Thursday, May 12, 2011

Hoooo kaaaay

Dan Popkey wrote a piece in the Statesman about Joe Palmer, who Speaker Lawrence Denny appointed as chair of the House Transportation Committee. The move was widely viewed as punishment to Leon Smith for failure to slavishly follow every whim of Republican leadership.

Palmer has been in the House for three years, has carried two bills, and recalls only two times he has spoken on the floor.  Palmer has one year of college at Ricks Junior College, and he studied small engine mechanics at BSU.  Seems like a decent enough guy, but here's how long time Republican operative Skip Smyser describes Palmer's qualifications for the chairmanship:
He knows a heck of a lot more about trucks and cars and how transportation works than when I took over. I’ve never changed my own oil. I think he’ll do just fine.
So there you go. If you can change oil, you're a good choice to lead the House Transportation Committee. A better choice, per Denny, than a guy who had once been the chairman of the Idaho Transportation Board.

This is no knock on Palmer, though in reading Popkey's article Palmer does come across as an extreme conservative and pretty closed minded. But this tells us a lot about Denny. And that is, he doesn't care about having the best people, or solving Idaho's problems by bringing the most talent to bear. He only cares about power and ideology.

4 comments:

fortboise said...

...doesn't care about having the best people, or solving Idaho's problems by bringing the most talent to bear. He only cares about power and ideology.

Isn't this a general description of the leaders of the Beck/Semanko wing of the Republican Party in Idaho?

Alan said...

Pretty much.

ericn1300 said...

fortboise, that was the thesis of a guest opinion I wrote for the Boise Weekly back in 2005, not much has changed except the names.

http://www.boiseweekly.com/boise/why-im-no-longer-a-republican/Content?oid=924519

fortboise said...

Thanks for the brief skip down memory lane, Eric. Interesting that all but one of the folks you mentioned are out of the scene any more.

Not that replacing Henry Kulczyk with Chuck Winder is much of an improvement, though.