Op-Ed: The March 2 Idaho GOP Caucus
By Brian Almon • February 21, 2024Every week it appears there is a new line of attack against the Idaho Republican Party. This week it seems to be a coordinated attack on the Republican Presidential Caucus, an event prompted by the Legislature’s removal of the March presidential primary. The Caucus will bring Republicans from all throughout the state together in the spirit of community and neighborhood outreach. But it seems that there are those who want the caucus to fail. Several voices are working to tarnish the caucus and the Idaho GOP along with it.
The latest attack accuses Idaho GOP Chair Dorothy Moon of “banning” the press from reporting from caucus locations. In an editorial in the Idaho Dispatch last week, Jeff Braga accused the party of being against free speech.
As readers know, journalists are not typically allowed in polling places for regular elections either. In both cases, they are welcome to speak to voters outside the location for interviews or exit polling, but only Republican voters registered in their precinct (and their minor children) are allowed entry into the caucus location to cast their ballots. If such a registered voter is a member of the media and wishes to take pictures or video, or stay to witness the tabulation, he or she is welcome, so long as it does not interfere with the voting process.
I’ve heard another rumor that voters who forget their postcards will be turned away. This is patently false. Each Republican voter is listed in a poll book that will be used at the caucus for sign-in. The postcard will help voters know which line to get in, saving a few minutes, but it’s not required.
Finally, there continue to be misconceptions about how and why the Idaho GOP decided to host a caucus this year. In an editorial in the Magic Valley Times, Idaho Senate candidate Laurie Lickley accused Dorothy Moon of “unilaterally” transitioning to a caucus rather than a primary.
This too is patently false. When the governor signed a bill to remove the March presidential primary, the Idaho GOP had to come up with a plan. Rather than acting unilaterally, as Lickley and others accuse, Chairwoman Moon has helped to facilitate the will of the Republican State Central Committee, who ultimately governs the party, which voted overwhelmingly to host a caucus on Saturday, March 2nd.
This is a recurring problem in discourse surrounding the Idaho Republican Party. Rather than admitting that Moon is carrying out the will of the State Central Committee, which is made up of precinct committeemen from throughout the state, commentators pretend that she is a dictator, delivering edicts from on high. A crude AI-generated cartoon was included in an anonymous paper delivered to Republican voters throughout the state depicting Moon as an elephant saying “It’s my party!”
This betrays a deep ignorance of how organizations like the Idaho GOP work. The chair is not a dictator, rather he or she carries out the will of the committee. Dorothy Moon can no more rule by edict than a mayor can unilaterally change city ordinances. Someone like Laurie Lickley, with a long history in party politics, surely knows this.
The truth is that the Idaho GOP has done its absolute best to create a system that will enfranchise as many Republican voters as possible, giving them a voice in our nation’s presidential contest. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the best the party could do on short notice, and I personally believe they’ve done a great job. I look forward to participating on March 2nd.
Brian Almon is the Secretary of the District 14 Republican Party and a Caucus Captain in precinct 1410.
This Op-Ed was submitted by Brian Almon. Op-Eds do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of those at the Idaho Dispatch.
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13 thoughts on “Op-Ed: The March 2 Idaho GOP Caucus”
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I always understood Moon’s job to be that of carrying out the will of the people and not her committees or her personal desires.
Personally, and based on events around the Idaho GOP both statewide as well as in each municipality, the Idaho GOP is just as corrupt as Commiecrats and pit for their agenda and not the will of the people.
No faith.
I have the IDAHO BULLETIN mailing that came in the mail.
So, WHO are the article writers in this mailing?
I went to the IDAHO BULLETIN website to look for actual names and there are none.
Why won’t they indicate who they are?
I checked on this too, and it’s clear they are following the leftest playbook by hiding who they are.
This is whitewashing a huge problem with the Idaho GOP. The Idaho GOP trying to squelch any input from the people, they want to make referendums impossible to obtain (even though they are extremely rare), and they opening tout punishing any republican that doesn’t fall in line the party platform. Legislators that don’t comply are even being ousted from committee leadership just for questioning the party elites. The Idaho GOP no longer is for the people; its for the statists and the morality police in Idaho that want to hold their power and project their values on everyone else.
The two party system is generally a failed model. However, the Idaho GOP is purging itself of Republicans who aren’t really Republicans (not following the party platform.) Idaho has had a longstanding problem of mostly having “country club” or “chamber of commerce” Republicans. Couple that with many liberty minded Republicans fleeing to Idaho from other states and you don’t have to have a college degree to realize that the country club/chamber of commerce R’s are in trouble. Too many of those refugees watched the Republican party in their former states sit back and watch society erode and devolve for the sake of “low taxes” and “business friendly”. Well guess what? Once society turns into a California or New York, those low taxes vanish and businesses shutter when it’s no longer safe to be open.
The Big R Republican party is getting back to being small r republicans, which is what they started out as long ago. If folks think that putting an “R” behind their name is an automatic ticket to getting into a position of power and then acting like a Democrat, well, it’s time to think again. There is certainly a power struggle going on, and for now, I’m fine with it. If folks around the state find they’d rather be Democrats, or rather, want to truthfully tell their constituents they’ve been Democrats pretending to be Republicans, so be it. And if Dorothy Moon holds them to the rules that were agreed upon, why is that statism? Perhaps you’re really a Democrat?
Thank you! Spot on!
So, you are from Reclaim Idaho and you believe that only Democrats, which is also a RINO, can play hardball politics. Republicans have to respect “democracy” but you like rigged elections and circumventing the legislature when it suits your policy preferences.
Got it!
There are definitely two kinds of Republicans: conservatives and progressives. (In comparison, the Democrats have kicked out anyone even remotely fiscally conservative and are ALL progressives now.) They are NOT the same and therein lies the confusion. Brad Little, Scott Bedke, Chuck Winder, IACI, the hospitals – all _progressives_ that sport the (R) to hide their real affiliations and agendas. Others like Raul Labrador, Janice McGeachin, Priscilla Giddings, and Dorothy Moon are conservatives. This is one of the reasons I would love to eliminate the two-party system and have as many different parties as it takes to where the party platforms actually represented what the candidates could reasonably be expected to vote for.
Good analysis Blair. As a life long Idahoan, I am sickened by the trolls that have infested our Idaho system over the years.
Democrats register as Republicans to corrupt the primary, Democrats run covert organizations masquerading as conservative to gaslight voters, and Democrats run and play Republicans in office. The communist left in the media, schools, corporations, NGOs; with dark dollars from globalist billionaire masterminds and unchecked federal grants, represents a nefarious force with insidious intent on transitioning Idaho. Democrats play chess while weak, establishment Republicans play checkers. Case in point: The dangerous rank choice voting scheme, supported by some so-called Republicans, is a checkmate move to pervert Idaho’s elections.
You must be new to the party. The press was allowed to fully cover the 2012 caucus, ar least in Ada County.
There is no “deep ignorance”, on the part of these folks, they know exactly what they’re doing, and have been doing it in pretty much every state in the union for a long time. Move-in, gain numbers, when those numbers equate to power, they begin causing trouble to “make their community activist bones”, which draws the young and disaffected. It’s old skool’ commie organizing right out of the Alinsky playbook, come to Idaho to roost courtesy of the socialist democrat party, more NWO but Boise’s mayor could fill you in on those details
Bingo!