It’s a safe bet that prayers at Thanksgiving tables Thursday included expressions of heartfelt gratitude for the end of the most expensive and one of the most negative political campaigns in U.S. history.

“Thank you, Lord, for our family, our home and our health. And for delivering us from the slurs, lies, shameless attacks and generally despicable tactics of those who would be our leaders.”

If you were lucky enough to be in Idaho for the duration of the campaign, you may be wondering what would cause me to make such an observation. In Idaho, the campaign was for the most part downright civil. That’s because the Idaho “races,” such as they were, didn’t matter. Everyone knew the state would vote solidly Republican, so neither party spent much time or money here. The only issue that inspired anything close to heated campaigning was repeal of the Luna Laws, and even that was low-key compared with was happening in many states.

I know because I happened to spend time in another western state during the campaign’s final two weeks. You think Idahoans were happy when the political ads ended? Where I was, they were kissing the ground and serving boilermakers at church socials.

The following isn’t a verbatim record of the congressional campaign ads that assailed the voters there, but it’s close. I’ve changed the names to protect the guilty and am guilty myself of some exaggerating – but not by much:

“Candidate Smith voted to cut your Social Security benefits and your Medicare benefits. This conniving shyster would like nothing better than to have  you, your family and your middle-class friends forced into the streets with nothing while he and his cronies continue to get rich.”

One of the more emotional commercials featured a woman claiming that Smith “voted to send women like me home from the hospital the same day we had our breasts removed.” Another said  he would eliminate the department of education, slash millions in school budgets, pollute drinking water and “redefine rape, victimizing women all over again.”

Anyone would have to be better, right?

But wait. Pro-Smith commercials argued that his opponent, Candidate Jones, was forced  out of his job, leaving his employers millions in debt. They also claimed that Jones wanted to raise taxes and “lacked integrity.” A vote for Jones was a vote to put scheming, traitorous liberals in Congress.

Two prominent politicians who had once endorsed Jones did an about-face, accusing him of having “the most shameful political ad of all,” which under the circumstances was saying quite a lot.

Often, opposing ads aired back to back, offering vastly different perspectives of the same candidate:

“Candidate Johnson’s opponent would end Medicare and Social Security, but the saintly Johnson is fighting the good fight for us. Her fight is our fight. She supports our military and our oppressed middle class. She just wants to help people. If not for her tragic death, Mother Teresa would have happily managed Johnson’s campaign.”

Seconds later, “A vote for Johnson is a vote for socialism. This liberal wench has accused hard-working, stay-at-home mothers of sponging off their husbands. And we have it on good authority that one of her biggest campaign donors is Vladimir Putin!”

“Candidate Brown is fighting for you. She puts the middle class first.”

“Candidate Brown’s campaign is full of lies!”

Creative use of photos reached new lows. One commercial would have a candidate with a perfect suit, perfect hair and a thousand-watt smile; the next would be of the same candidate with rumpled clothes, a smirk fit for a wanted poster and hair that looked like he’d been up all night with Hurricane Sandy. One ad would picture a candidate smiling beneficently at the Pearly Gates; the next had him spraying napalm on the hubs of hell.

Commercial after commercial portrayed candidates as selfless patriots who wanted only to help their fellow man and make America a better place – and as lying scoundrels who wanted to get rich and send the country to hell in a chauffeur-driven limousine. The same candidates!

And we wonder why voters get confused.

A tactic used repeatedly was to attack a candidate by saying he or she “supports Obama, was hand-picked by Obama or was an ‘Obama Rubber Stamp’.” As if this were the equivalent of saying a candidate was hand-picked by Charles Manson or a rubber stamp for Attila the Hun.

One of my favorite commercials pictured a group of cowboys seated around a “Blazing

Saddles” campfire, referring to the target of their ire as a lobbyist who, if elected, would be “happier than a pig in mud.”

The commercials were virtually non- stop. You were actually relieved when some insipid pitch for dry-mouth or ED medicines broke the stream of vitriol.

Idaho politics are hardly perfect, and occasionally laughable. We’ve had Idaho politicians brandishing six-guns on the floor of Congress, cleaning cowboy boots in a bidet at a luxury hotel, a congressman regularly claiming congressional immunity for speeding tickets, a state legislator crashing a stolen SUV while driving under the influence, and of course Dr. Winder’s helpful hints for women confused about whether they were raped.

But even the most clueless Idaho politicians still tend to conduct their campaigns with a degree of decorum. As I learned this month with dismay bordering on nausea, what passes for political discourse in some states makes Idaho political campaigns seem almost courtly.

The really scary part was that in many cases the negative campaigning was successful. Is that what we’ve to – candidates with limited scruples and big TV budgets getting the keys to the kingdom?

Idaho, with its small population and predictable voting patterns, is virtually ignored in national elections. Maybe it shouldn’t be. Maybe the states where politicians make voters almost physically ill with their harangues could learn something from Idaho. Civility doesn’t have to be obsolete, even in politics.

