Open thread for night owls: Paulette Jordan makes history in Idaho. Can she do it again in November?
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At The Nation, John Nichols writes—Paulette Jordan Is the New Face of Rural Politics in America: When Paulette Jordan entered the race for governor of Idaho, there were plenty of pundits who tried to write off the Native-American legislator from a districOpen thread for night owls: Paulette Jordan makes history in Idaho. Can she do it again in November?
At The Nation, John Nichols writes—Paulette Jordan Is the New Face of Rural Politics in America: When Paulette Jordan entered the race for governor of Idaho, there were plenty of pundits who tried to write off the Native-American legislator from a district that’s much closer to Canada than Boise. In an overwhelmingly white, very conservative, very Republican state, she was an indigenous woman running as a progressive Democrat. And her Democratic primary opponent was a wealthy businessman who had statewide name recognition after having headed the party’s ticket four years earlier. But Jordan was undaunted. She had served two terms in the legislature representing a historically Republican region of Idaho’s northern panhandle — beating an Republican incumbent in the GOP “wave” election of 2014 and retaining her seat in the “Trump wave” election of 2016 — which saw a number of the state’s Democratic legislators defeated. Jordan launched her gubernatorial campaign with a fierce sense of urgency, declaring that “the system is so corrupt that we have to fix it…” She refused to play the games of conventional politics. In a state that has never elected a woman governor, she aligned herself with a progressive woman who was running for lieutenant governor, Kristin Collum, to form the state’s first all-female ticket for a major party nomination. “We are two progressive women who are very strong-minded,” announced Jordan, who refused to be dismayed when a number of prominent Democrats backed her male opponent in the primary. “People just aren’t used to thinking that a woman of color, or a woman period, can win,” she told interviewers. “Even people in the Democratic Party, they aren’t used to envisioning a woman at the top. Yet there are Republican women who know we can get there. There are progressive women in our state who know we can get there. Being young and vibrant and fresh, that plays into a new, bold vision and strong leadership.” Jordan was confident that she could break through. And so she did. In Tuesday’s primary, she won with almost 60 percent of the vote and told the cheering crowd at her victory party that: “We are not afraid, and never again will we stand down. There is no question that Jordan faces an uphill race in the fall. But she has a plan for running a truly statewide campaign that goes deep into the rural regions of Idaho. “It’s about connections to the land and people,” says the candidate, who has from the start of this campaign emphasized her rural roots. [...] TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES QUOTATION “The petty thief is imprisoned but the big thief becomes a feudal lord.” ~~ Zhuangzi (莊子), The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (c. 350-300 BCE) TWEET OF THE DAY xDo you think the people who founded GoFundMe understood they were starting a healthcare company?— anne v clark (@annevclark) May 16, 2018 BLAST FROM THE PAST On this date at Daily Kos in 2011—Gingrich denies supporting health coverage mandate after saying he supports a mandate: You know you're having a bad day in the Republican primary field when you feel compelled to put out a video denying that you support a health coverage mandate. And if you're name isn't Mitt Romney, you're having an especially bad day. Newt Gingrich, who last held elective office nearly fifteen years ago, found himself in that position today, thanks to comments he made yesterday: “I agree that all of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care. And I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy,” Mr. Gingrich told the host David Gregory. “I’ve said consistently, where there’s some requirement you either have health insurance or you post a bond or in some way you indicate you’re going to be held accountable.” That's pretty clear support for a federal health coverage mandate. It's not precisely the same one as signed into law by President Obama—Gingrich would allow people to post a bond that would cover any potential medical expenses (presumably very few people could do this as it would need to cover potential expenses)—but the principle is similar: no free riders. Everybody must pay. On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: «Everybody’s talking about» the Trump Tower collusion transcripts. Armando dives into the text. Pervy Republican Blake Farenthold skips town on his harassment settlement debt, but lands on his feet. Well, your feet. Feet you paid for, anyway. Again. x Embedded Content RadioPublic|LibSyn|YouTube|Patreon|Square Cash (Share code: Send $5, get $5!) LINK TO DAILY KOS STORE Read more