EDITOR'S NOTE: Coverage of election 2002 continues today with a profile of Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, the Republican candidate for governor. Our profile of Democratic challenger Jerry Brady appeared Oct. 20.Stories on eastern Idaho's contested legislative races will continue in Monday's Post Register, and look in Wednesday's newspaper for coverage of the race for superintendent of public instruction.
POCATELLO - In the home of Arthur and Neli Zaltzman, 40 or so people are gathered in small groups discussing families, politics and business, patiently waiting for the guest of honor to arrive.
A buffet table fills a small room adjacent to the front door. Bottles of wine chill in buckets of ice. A woman sits at a folding table in the living room handing out campaign literature and nametags and collecting checks.
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kemp-thorne, accompanied by two young campaign workers, one adviser, former Utah Sen. Jake Garn and former Idaho Republican Party Chairman Blake Hall, strides confidently into the room.
Blue eyes sparkle with recognition as he approaches the crowd, which includes his wife, Patricia, who has flown in from Boise for this fund-raiser. Conversations stop, and every person in the house watches as Kempthor-ne does what he does best.
Idaho's governor moves from person to person, shaking hands, looking directly into their eyes, letting each person know that the brief moment he spends with them is the most important moment of his day.
Kempthorne is focused on the now, on the person he's dealing with. He remembers names, birthdays and anniversaries. He knows whose kids are graduating from college and whose kids are having kids of their own. Nobody in Idaho politics has been this good since Cecil Andrus, who is said to have remembered even the names of key supporters' dogs.
Everyone - Democrats, Republicans and independents - agrees that in hand-to-hand politics, Kempthorne is unmatched.
"He's unparalleled at personal contact," former Idaho Gov. Phil Batt said.
"He's easily the most charismatic politician Idaho has seen in my lifetime," said Hall, who currently serves as president of the state Board of Education.
But it's not Kempthorne's people skills that are at issue in his campaign against Democratic challenger Jerry Brady, who is on paid leave as the Post Register's publisher. It's what lies behind the smile.
Detractors say that although Kempthorne's good with people, he isn't willing to make the tough decisions that fall to those who would be leaders.
Supporters swear there is steel in this man who has won every race he's ever run.
Becoming governor
Former University of Idaho professor Syd Duncombe remembers Kempthorne as a bright and personable student who received As in his classes and seemed destined for a career in politics.
Duncombe used unusual techniques to teach his political science class, including dramas in which students played public-service roles.
"He played the mayor of a small Idaho town and did a very good job," Duncombe said of Kempthorne, who served as University of Idaho student body president and ran Batt's failed gubernatorial campaign in 1982 before being elected mayor of Boise in 1985. Kempthorne served two terms as mayor before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1993.
Through the years, Kempthorne's priorities appear to have changed, which is no surprise since mayor, senator and governor are vastly different jobs.
As mayor, he concentrated on economic development, presiding over Boise at a time of dynamic growth. People in city government credit Kempthorne's business savvy, but also say he was in the right place at the right time.
"I think it was both," said Don Brennan, a former Pocatello mayor who served four years on the Boise City Council while Kempthorne was mayor. "Boise was in a growing mood at that particular time."
When Kempthorne went to Washington, D.C., in 1993, he campaigned as the ultimate outsider, cutting his staff expenses by 25 percent and poking fun at the lordly perks of the Senate. One of the senator's legislative successes was a bill requiring the federal government to pay the cost of any mandates imposed on the states.
As governor, Kempthorne made kids his focus, proclaiming this "the Generation of the Child." He vowed to support education, boost immunization rates and put methamphetamine manufacturers behind bars.
Garn, former mayor of Salt Lake City who served three terms in the U.S. Senate, said Kempthorne's wide range of experience makes him ideally suited to be Idaho's governor.
"To have that local government experience, where you're really in contact with the people, then to have the opportunity to learn Washington, D.C., inside out, it's perfect," Garn said.
At times, it has left Kemp-thorne at odds with his past.
When Kempthorne, the D.C. outsider, came home, he was criticized for barricading the Statehouse, closing off streets and using taxpayer dollars to rent his bodyguards a next-door condo.
As a senator, he cut his office expenses. As governor, he increased the staff budget during his first year in office. He surprised many by signing a bill that mandated a minimum $25,000 salary for teachers but did not pay the cost.