 

Tim Woodward’s column appears in the Idaho Statesman’s Life section every other Sunday and is posted on http://www.woodwardblog.com the following Mondays. Contact him at woodwardcolumn@hotmail.com.

 

 

People sometimes ask if boredom has been a problem since I retired. The answer is no, thanks in part to “Idaho: the Movie,” a project I’ve been working on most of this year with a company called Wide Eye Productions.

I’d worked with Wide Eye on another project several years ago, and when the people there came up with a new idea, I was lucky enough to be asked to help. They’d been shooting gorgeous HD and beyond-HD video of Idaho for over years and wanted to use it to make a movie. I was asked to be its writer and narrator, which proved to be an education — as well as the most fun I’ve had in some time.

The Wide Eye crew spent a big part of this year shooting additonal video, including interviews with me at my home and on the road. The education part of it, for me at least, was learning how much time and hard work go into making good television. Scenes that take thirty seconds or less in the edited film can take hours or days of traveling, on-site preparation and shooting. The photographers and editors routinely worked 15- and 20-hour days.

It was less time-consuming for me as the writer-narrator, but still a challenge. I’m geared to writing columns and lengthy profiles or feature stories. Writing short, informative segments that coordinated with what viewers would be seeing was a new experience, as was recording voiceovers in the studio. It was a lot of work, but I’d do it over again in a heartbeat — especially after seeing the final version, which shows our state and the work of those talented photographers and editors at their best. Because I didn’t shoot a single frame of it, I can say without bragging that it’s a truly stunning portrait of the place we call home –  a love letter to Idaho

In my career as a journalist, I crisscrossed Idaho repeatedly. So I was surprised (and a bit embarrassed) while working on the film to be introduced  to a couple of places I’d never been. It gave me a new appreciation for a state so big and diverse that you can spend a lifetime in it and  it never stops surprising you.

“Idaho: the Movie” includes interviews with authors Kim Barnes and Clay Morgan, singer-songwriter Pinto Bennett, mountain guide and extreme skier Zack Crist and fly-fishing guide Lonnie Allen (who is also the mayor of Warm River, population three.) Each of them spoke eloquently about the parts of Idaho they call home.

On Sunday at 9 a.m., I’ll join two members of the Wide Eye bunch in viewing parts of the film and discussing it with Dee Sarton on KTVB’s Viewpoint program. “Idaho: the Movie” itself will premiere on Channel 7 at 8 p.m. on Friday Nov. 30. We hope you’ll join us for a new look at an old friend.

 

Editor’s note: DVDs of “Idaho: the Movie: will be sold at Idaho Mountain Touring; Idaho Albertsons, Costco and Flying J stores, and http://www.idahothemovie.com beginning next week. Signings will be at Idaho Mountain Touring, 13th and Main, Dec. 6 at 5 p.m.; the Boise Costco Store on South Cole Road Dec. 7 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and at the Albertsons Store at Cherry Lane & Ten Mile Dec. 8 from noon to 2 p.m.

A phrase in an email from a friend of Paul and Sydney Revere’s hit like a blow.

“When they tore down the Boise Avenue house … ”

Tore down the Boise Avenue house? The Reveres’ longtime home on Boise Avenue was gone?

It was. They sold it in 2008 and moved to Branson, Mo., where Paul’s band now plays much of the time. The new owners demolished the house and filled in the pool in September. I hadn’t driven by for a while so the news was a surprise, to say the least.

A sad surprise. That wonderful old house and what it represented — reduced to memories.

It’s “a tremendous sense of loss and sadness” Sydney Revere said. “ … Sure we sold the house. But we always thought it would be there to at least drive by.”

To me, 2305 Boise Ave. was one of Boise’s most beautiful homes. Not in a showy way like a lot of upscale houses, but in its own, uniquely private way, it was a Boise treasure.

You could drive right by without knowing it was there. Tall trees and enveloping greenery on a tall, wrought-iron fence hid it from traffic on Boise Avenue. The only way in was through a gate with an entry code. If you weren’t expected and didn’t know the code, forget it.

“It was magical behind those gates,” longtime friend Valerie Crowe said.

The house was a long, white, two-story, with a red tile roof that reminded me of Boise’s Spanish Mission-style depot a few blocks away. Inside were dark wood floors and spacious living areas with floor-to-ceiling windows that let in the outdoors — with good reason. It was the backyard that was the glory of the place.

It really was magical — old trees, a pool with piano-key steps and an almost vertical, vine-covered hillside that climbed from the lawn to the Bench and shut out the world. The pool, classic statues and vivid blooms in potted plants complemented almost-tropical greenery. In that verdant seclusion, it was hard to believe you were in the heart of the state’s largest city. It was like being at a private resort.

