Who Will Captain the Ship?

The Idaho GOP prepares to elect its chairman

On Saturday, July 16th, delegates to the Idaho Republican Party Convention will elect a new slate of officers. This group of men and women will lead the Party for the next two years, raising funds, supporting candidates, and interfacing with our elected representatives and leaders. The race for State Chair between incumbent Tom Luna and outgoing State Representative Dorothy Moon has attracted the most attention.

There has been a fissure growing in the Republican Party for a long time between the conservative right and the moderate establishment.

We saw this in the 2016 presidential race, when John Kasich of Ohio and Evan McMullin of Utah tried to claim the mantle of respectable Republican in contrast to the extremist Donald Trump. We saw this in the Idaho gubernatorial primary where Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin and Ed Humphreys both courted the Trumpist MAGA wing while portraying Governor Brad Little as a tool of the establishment. We will see this fissure again this weekend as the Idaho GOP elects a new slate of officers.

When I say establishment, I refer to the politicians and activists who are part of the existing power structure, who are therefore incentivized to maintain it. Governor Little is a great example. He has been in politics for decades, and has built a network of patronage between the legislature, the bureaucracy, and big business. He played the game according to the existing rules and seeks to maintain the system that brought him to power. Little governs like a standard 1990s Republican, cutting taxes and regulations and subsidizing big business while mostly staying away from controversial social issues. (To his credit he signed bills protecting girls’ sports as well as restricting abortion.)

The difference between conservative and extremist is in the eye of the beholder. From my perspective, on what many call the far right, politicians such as Governor Little are moderates. They’re not as left-wing as most Democrats, but they are not as far right as I would like. On the other hand, the governor’s supporters also call themselves conservatives, claiming that people like me are extremists. The problem, of course, is that conservatism is a moving target. Our society moves leftward at such a fast pace that yesterday’s progressives, if they hold to their principles, are today’s conservatives. What we on the right desire, then, is not to maintain the status quo, but to push our society back toward the right. The leftist view that history is naturally progressive, therefore any conservative gains are by definition going backward, has been subconsciously adopted by many on the right.

Going back means going forward. It means moving on from the failed conservatism of George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. It means articulating a positive vision of what we want our country, our state, and our communities to be. It means rejecting old Republican truisms such as unconditional support for big corporations, free trade, and endless military adventures. It means not taking the Republican base for granted.

The question becomes how best to achieve our goals. Create a graph with effectiveness on the y axis and ideology on the x axis, and then locate various political leaders accordingly. You can see how there might be trade-offs between the two axes. Someone might be as conservative as is possible but if he is not effective at leading the party then electing him might not be a good idea. On the other hand, a leader who is extremely good at his job, but entirely at odds with us ideologically, would be worse than useless! Our ideal leader is someone who is both effective and ideologically on point.

I think Tom Luna has been reasonably effective as State Chairman; his tenure has been successful according to most metrics. Politics requires money, and Mr. Luna is adept at raising that money. He brings a network of wealthy donors to the table who are willing to finance the operations of the Idaho Republican Party. In addition to its war chest, the Idaho GOP has more legislative seats than it did before, and there have been none of the scandals that marked the tenure of former Chairman Jonathan Parker. Tom Luna has guided the ship of the party with a steady hand. But is it going in the right direction?

Perhaps the most controversial issue related to Luna’s leadership is regarding the lawsuit he filed against the Bonneville County Republican Central Committee.

The lawsuit stemmed from the Bonneville GOP’s decision to recommend several conservative candidates during this year’s primary campaign, going so far as to donate to them as well. Mr. Luna alleged that the recommendations and donations were in violation of Bonneville’s own bylaws as well as the bylaws of the Idaho Republican Party and even state election laws. Bonneville GOP Chairman Mark Fuller, who lost the state chairman’s race to Luna by a hair in 2020, disagreed.

Nicholas Contos, who succeeded Mr. Fuller as Bonneville GOP chair earlier this year, spoke to Greg Pruett of the Idaho Dispatch yesterday and explained his side of the story. He claims that the allegation of election law violation was dismissed by the Secretary of State, and that the BCRCC duly altered their own bylaws to allow the recommendations. I read through the state bylaws in question and I remain unclear on whether or not the BCRCC violated them.

The substance of the lawsuit is too large a topic to go into here, but I will continue to study the issue and will try to write about it in depth in the future. For now I will focus on how it affects the race for party leadership. Even if the BCRCC did break some rules, the decision by Tom Luna to sue them seems dubious. It feels vindictive, using the court system to solve an intraparty dispute, like a family airing their dirty laundry in public.

According to Doyle Beck, one of the BCRCC leaders named in the lawsuit, Tom Luna is doing the bidding of Frank VanderSloot, the richest man in Idaho and one of the biggest donors to the Idaho Republican Party establishment. Mr. VanderSloot appears to have his own axe to grind against the BCRCC, accusing them of being “hijacked by radicals” in an interview with East Idaho News.

Frank VanderSloot (Source: Wikipedia)

Beck called VanderSloot the “king of king makers” in an editorial submitted to the Idaho Dispatch last week:

It was Vandersloot who helped get Tom Luna elected chairman of the state Republican Party in 2020. And when it looked like Vandersloot’s nemesis, Bryan Smith, was on his way to winning a seat in Congress, Luna with Vandersloot’s lawyers initiated a scorched earth bogus lawsuit, Attorneys & funding by Vandersloot, aimed at smearing the Bonneville County Republican Central Committee in order to get at Smith. This lawsuit started an unprecedented and very public intraparty war, much to the delight of the legacy news media and Idaho Democrats. It is clear, from Luna’s own comments during a recent executive committee meeting of the Idaho Republican Party, that Luna and Frank acted alone their decision to target Bonneville County, having received neither the input nor consent of any party elected leaders.

