The reddest place in America

There may be no spot in the U.S. more Republican than Madison County, Idaho. But even in this overwhelmingly white, Mormon enclave, the doubts are creeping in.

By Tim Grieve

Read more: Politics, News, Tim Grieve, 2006 Elections

Oct. 24, 2006 | REXBURG, Idaho -- Billboards outside the apartment buildings advertise "Approved housing for young ladies." A sign on the door to the student union thanks you for "obeying the dress and grooming standards." The local multiplex shows only family-friendly fare. And when you ask if you might have a beer with your burger at a restaurant next to the movie theater, the hostess looks puzzled, thinks for a bit and suggests that there may be a place way on the other side of town where a guy could get such a thing.

You've heard of Jesusland, but Rexburg, Idaho, is something more. It's not just a small town in rural Eastern Idaho. It's a small town in rural Eastern Idaho completely dominated by a fast-growing Mormon college, Brigham Young University-Idaho. Through this conservative convergence, Rexburg and surrounding Madison County may well be the rosiest place in all of red America. Need numbers to prove it? In the 2004 presidential election, 93 percent of Madison County's votes went to George W. Bush or minor-party conservative candidates -- arguably the reddest result of any county in the entire country.

Opinion polls show that a blue wave may be rolling across the country now, but it would have to become a flood of biblical proportions before it could make a meaningful difference in this county of 31,000. In November, Republican C.L. "Butch" Otter will probably win Idaho's governor's race easily, and a recent poll put the four-term Republican who represents Madison County in the U.S. House up 42 points over his latest Democratic challenger. But there is a potentially competitive race going on next door in Idaho's other congressional district, where a Democrat might win the seat for the first time since 1992. And even here in Madison County, people are starting to think a little differently about the GOP.

Rexburg Mayor Shawn Larsen, a Mormon and a Republican who once worked for South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, admits he wouldn't vote for George W. Bush if he were on the ballot again next month. The war in Iraq is part of it. "Even as we juggle the justification," Larsen laments, "the everyday reality is that we are losing men and women and we don't seem to be progressing toward that ultimate." But Larsen is also concerned about the way the Bush administration has treated rural America. "Some of the policies that have been put forth by the president have hurt a small town like Rexburg," he says. "Whether it's dealing with community development block programs, issues dealing with housing, those types of policies -- when you're a small community, those are important."

The mayor checks himself. He wants to make it clear that he's not speaking for everyone in his city. He says he's sure that a majority of Rexburg's residents still support the president.

You hear that a lot in Madison County. Even residents who express concerns about the direction of the Republican Party seem pretty certain their fellow citizens are still on board. Tom Kennelly, a 74-year-old retired mortgage banker, says that although he voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, he wouldn't do it again unless the president "literally puts the lid on the Mexicans coming across the border" and announces a plan to keep a permanent U.S. military base in Iraq. He makes his views known in letters to the editor of the local newspaper. When he's out talking with his friends, however, he doesn't "hear dissension around Bush." In Madison County, he claims, "It's hard to find a spot that isn't red."

Why is that true? More specifically, why is it still true, given the collapse of support for the Bush administration and the GOP Congress nationwide? "Republicans are afraid to admit that they're wrong," Kennelly explains. "They just can't admit it when they do a stupid thing." It's also an Idaho thing, he adds. "If something's wrong, just pretend you don't even know about it: 'Let these things go on by. Don't want to get my nose into other people's business.'"

You get a glimpse of that driving around Madison County. Pass through Nebraska or Kansas and you'll see a succession of bloody billboards equating abortion with murder. Around the country, "W '04" bumper stickers may be growing scarce, but plenty of cars still sport those multicolored ribbons urging support for the troops. It's not like that here. In a couple of days in Rexburg, I didn't see a lot of houses flying American flags, and I didn't see a single "Support Our Troops" sticker. I asked the mayor if maybe people here don't feel the need to show off their views because it doesn't occur to them that any of their neighbors might have different ones. "I think that's probably an accurate statement," he replied.

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