“It was our private paradise,” Paul said. “Syd and I designed the pool and the yard and spent every minute we could there. Everyone loved that yard. Billy Bob Thornton couldn’t get over how nice it was.”

Boisean Larry Leasure and his wife Ilene thought it was nice enough that two of their daughters and a niece were married there, “with twinkling lights everywhere put up by Paul himself, and almost everyone ending up in the pool, including one bride!”

The house was built on the original Ridenbaugh estate. William Ridenbaugh was a 19th century irrigation investor for whom the Ridenbaugh Canal and Ridenbaugh Street were named. The Reveres found one of his wife’s button shoes when they dug their pool in 1986. The Ridenbaughs’ turreted mansion caught fire and was later demolished, making way for the home that for nearly 30 years would be the residence of Boise’s most successful pop star.

For newcomers and others who may be unfamiliar with them, Paul Revere and the Raiders had 23 consecutive hit singles in the days when rock was young. They starred in more than 500 episodes of a Dick Clark-produced television show. I can’t think of another Idaho group that has come anywhere close to having that kind of commercial success. Revere was Boise’s one and only rock icon.

I knew him slightly in the 1960s because two friends of mine played in his band. Later I interviewed him for People Magazine, in the days when it did stories about real people instead of celebrity gossip. But it wasn’t until the early ’80s at the Boise Avenue house that I came to know him as more than a musician. He was also one of Idaho’s best storytellers.

My first visit to the house, with then Morrison Center Director Fred Norman and late Statesman sportswriter Jim Poore, was one to remember.

Ostensibly we were there to try to talk Paul and his band into playing a concert at the Morrison Center. What actually happened was that he spent two hours regaling us with show-business stories — Wayne Newton tossing an expensive microphone (nightly) after pretending its cord was too short for him to reach out and shake fans’ hands, one of the Beach Boys throwing a potted plant from a high-rise window because his neurotic brother was afraid of it, etc. Jim and Fred and I were literally choking. None of us had ever laughed harder.

Paul may have saved me some broken bones that day. It was fall and the backyard and original pool were covered with leaves. We were walking across the lawn and laughing so hard at Paul’s stories that we weren’t paying attention to where we were going. If he hadn’t grabbed me at the last second, I’d have laughed my way to the bottom of an empty pool and a trip to the emergency room.

This was in the early 1980s. Paul had recently put the Raiders back together, rehearsing at the Boise Avenue house, to go back on the road after a long hiatus. He’d bought the house in 1979 and was then in the process of an extensive remodeling.

Sydney remembers the original architecture as “midcentury bomb shelter — little windows, small rooms … appliances, sinks and baths were either pink or powder blue. It was a monument to the era it was built. We wanted more of an open concept and a funky, Old World feel.”

The Reveres lived on the remodeled second floor. The west end of the first floor became an apartment for Sydney’s late mother, Rose Buschman.

How do I tell you about Rose? A native New Yorker, she had a New York accent and a New York attitude. I mean that in the best possible way. New Yorkers can be rude and pushy, but Rose was neither of those. New Yorkers also can be classy, funny, disarmingly straightforward, effortlessly likable. Rose was all of those.

The Reveres traveled a lot and liked having friends spend time with Rose while they were gone. The friends were the ones who got the better part of that experience. It was like spending time drinking wine and swapping stories with Lauren Bacall. In fact, Rose reminded me of Lauren Bacall. If they’d met, I’d bet anything they’d have become friends.

Rose’s obituary and picture are still on our refrigerator. A day seldom passes that we don’t think of her.

When I learned that the house had been torn down, I went by to have a look. The gate was locked and I was peering through the fence when a car pulled over and stopped. Its occupants had known the Reveres and Rose, and we spent some time reminiscing. They repeatedly mentioned happy times by the pool, which wasn’t surprising.

“Our favorite memories are of dinners by the pool with family and friends,” Paul said. “That, the weddings in the yard, decorating like crazy for Christmas … there are so many memories there. We spent the biggest part of our lives there.”

Now it’s gone — the house, the pool, everything but the landscaping cleared to make way for a new chapter. The Reveres still have a home in the mountains in Idaho, but nothing else could ever be like their Boise home.

I left a message for the new owners asking why they tore it down, but it wasn’t returned. My understanding is that they want to build a new house on the property. And as someone who spent way too many years remodeling an old house and wishing I’d torn it down and built a new one instead, I can understand that.

But that doesn’t make it any easier for those who loved the place.

When I think of 2305 Boise Ave., I’ll think of laughing at Paul’s stories, cozy evenings in Rose’s apartment and summer afternoons in that matchless backyard, enjoying the unique beauty of such a special place.

I wish the new owners well in their new home. But it’s memories of the old one that I’ll treasure.

Tim Woodward’s column appears in the Statesman’s Life section every other Sunday and is posted on http://www.woodwardblog.com the following Mondays. Contact him at woodwardcolumn@hotmail.com.