Butch Otter Rides Again

Idaho' next governor demonstrates the possibilities--and limits--of libertarian politics in the Republican Party.

David Weigel from the November 2006 issue

(Page 3 of 6)

The county bordering Boise was becoming the center of libertarian politics in Idaho. The driving force was Caldwell’s pre-eminent political philosopher, a livestock dealer named Ralph Smeed who started devoting his fortune to popularizing small-government ideas. He attracted a circle of libertarian-minded young activists and businessmen, sponsoring political meetings and trips to the Foundation for Economic Education in New York. In 1969 Smeed co-founded a libertarian newsletter called the Idaho Compass with two low-level Republican activists, including a fruit grower named Steve Symms.

“You could not have any interest in politics and not know Ralph Smeed,” Symms remembers. “But at the time, if you were reading local newspapers and watching the three TV channels, there was no exposure to ideas of liberty. We were having trouble getting people to read the Compass, kicking around ideas, and figured that the only thing most people are interested in is politics. Maybe we could run for office and spread the gospel of free markets and personal responsibility.”

Symms ran for Congress as a Republican in Idaho’s 1st District, historically the most Democratic in the state. Another libertarian and Smeed ally, Maurice Clements, ran as a Republican for the state legislature. So did Otter, who aimed for the state House seat representing Canyon County. On election night, all three men came out ahead.

Back on the Trail

The crowd is settling down at Sheila Olsen’s house as the flag-raising ceremony gets under way. A local religion professor leads the crowd in singing “America the Beautiful”—all four verses, even the one about “alabaster cities” that gleam “undimmed by human tears.” Gov. Jim Risch is given a few minutes to thank the crowd and introduce the rest of the program.

Risch was a lieutenant governor who moved up to the big chair when incumbent Dirk Kempthorne (a fellow Republican) quit to become President Bush’s interior secretary. Risch had mulled running for the job even before it fell into his lap, and Otter’s political team had scrambled to build a statewide machine in case Risch actually jumped into the race. But Risch held off and filed to run for another term in the No. 2 job instead.

In this crowd, you can see why Risch didn’t opt to compete with Otter. The 63-year-old Risch cuts an affable, average figure at the microphone, clad in a blue blazer and white khakis, interspersing his pep talk with jokes about his wife Vicki’s tender age. Even then, Otter manages to upstage him. Risch points out that Vicki’s birthday is this week, and she’ll be turning—ha ha!—29. When Olsen comes back to introduce Otter and unwinds the many years Otter has spent in public office, the congressman can sense the audience adding the numbers up.

“I’m turning 29 too!” he says.

Uproarious laughter and one catcall: “Sure you are, Butch!”

“OK, then. Thirty-nine!”

Otter brings down the mood when he launches into his scheduled speech. “We had a lot of folks who still wanted to be under the crown because they wanted the protection from the American natives,” Otter says. “They wanted the protection that the crown offered and they were willing to be subjected to just a little bit of slavery, just a little bit of not having their own liberty and personal responsibility, for that protection. But there were others who saw a greater sign and wanted to develop a greater life.”

It’s an impressive speech; Otter is giving it without notes. But his praise for the founders’ commitment to liberty doesn’t set any hairs on end. There is a veteran of the Iraq war in the crowd, and Butch singles him out and thanks him for his two tours of duty in a war that, to many libertarians’ dismay, Otter supported. The climax of Otter’s speech is a recollection of 9/11 in Washington, D.C.—an explosion at the Pentagon, a knowledge that “as long as there’s one American left standing, we’re going to defeat this enemy.”

Otter gets a rapturous reception for this, but he’s quickly on his way. An hour later he’s arriving at Idaho Falls’ Independence Day parade, marching ahead of the GOP float with fellow candidate Tom Luna and the state’s other congressman, fellow Republican Mike Simpson. Otter excels in arenas like this. He walks with long strides, waving right and left, smiling a wide smile that erases a decade off his face. At the end of the parade route, as Otter regroups, I ask Simpson if Otter’s stance on the PATRIOT Act clashes with people in Eastern Idaho—if it’s considered liberal.

“I don’t think that’s a liberal stance at all,” Simpson says as he towels sweat off his forehead. “The government looking into your library records? The government monitoring your phone calls? The overwhelming number of people around here think the government’s gone too far in what they control. Butch is seen as one of the very good conservatives.”

But Otter’s campaign has serious issues in the 2nd District, which covers the state from Boise east to the Wyoming and Utah borders. While Otter was growing up and as he entered politics, Mormons started a pilgrimage into the Republican Party. Put off by the Democrats’ embrace of abortion rights and social liberalism, Mormons would eventually make up a powerful wing of the Idaho GOP. It was a Mormon candidate, Idaho House Speaker Allan Larsen, who bested Otter in his 1978 bid for the GOP’s gubernatorial nod. Otter’s social libertarianism rankled religious conservatives in a race he lost by a few thousand votes.