{"id":20615,"date":"2024-03-06T01:24:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-06T08:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=20615"},"modified":"2024-03-04T15:30:09","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T22:30:09","slug":"blaine-county-democrats-event-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/06\/blaine-county-democrats-event-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Blaine County Democrats Event Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

Organization, recruitment are focus<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL<\/em><\/p>\n

With primary elections proceeding in several countries around the world, those in the United States are about to watch a changing of the top guard. The battle between red, blue and independent has been ferocious and the ultimate match arrives this November 5th. In our last issue, we brought the news of the Blaine County Republican Women\u2019s (BCRW) group and their game-changing community updates. This week, the Blaine County Democrats (BCD) are in the spotlight, with Brent Robinson the Blaine County State Committeeman.<\/p>\n

Enter Brent Robinson<\/strong>
\nBrent Robinson is a longtime Blaine County resident, having owned property in the Wood River Valley for nearly 40 years and lived here full time for the last 14 of those years. Robinson was president of several banks and previously held the position of treasurer for the BCD. It\u2019s safe to say he knows finance and how it plays such a huge role in their organization. Finances are critical to all ventures and the ethics of finance ultimately define the organizational aptitude you see play out in the community.
\nOrganization and recruitment is the primary strategy the Democratic Party wields. It\u2019s in the language of their mission statement: \u201dOur goal is to recruit, elect, and support public officials who share our core democratic values. Join us in promoting progressive and effective policies for our county community. Working together, we will make Blaine County a safe and healthy environment for all\u201d (blainecountydemocrats.org). With 16 Democratic precincts in Blaine County, each has a captain; 14 of the 16 precincts have captains serving presently while the BCD are recruiting new captains for Carey and Yale.
\n\u201cBlaine County is part of Idaho District 26, which consists of three counties: Blaine, Lincoln and Jerome. We have state Senate positions occupied by Democrats and there are two positions in the Idaho House of Representatives who represent our district. One of the two is Ned Burns, who is a strong Democrat. The other is occupied by a Republican, Jack Nelson. We\u2019re in the process of recruiting someone to run against Nelson on the Democratic side.\u201d
\nThe BCD are adamant about change and are working to effect it.
\n\u201cIt turns out that Blaine County is the bluest county in Idaho,\u201d Robinson laughs, explaining how Blaine County, with a population of roughly 24,000, made blue waves in 2020. There were around 9,000 votes for Biden and 4,000 votes for Trump, churning over double in a landslide local victory. And what about the Independent voters? As Robinson exclaims, \u201cThe majority of the Independents vote Democratic.\u201d<\/p>\n

BCD Community Events<\/strong>
\nBCD members are active in the community with a number of upcoming events. They hold committee meetings every month and the next one will be at the Blaine County Courthouse in Hailey on March 25. The public is invited. On May 3 is the Clint & Michelle Stennett Social, which generally, Robinson says, results in a turnout of several hundred people.
\nOne of the Idaho Democratic Party\u2019s biggest fundraising events takes place on Saturday, March 9. The 30th Annual Frank and Bethine Church Gala kicks off at 5:30 p.m. on 850 West Front Street in Boise and it is a sold-out show. At the podium will be big names like Boise Mayor Lauren McLean, Idaho House of Representatives Minority Leader Ilana Rubel and Idaho Democratic Party Chair Lauren Necochea. The keynote speaker is Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.<\/p>\n

Key Issues<\/strong>
\nRobinson says the BCD are raising more money this year than they ever have as they have some serious concerns. \u201cWomen\u2019s rights are so difficult in Idaho that we\u2019re losing a great number of physicians from the state\u2026 doctors who provide care for women\u2026 they actually fly the women down to Utah where they can obtain an abortion. So we worry about that and the banning of books. We\u2019re obviously very supportive of public school. We\u2019re concerned about the effort in the Legislature to create vouchers for private schools, which will take money away from the rural schools. Most of Idaho is rural and there are no private schools in those counties. We\u2019re still about 49th in the nation, but we have made some progress in the last couple of years.\u201d
\nCurrently, one of the biggest concerns of the Democratic Party is House Bill 415. Robinson refers to the bill, which encourages school faculty to carry concealed weapons purportedly in the interest of protecting children against school shootings. \u201cIn some places in Idaho there needs to be people who are armed but the training involved is around several weeks [to operate a firearm safely in a school environment] but this bill only requires around a three-hour training session and that\u2019s frightening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prime Time<\/strong>
\nThe BCD as of last year have organizations in all 44 counties of Idaho. \u201cThere\u2019s a group called the Blue Girls, a women\u2019s organization, and they\u2019re very active and successful in getting people involved; the Blaine County Democrats work closely with them. Through rallies and programs the Democrats are organized to fundraise and recruit.
\n\u201cMy parents were Republican and I grew up in southern Idaho, which was very Republican, but I think my family would not recognize the Republican Party these days.\u201d Robinson echoes an often published sentiment that the Republican Party has been overrun by the far right. \u201cIt\u2019s not all bad, obviously, but some of the legislation that is proposed and often passed is very far right. It\u2019s become the Trump Party, rather than the Republican Party, in my opinion.\u201d
\nAs most readers know, due to changes in the Legislature in Idaho, there will be no presidential primary. Instead, both parties will have to run their own caucus and, according to BCD, \u201ccount their own votes, and follow the rules of their own party\u201d (blainecountydemocrats.org). This time it\u2019s up to the party leaders to find the organizational passion to get the job done.<\/p>\n

Switcheroo
\nWhen asked about the switching of sides to change the vote, which was advertised in a Lincoln County paper, \u201cHey, 5B Democrats, be sure to register as a Republican prior to March 11 so that you can vote for the least offensive candidate. As you know, the Democratic candidate won\u2019t stand a chance in the general election.\u201d
\nRobinson laughs. \u201cThere\u2019s certainly no formal effort by anyone to get people to switch parties, but It does happen, probably in both directions, but [that was] mainly Democrats who wanted to vote for Governor Little versus one of his opponents. And so they do that occasionally.\u201d
\nAll\u2019s fair in love and politics.
\nCheck out their website at https:\/\/blainecountydemocrats.org\/ and if you\u2019re interested, show up at the county courthouse in Hailey on March 25. You can be sure the BCD will have a strong presence and the invite is open to all.<\/p>\n

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Organization, recruitment are focus BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL With primary elections proceeding in several countries around the world, those in the United States are about to watch a changing of the top guard. The battle between red, blue and independent has been ferocious and the ultimate match arrives this November 5th. In our last issue, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,75,18,26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blaine-county","8":"category-elections","9":"category-news","10":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20615","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=20615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20617,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20615\/revisions\/20617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}