Democrat Laurene Sorensen, who's running for the Idaho State House in District 5, spoke at a forum for Democratic candidates hosted by the radical left-wing Democratic Socialists of America in Moscow last night, Nov. 1. In her remarks, Sorensen bashed Idaho as "a punchline," said a certain "faith group" in Idaho - which she didn't name - "takes care of its own" and "leads to xenophobia," and said when she hears her Republican opponent talk of being born in Idaho and being a fifth-generation Idahoan she thinks, "Sieg Heil" -- which was the traditional German Nazi salute. These comments are beyond outrageous. Not only Sorensen but all Idaho Democrats, and all the special interest groups that are working on behalf of Sorensen's campaign, need to condemn them unequivocally. This kind of bigoted rhetoric has no place in Idaho. It is an insult to all Idahoans. There were three other Democratic candidates sitting next to Sorensen as she made these horrible comments. We don't know if they condemned them at the time, but they certainly need to.
There's a line from an Elvis Costello song.
Well, I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused.
And for the first 13 or so years that I lived in Idaho,
I would read the papers, and that's how I felt.
And it was like, thank heavens I live in Moscow,
I'm away from all that, because it was just like,
oh my gosh, I'm living in a punch line.
And then I woke up.
In 2014, after my husband died, I said,
okay, I'm either gonna bitch about this place
and then move to Portland, or I'm gonna stay here
and I'm gonna do the work.
So as a legislator, the first thing that I'm gonna do
is have an office here in Moscow that's open
and have either me or a staffer will be here year round
so that we can provide direct constituent service
so that nobody has to go to Boise
in order to connect with me.
Because really, my life is here.
My life is in your community.
I'm not running for the legislature
because I think it's gonna be cool to live in Boise.
Boise, I mean, they're like a different country from us.
One thing is they have very much
of a cultural monolith down there.
There's a white male establishment.
A lot of people are in a faith group
that has a beautiful tradition of taking care of its own,
but that leads to some xenophobia.
There's a lack of perspective
that not everybody has that community
that will feed and clothe the needy among us.
We have to do this a different way.
We have to bring more diversity to the legislature
because I'm running against a woman whose major,
she starts all her stump speeches out with,
I was born here.
I am one of, you know, I'm the fifth generation
of my family to be landowners here.
I'm the fourth generation to be graduates of my family
that graduated from the University of Idaho.
And I'm thinking, speak high.
You know, there's a birther thing going on,
and we have to fight that.
We have to remember that not all of us are,
we have chosen to be here,
or we are here because we can't go anyplace else.
And we have to make sure that the underrepresented
get represented.
And, you know, Northern Idaho,
we're kind of ghettoized up here.
We have different industries.
We have different, you know, our schools are different.
Our towns are smaller.
Our poverty is deeper.
And so I'm gonna be a voice for this part of the state
because, gosh, you know, whenever we hear
about the growth and prosperity of Idaho,
they're talking about Boise.
They're talking about Meridian.
Let's get some of that growth and prosperity up here,
but it's gonna need infrastructure,
it's gonna need really hard work,
and it's gonna need all of us.
