Crazy Fascist Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin Loses Primary, Won't Be Idaho Governor

There's plenty of crazy left in her.

May 18, 2022

In a setback for the far-Right wingnuts who are trying to take over Idaho, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin lost her bid to replace incumbent Gov. Brad Little, a more conventional right-wing Republican. The final tally isn't in yet, but as of 3 a.m. "Mountain Time," Little had 53 percent of the vote in the seven-candidate Republican primary, with McGeachin well behind with 32 percent. An "Ed Humphreys" managed to get 11 percent, and the other four candidates all got less than two percent of the vote. High Plains Grifter Ammon Bundy had originally filed to run in the GOP primary, but dropped out in February to run as an independent, so look for him to try this fall to capture votes from McGeachin supporters who consider Little — a bog standard very conservative Republican — some kind of radical socialist.

McGeachin had made her absolute devotion to Donald Trump and his Big Lie about winning the 2020 election central to her campaign, which won her Trump's endorsement. She also blasted Little as a "RINO" for having left it up to local officials to decide whether to require masks during the pandemic, although Little never ordered a statewide mask mandate.

The day before the primary, McGeachin also accused Little of "cowardly parroting leftist talking points" [ sic ] for having expressed sympathy for George Floyd (while also praising law enforcement), and for having condemned violence during the January 6 insurrection. Only a crazy communist would consider violence "inexcusable," after all.

A record number of people moved from California and Washington to Idaho in the last 2 years because they watched their cities burn to the ground as their politicians stood by and did nothing. Brad Little is no better, cowardly parroting leftist talking points. #idpolpic.twitter.com/McgQfXqDQV
— Janice McGeachin (@Janice McGeachin) 1652726051

A record number of people moved from California and Washington to Idaho in the last 2 years because they watched their cities burn to the ground as their politicians stood by and did nothing. Brad Little is no better, cowardly parroting leftist talking points.

Fact check: No cities in the United states have burned to the ground, apart from some smaller towns destroyed by wildfires. (But maybe Antifa set those fires! )

Adieu, Crazy Bible Gun Lady, For Now

Idaho runs separate elections for governor and lieutenant governor, so McGeachin and Little were not running mates when first elected in 2018. In October 2020, as Idaho faced record rates of Covid infections and hospitalizations, McGeachin went into full right-wing crazy mode, joining Republican legislators in declaring absolute resistance to all government measures aimed at controlling the coronavirus, because Liberty. She's a darling of the far-right Idaho Freedom Foundation, and we won't be the least bit surprised if she ends up getting a job there when she leaves office in January. The IFF and the crazies in the Lege even made a fun video!

youtu.be

McGeachin made national news last year when she twice used her temporary powers as governor, while Little was out of the state, to issue batshit executive orders that Little rescinded the minute he returned to Idaho. The first time, in June, she banned all local governments and school districts from requiring face masks, although nobody took it seriously. Then in October, Little was out of the state again, so that time McGeachin issued an order banning vaccine mandates and mandatory testing, and also explored calling up the National Guard to deploy it to the US-Mexico border.

Freakshow Idaho Lt. Gov. Lady Bans Mask Mandates While Real Gov Out Of State, And He's *Piiiiissed*

Idaho Gov. Left State, So Crackpot Lt. Gov. Lady Doing Bunch Of Crazy Bullsh*t Again

Again, Little rescinded the order and condemned McGeachin's "political grandstanding," a charge that might have carried a bit more weight were it not for the reason Little had left the state: He'd flown to Texas, which for you geography fans is nowhere near Idaho, to meet with other Republican governors to complain about the immigration "crisis" at the border. How dare she interrupthis political grandstanding by attempting an even more ludicrous political stunt?

More recently, McGeachin called on Little earlier this month to convene a special session of the legislature so it could fix Idaho's trigger law banning abortion. She wanted to strip out the existing law's exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of a pregnant person who might die if they continued a pregnancy. McGeachin said those were simply too many loopholes, although the rape and incest exceptions already require that a police report be verified before any procedure.

