014specifically, the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement\u2014he thinks voters may be thinking a little differently these days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see priorities as shifting,\u201d Parker said.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s the Economy,\u2019 Stennett<\/b><\/p>\n

Parker said in the discussions he\u2019s having with voters, recovering from the economic downturn\u2014 triggered by the lockdowns and phased reopenings\u2014has become a priority. Since the economic crisis seems to be impacting small businesses, blue-collar workers and service industry folks most, it\u2019s not a stretch that a sort of populist candidate like Parker could make some headway with voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a working-class candidate and I think we need more working-class political representatives,\u201d Parker said. \u201cThis is about getting Main Street back on track.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker, an electrician, noted that the frustration is high for the working class. He said his nearly month-old unemployment claim has still gone unanswered by the state and he knows many others in the same boat. How do incumbents lose their seats? When voters feel unheard.<\/p>\n

Other Priorities for Parker<\/b><\/p>\n

Perhaps the loudest voice right now is the protestors\u2014worldwide now\u2014calling for some wholesale changes to a variety of political, legal and social norms. Most prominent are calls from the Black Lives Matter movement to defund the police. And that\u2019s where sayings like \u201cextremes come full circle\u201d and \u201cpolitics make for interesting bedfellows\u201d take on fresh meaning.<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s as unfair and dismissive to paint a BLM activist with the wide brush of \u201cradical left\u201d as it is to place an \u201calt-right\u201d moniker on Parker, if you\u2019re stereotyping to save time, those are the two buckets in which you\u2019ll probably place both. What ties them together, Parker notes, is the desire to shift the balance of power away from establishment and bureaucracy and over to individuals and local communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the executive branch (of any level of government) leads unilaterally and makes big decisions on its own, it\u2019s going against the way our government was originally set up,\u201d Parker, the founder of The Real 3%ers of Idaho, said.<\/p>\n

For Parker, the defunding topic is more about de-militarizing law enforcement, examining the efficacy and constitutionality of things like no-knock search warrants, and letting communities decide how much armed patrol and armed response they need.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I talk to veterans who have come back from war zones, one of their biggest concerns is that the same control grid they saw there is being erected here at home,\u201d Parker said, referring to what he described as \u201ccombat thinking\u201d by law enforcement.<\/p>\n

In addition to making sure the state is doing everything it can to help veterans, Parker said other priorities of his campaign platform include:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Public access to public lands\u2014\u201cI\u2019m a hunter. I\u2019m a mountain biker. I want to make sure lands are managed with the public in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Educational freedom\u2014\u201cFrom supporting homeschooling to charter schools, I think the money should follow the students.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 National Guard protection\u2014\u201cThe states should be able to say whether to use their National Guards unless the full body of Congress makes a declaration of war.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three-percenter goes from federal custody to campaigning for Idaho Senate By Eric Valentine In April 2014, Hailey resident Eric Parker became an icon. That\u2019s when Reuters photographer Jim Urquhart pointed his camera lens at a prone-positioned Parker lying between concrete roadside barriers with his high-capacity rifle aimed at federal officers who were in a standoff […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,26,36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-politics","9":"category-slider"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}