Critics say Kempthorne's six years in Washington left him unprepared for the demands of being governor. It's one thing, they say, to govern from thousands of miles away. It's another to be in the middle of everything.
D.C. to Boise is a hard transition, said Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho. "Things in Washington are totally different than in the Statehouse," the former Idaho House Speaker said.
Former Congressman Richard Stallings said the man who defeated him in the 1992 Senate race by promising to be an outsider has come full circle, bringing a hands-off approach from inside Washington's Beltway back to Boise. And Brennan, the man who worked with Kempthorne in Boise, said the governor is not the same man who spurred Boise's growth. Instead of moving forward, as Boise did under Kempthorne, Brennan said the state appears to be regressing.
Kempthorne deflects that criticism, pointing out that the law guaranteeing teachers a minimum salary left it up to school districts to decide how to pay for the increases. "That was a local decision," he said.
As a sign the state is solving small-town problems, he points to a new law that pays the interest on school building loans.
"We did something innovative, and we're seeing schools built," Kempthorne said.
Like Brady, the governor stresses his commitment to education every chance he gets. Kempthorne emphasizes the points he's made in recent television commercials - that public schools have received an increase in funding every year of his administration. And he touts the Promise Scholarship, which provides money for more than 5,000 Idahoans who attend in-state colleges.
But he leaves out some details. Kempthorne's commercials don't mention that college budgets were cut by $17 million last year, or that public schools received $23 million less last year than was promised. Nor does he mention that school budgets never have seen a decrease from the prior year, under any modern governor. Or that the Promise Scholarship was cut from $500 a semester to $400 on his watch.
Despite that, one of the state's most influential lobbyists argues Kempthorne has been a friend to Idaho's colleges and universities. Boise attorney Roy Eiguren, who lobbies for Idaho's newspapers and a host of corporate clients, points out that Kempthorne championed salary equity for professors last year and is the first governor to meet on a monthly basis with college and university presidents.
"He really has made a substantial commitment to higher education," said Eiguren, who like Kempthorne is a past UI student body president.
And, as Kempthorne promised when he returned from Washington four years ago, immunization rates and meth busts have gone up.
On the road
Kempthorne is in Idaho Falls announcing a $2.5 million interest-free loan for Melaleuca Inc., which makes household products, beauty aids and vitamin supplements and is looking to expand in eastern Idaho. Later in the day, he'll announce a similar $500,000 loan to a Pocatello start-up company.
Local officials gather in both places to express appreciation to the governor, who oversees $30 million in federal money earmarked to help spur economic development in eastern Idaho.
In Pocatello and Idaho Falls, Kempthorne criticizes Brady for his call to repeal the investment tax credit, which benefits businesses that invest in Idaho. The governor reminds people that in four years, he's signed into law 48 tax breaks and not one tax increase.
"You can see our record of preference," Kempthorne said.
Campaign contributions show Kempthorne clearly is the business community's choice. The governor received more than $315,000 from businesses and corporate political action committees compared to just $23,000 for Brady.
"There has been an active effort to reduce the regulatory burden on the business community," Eiguren said.
Tax credits, task forces and capitalizing on Idaho's natural resources have been constant themes in Kempthorne's economic development efforts.
In the Senate, Kempthorne tried to amend the Endangered Species Act, which environmentalists have used to harry grazing, logging and mining. As governor, he's formed committees to study rural development, science and technology.
Kempthorne made Idaho's business and agricultural community happy in 2001 when he signed a bill lowering the state's corporate income-tax rate and eliminating the property tax on farm equipment.
But a budget deficit estimated at between $150 million and $200 million may change Kempthorne's approach.
Although the governor hasn't provided specifics on how he plans to deal with the budget crisis when the Legislature convenes in January, he has said "never say never" about a potential tax increase.
Kempthorne says he welcomes the challenge. After all, the governor says, a football coach who inherits a winning team never really finds out how good a coach he is. "If I can lift us through this, I'm a pretty good coach," he said.
Kempthorne's style
"Coach" Kempthorne is org-anized, Brennan said, and be-lieves in delegating authority.
The governor's Web site lists seven policy advisers and four policy assistants on his staff. History tells us these people have the governor's ear. When Kempthorne was criticized for barricading the Statehouse, he said security advisers told him it was a necessary step.
Kempthorne has been castigated in some circles for forming a task force to reinvent government. Critics say the governor is just trying to get through the general election without addressing the budget crunch.