Doyle Beck, Editorial in the Idaho Dispatch, 7/8/22

Mr. VanderSloot and his company, Melaleuca, consistently donate to both sides of the aisle, presumably to maintain whatever balance best suits his business interests as well as to buy influence with whomever is in power. That is not a problem - VanderSloot has the absolute right to donate his money where he will. The question, however, is should the Republican Party allow itself to be beholden to men like that? Are we in such desperate need of money that we should subject ourselves to conditions - spoken or unspoken - in exchange for cash?

I’ve been told that Tom Luna has done a great job of defending the Republican brand. But what does that brand stand for? What does the Idaho GOP stand for?

As effective as he is, Mr. Luna is part of the same establishment crowd that I have criticized on this site for the past six months. He says that his lawsuit against Bonneville was motivated by a desire to maintain party neutrality during primary campaigns, but supporters of conservative candidates such as Janice McGeachin and Priscilla Giddings claim that he tacitly supported their opponents. The morning after the primary, Mr. Luna hosted the victorious Republicans at the Capitol for a unity rally. Would he have done the same if Janice McGeachin, Priscilla Giddings, and Dorothy Moon had won their races? Only he truly knows.

Dorothy Moon fell just short in the primary campaign for Secretary of State last May and has challenged Mr. Luna for State Chair. In a press release on July 7th, Moon wrote:

President Trump brought a lot of new voters to the Republican party in 2016 and 2020, but these are not ‘party-line voters.’ These are voters who will stay only so long as we remain true to our principles — and we must. I am committed to the conservative values that have made Idaho, and our Republic, great: protecting life; safeguarding our children; expanding our Second Amendment liberties; sensibly managing our natural resources; and defending religious liberty.

Dorothy Moon, Campaign Announcement, 7/7/22

Rep. Moon’s pitch for leadership shows that she believes ideology matters just as much as effectiveness. Republican consultant and State Committeeman Josh Gibbons wrote an editorial for the Idaho Dispatch urging Republican delegates to support Moon:

Dorothy Moon is the perfect person to be Idaho’s new Republican Party Chair. She’s a conservative who has shown that she will not be bought by special interest groups. Dorothy has a track record of standing up for conservative values, and her voting record as a state legislator highlights this.

Josh Gibbons, Editorial in the Idaho Dispatch, 7/13/22

The State Chair has a unique ability to influence our elected leaders. Mr. Luna is part of the same club as Governor Little and future Lt. Governor Bedke, whereas an outsider like Rep. Moon would surely hold their feet to the fire regarding their adherence to conservative principles and the Republican platform. The Idaho Republican Party is growing more conservative as refugees from blue states flee here, hoping to protect the last redoubt of traditional American values we have left. Many of our leaders still represent the GOP of the past, and electing a conservative firebrand like Dorothy Moon would be a strong signal that we are moving into the future.

The keynote speaker for the upcoming convention is a perfect example of how our leaders are stuck in the past. Mr. Luna was very excited to share with us that he had invited Ari Fleischer, press secretary in the George W. Bush administration, to speak to us on Friday night. While I am sure that Mr. Fleischer will be an engaging speaker, this illustrates a huge problem with the Republican Party today. Most of the GOP rank and file have moved on from the Bush era. Conservatives today reject the Bush doctrines of endless foreign wars, expanded immigration, unrestricted free trade, and surrender on social issues - the election of Donald Trump in 2016 was an explicit break from the Bush dynasty. Many of the young Republicans who have injected so much energy into the party were still children during the Bush years. Yet this is who Tom Luna thinks will energize and excite the delegates to the State Convention?

The decision of who to elect as our State Chairman might seem to be inside baseball to most people, but it will demonstrate who we are as a party. Does ideology matter, or not? Is the Republican brand the most important thing, or rather what that brand represents? Are we looking to the future, or stuck in the past?

On Tuesday night, outgoing State Senator Mary Souza sent out an extremely caustic email denouncing Dorothy Moon, calling her a liar who is unfit to lead the Idaho Republican Party. Souza, who was a distant third place in the Secretary of State primary last May, clearly has an axe to grind. Reading that email left a very bad taste in my mouth, and vindicated my gut feeling from last March that Dorothy Moon was the superior candidate in that race. While Mr. Luna has remained commendably positive during this campaign, I have to wonder if he is coordinating with others to do the dirty work of attacking Rep. Moon, allowing him to remain on the moral high ground. I suspect this sort of negativity might backfire.

Dorothy Moon might not have as wide a network of wealthy donors as Tom Luna. Only time will tell if she can be as effective at organization and fundraising. Her promise to unite the party seems to be a tall order, as our divisions are quite substantial. On the other hand, if unity is impossible, then I want our leader to be as close to my own positions as possible.

However, Dorothy knows how the legislature works. She understands the way lobbyists and PACs pull the strings in Boise. She is an inspiring speaker. Most importantly, she represents a new conservatism that realizes the importance of not taking our voters for granted.

Tom Luna has been an effective leader these past two years, and if he wins reelection I will be happy to work alongside him to continue building the Republican Party, doing my best to move it in a more conservative direction. Nevertheless, I will proudly support Dorothy Moon as the next Chair of the Idaho State Republican Party at the Convention this week.