From Red State to Redder State

Boy 'o boy am I glad I am not in California anymore. Jerry Brown is Governor of California, again?!

The results for Idaho, from the Idaho Statesman:

"The GOP retained all statewide constitutional offices — and easily. The narrowest majority went to Gov. Butch Otter, who won a five-way race with 59.2 percent of the vote. Four years ago, Otter won an open governor’s race with a 52.7 percent majority. State schools superintendent Tom Luna re-elected with 60.5 percent of the vote, up from 51.3 percent in an open race in 2006.

The GOP again holds all four spots in the Idaho congressional delegation. In the marquee race of the night, state Rep. Raul Labrador ousted 1st Congressional District incumbent Walt Minnick with surprising ease, and a margin of more than 24,000 votes.

Two years ago, Minnick won a squeaker and couldn’t claim victory until midmorning Wednesday. This year, with half of Ada County’s precincts still uncounted, Minnick campaign manager John Foster offered up a 2 a.m. concession tweet on Twitter. Talk about the changing world of politics.

The top-of-the-ticket Republicans seemed to pick up steam in the final days of the election. In our final Idaho Newspapers poll, conducted Oct. 20-22, the Labrador-Minnick race was too close to call, Otter was up 22 percentage points, and Luna led by 16 percentage points. All three outperformed the poll, particularly Labrador. I suspect that says more about the political tide that lifted Republicans locally and nationally.

It’s a rout of the magnitude of 1994 — when Idaho Republicans benefited from huge voter turnout and midterm disillusionment with President Clinton. While 1994 was a turning point of sorts — Republicans reclaimed the 1st Congressional District, added 11 legislative seats and, after a 24-year hiatus, took back the governor’s office — November 2010 reinforced the GOP’s hammerlock in Idaho."

Read more: http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2010/11/03/krichert/idaho_politics_gop_democrats_its_deju_vu_all_over_again#ixzz14Gz4DZxf

The State schools superintendent race was probably the biggest deal, since school budget cuts were tough this year and there will be more. Interesting that Labrador is a Puerto Rico-born immigration lawyer, who was only elected to the Idaho legislature 4 years ago and stepped in to the US Senate race 11 months ago when someone else dropped out. He made a name for himself in 2009 when he successfully defeated Gov. Butch Otter's plan to raise fuel taxes for roads.

I spent a wonderful, inspiring day at the art/business workshop. Not only an interesting and knowledgeable speaker, but Starbucks coffee and lunchboxes provided by Honeybaked Ham. The workshop was called "No Trivial Pursuit: The Business of Being an Artist" and given by Bruce Baker. Bruce Baker has been making and selling jewelry since the 1960s and he shared more information than I could absorb. He was interesting and funny enough to keep me awake and sitting in an uncomfortable chair in over-air conditioning for almost 8 hours.

Topics today were very much geared towards selling at art fairs, and I am not sure this is the marketing avenue for me, but I still learned things I can apply. Topics were Merchandising and Booth Design, Digital Images and Jury Process, Trends and Product Development, and Dynamic Sales Techniques. I knew nothing about booth design before today. I know something about photographing my work, mostly from John, but I learned about how to present these when applying to be in a show/fair. (I also learned there is a big market for photography of art for art fairs.) I learned the most about trends and was really pleased that my ideas about commissioned portraits of children is right on trend. I suck at sales, so anything I can learn about sales will help me. Overall it was an energizing, inspiring day.

I met two other artists, both sculpture artists. One I met after the workshop while running errands on the way home and I thought, OK, I've now sat next to this woman all day and then run in to her again, I better give her my card just in case she is a messenger for me from the Universe. I did not talk to her much at the workshop because when the speaker wasn't talking, I looked for somewhere to get warm.

Tomorrow I get to sit with the speaker and show him what I have and ask him for marketing ideas for my commission work.