"He has a tendency to use committees to do a lot of things that sometimes the governor's office ought to take on," Brennan said.
Supporters say Kempthorne is governing the way he always has, by gathering input, building consensus and then making the tough calls.
"I really don't think his style has changed," Eiguren said. "He's always worked hard to be a consensus builder."
Committees, Simpson said, are a good way to gather information. It's still up to the man in charge to pull the trigger, he said. "Ultimately, he has to be the one to make that decision," Simpson said.
Kempthorne has been accused of avoiding difficult decisions before. The rallying cry of Brady's campaign is that the governor signed the largest tax cut in state history last year after initially opposing it.
"He doesn't like to make tough decisions," said Stallings, the Democrat Kempthorne beat on the way to the Senate. "He doesn't like confrontation."
Party boss Hall sees it differently. Despite Kempthorne's obvious people skills, the governor actually is quite reserv-ed, even shy, he said. Kemp-thorne, Hall said, is more in-clined to keep his own counsel and trust a small group of supporters. His most trusted ad-viser, Hall said, is wife Patricia.
"He's a private man," Hall said. "Sometimes people get frustrated. They wish they had as much influence as they did with prior administrations."
Plus, Kempthorne's supporters say, there are plenty of examples of Kempthorne making tough decisions, dating from his early days as mayor to his current job.
In Boise, Kempthorne fired a police chief, personnel director and airport administrator because they didn't agree with his plans.
In the Senate, Kempthorne tried to amend the Endangered Species Act, a difficult task to say the least. While Brady in a televised debate criticized Kempthorne for not getting the job done, Simpson said Kempthorne's effort fell short only because some Republicans didn't think his legislation went far enough.
"He came closer than anybody else," Simpson said.
Supporters say that when Butch Otter resigned as Idaho's lieutenant governor after being elected to Congress, the easy choice was longtime state Sen. Jim Risch of Boise. But Kempthorne went his own way, appointing an obscure state senator, Jack Riggs, who is a college buddy. Kempthorne said the governor and lieutenant governor must work well together. Risch is known as a powerful ally but a fearsome foe.
The governor paid a price. Soon after Riggs was appointed, Risch led the forces who killed the gaming agreement Kempthorne had spent a year negotiating with the state's American Indian tribes. Risch then beat Riggs in the lieutenant governor primary earlier this year.
Kempthorne says he didn't duck trouble when the economy stalled. He could have put off until after the general election his most recent decision to cut spending by 3.5 percent, but he didn't. "I could have waited; I don't think that's leadership," Kempthorne said.
The future
Kempthorne has spent much of his adult life in the public eye. But, win or lose on Nov. 5, it appears he will be done campaigning.
He has pledged not to run for a third term, should he defeat Brady. On those rare occasions when the governor lets down his guard, he talks of someday becoming a teacher and acknowledges he needs to secure his retirement.
Nearly two decades of public service have left him in a different tax bracket than many of those who support him. The financial disclosure forms required in the Senate reveal middle-class assets. Idaho's governor makes $98,500, good money, certainly, but less than nearly 100 other state employees, including college football coaches, university presidents and agency heads. Kempthorne, in fact, took a $40,000 pay cut when he left the U.S. Senate.
When asked whether he plans to put his own money into his re-election bid, like Brady, who has contributed nearly $280,000 to his own campaign, Kempthorne replies, "I don't have money. I'm a working stiff."
Brennan said he thinks losing might be the best thing for Kempthorne. Consecutive runs as mayor of Idaho's largest city, a U.S. senator and governor during both the biggest economic boom in Idaho's history and the inevitable tumble would take a toll on anyone, Brennan said. "Sometimes a person needs to take a break and get out there and see how the sun really comes up," Brennan said.
Kempthorne doesn't agree.
He isn't ready for it to end just yet. There are too many things he says he hopes to accomplish.
So, he does double duty, campaigning while holding down a job that requires every ounce of his attention, taking nothing for granted.
"I'm not content yet," Kempthorne said. "I won't let up. The moment I do that I let my guard down."
EDITOR'S NOTE: Media critic Lee Warnick will publish regular independent assessments of Post Register stories about the 2002 governor's race and will investigate complaints. He can be reached at 542-6755, or via e-mail at lwarnick@idaho news.com.
Government reporter Corey Taule can be reached at 542-6754,
or via e-mail at ctaule@idahonews.com.
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