It helps, as well, not to commit the cardinal sin of politics – being dull. Who knows? Labrador is one of those politicians who is routinely underestimated and yet regularly overachieves and modern politics – think about the guy in the White House – tends to reward a young man in a hurry who has a plan. Senate seat perhaps, the governorship one day. Think about the possible stops: Congressional leadership, a U.S. Having made the leap over the line from journalism to politics nearly 30 years ago, I am certain of only one thing: My old friend and occasional adversary, Dan, is in for a thrilling ride. It will be great grist for the political gossip mill and will serve to make Popkey’s new boss, well, interesting. Labrador has guaranteed that every move he makes in the near-term will be dissected to determine the level of Popkey influence. ![]() Little wonder that the most interesting man in Idaho politics again dominated the political news this week with his hiring of Dan Popkey as his press secretary, a move that I suspect surprised nearly everyone who pays attention to such things. Still, while navigating the rapids at the center of the Idaho GOP, Labrador seems hard to have missed a beat or stubbed a toe over the last few months. Butch Otter and then the Congressman presided over the chaotic recent GOP state convention that ended in turmoil, lawsuits and very likely lasting intra-party hard feelings. Russ Fulcher who mounted a remarkably strong challenge to incumbent Gov. Labrador endorsed the insurgent gubernatorial candidacy of state Sen. Frank Church investigated the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1970’s. His semi-regular appearances on the Sunday morning talk circuit, especially Meet the Press on NBC, means he gets more national press than the rest of the Idaho delegation combined and, I suspect, as much national political TV time as anyone since Sen. Among the House’s most conservative Republicans he remains a go-to critic of the president on immigration and House Speaker John Boehner on almost everything. Labrador continues to receive lavish attention from the national media. That effort might have seemed quixotic, but it also kept the First District Congressman in the middle of the tug of war between the establishment and Tea Party forces in the U.S. Eric Cantor very unexpectedly lost a primary election in Virginia. He mounted a high profile, but too-little, too-late campaign to become House Majority Leader when Rep. Putting the former political writer and columnist for the Idaho Statesman on his payroll just adds to Labrador’s fascinating spring and summer. Even before he hired Idaho’s most senior political journalist to run his press operation this week you would have had to say that Idaho Republican Congressman Raul Labrador was the most interesting, unpredictable, and arguably most important political figure in the state.
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