In a press release, McGeachin explained that even the life-saving exception was likely to be abused:

I believe that life begins at conception, and no child should be killed because of the circumstances surrounding his or her conception. Of course I understand that there are rare medical emergencies in which it may be impossible to save the life of both the mother and the child. In such rare occurrences, a difficult decision may have to be made, but Idaho law must never allow for elective abortion masquerading as medical necessity.

You know how doctors and pregnant ladies are -- they'd probably just use medical emergencies as an excuse to sneak in some baby-killing.

One Wingnut Loses, Another Wins

In other Idaho primaries, the lieutenant governor's race was won by another "establishment" (and still hyper-conservative) Republican, state House speaker Scott Bedke, who defeated an absolutely awful far-right candidate, state Rep. Priscilla Giddings, who was also an absolute trainwreck. She was censured by the state House last year after sharing a blog post that identified by name a 19-year-old intern who had accused then-state Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger of rape. Von Ehlinger resigned from the House and was convicted of rape last month; he's awaiting sentencing. Giddings was also an antivaxxer long before the pandemic, pushing legislation that would have prevented employer "discrimination" against unvaccinated workers. We're sure shell keep doing the crazy after she leaves the Lege, too.

Oh, yes, perennial candidate "Pro-Life, a person formerly known as Marvin Richardson" -- that's how he's listed on the ballot -- will be back in the fall, as theConstitution Party candidate for LG.

But in a big win for righties, former congressman Raul Labrador has won the R nomination for attorney general, turfing out incumbent AG Lawrence Wasden, who's very conservative but relatively sane. Wasden has occasionally been a voice of sanity in the state, pointing out when various bills pushed by the Lege are blatantly unconstitutional, and that's made him some enemies. As Boise State Public Radio reports,

Labrador used those instances as an argument for electing him instead, saying the Legislature doesn’t trust Wasden anymore, even when he gives good legal advice.

Now Labrador can start issuing terrible legal advice that will make right-wing legislators happy, we assume. Wasden, for instance, declined to join Texas's insane (and unsuccessful) lawsuit to throw out the 2020 election, but Labrador said that was exactly the kind of lawsuit he'd love to get involved with, to fight "federal overreach." Labrador is a big fan of free speech, like that time in 2017 when his congressional office in Lewiston called the cops to complain of "threats" from elderly voters who were petitioning to preserve the Affordable Care Act. He also drew widespread condemnation when he declared at a town hall that there's no need for Obamacare, since after all, “nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” He later explained that his phrasing "wasn't very elegant."

But now that the Supremes are about to overturn Roe, Idaho no longer needs Wasden cautioning that insane abortion bans are unconstitutional, so the state can pursue other extremist legislation, and Labrador will no doubt cost the state millions and millions of dollars defending them against lawsuits.

Idaho's Two-Party System: Right-wing Republicans And Barking Insane Wingnuts

Since Idaho is such a heavily Republican state, the GOP primary effectively decides most statewide races well ahead of the general election in November, so Little is likely to cruise to a second term against Democratic nominee Stephen Heidt, who was the only Dem on the ballot. There were also two write-in contenders for the Democratic gubernatorial race, Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad, and sweaty antisemite David J. Reilly, the far-right dick who lost his 2021 bid for a school board seat and thought it would be hilarious to try getting the Democratic nomination for governor, because what if he won? Then he could promote the "great replacement theory" and claim that Jews "pretend to be white" as aDemocrat!

Oh, yes, Reilly was also among the Kootenai County Republicans who tried during the spring to take over the county Democratic party by running as precinct captains. Had the scheme worked, the goal was reportedly to install him as the chair of the local Dems, both for the lulz, because wouldn't that make Dems mad, and also so he could direct party funds and donations to right-wing causes.

But we digress. Democratic write-ins received only a fraction of the vote anyway, so Mr. Heidt will be the sacrificial opponent to Little this fall. And Janice McGeachin can crawl off to cry with the Freedom Foundation until the next election cycle. She'll be back.

[ Idaho Statesman / Idaho Capital Sun / Boise State Public Radio / Idaho Capital Sun ]

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