In the remotest redlands
by Randy Stapilus
Gooding, Idaho’s namesake was Frank Gooding, a governor of Idaho around the turn of the century and one of the state’s most ferocious Republicans ever. And one of the founders, as a practical matter, of what is now the Idaho Republican Party. You’d expect that the place named after him - both county and its seat - would be Republican. It most certainly is. The only tinge of Democrats you’ll find here is the county’s link, as part of a legislative district, to Blaine County, which outvotes it and sends those Democratic legislative delegations to Boise.
Gooding is a farm town and food processing place, a whole lot like many of the small towns in southern Idaho. It is conservative Republican.
So how is it that an apparently lively chapter of Drinking Liberally is running there?
It meets on Fridays at Rowdy’s Pub and Grill. And it is lively enough to have scheduled a list of guests running forward to May 12, including a batch of statewide candidates include Jerry Brady (for governor) and Larry La Rocco (for lieutenant governor).
Boise and Moscow chapters are easier to fathom. Gooding takes us into a whole new plane . . .
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