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Boise wrap

No basic changes from the earlier post on the Boise races. The bottom line remains: incumbents Bisterfeldt crushes Seeley and Jordan crushes Swindell by landslide margins, and Tibbs ousts incumbent Mapp by a smaller but substantial margin.

This was not a pro- or anti-incumbent thing. People clearly drew a distinction between Tibbs and Swindell instead of – as pieces of their constituency sought to do – linking them together. Their candidacies were about very different things. The candidates could hardly have been more different:- Tibbs very well known in town for decades and deeply involved in the community on a range of subjects, Swindell a flash who showed up to protest on the Ten Commandments and has little other relevant background in civic affairs. The voters may have noticed.

This was not a particularly ideological thing, either, though the small size of the Swindell vote, following all the publicity she got and organization brought to bear, does suggest that Boise (the city, not the area beyond city limits) is backing off, gently, from the philosophical right, and toward the center. That may give some reassurance to Mayor David Bieter as he looks toward re-election in a couple of years. And that can be effectively counterpoised with the presence of Tibbs on the council, which certainly should keep the mayor on his toes.

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