Up North Progressive

Let’s cut young Jeremiah Ward some slack. Gary Glenn’s campaign manager didn’t realize doing sleazy things for your boss isn’t a good idea. Of course, the 19 year old campaign manager is learning how to do politics from a guy who invented doing sleazy things because he thinks that’s how politicians actually do politics. Perhaps Jeremy Ward should take the time to do some digging on Gary Glenn and see what he could find out about his sordid past. He would find some very eye-raising things, and a slime trail of loathing that spans west across the Continental Divide to Idaho.

Before Gary Glenn came to Michigan in the 1990’s because he burned all his political bridges in Idaho to temporarily work for an anti-choice organization, the North Carolina native spent about twenty one years in Idaho representing the National Right To Work Committee, The Idaho Cattleman’s Association (ironically, an organization representing cattle ranchers who voluntarily pay membership dues to support cattle ranchers’ interests as a collective unit), and even spent some time on the Ada County Board of Commissioners until the people of Ada County got so fed up with him, they elected a Democrat and kicked Glenn out of office. By 1992 Michigan’s own Heritage Foundation, aka The Mackinac Center, managed to get one of their own into the governor’s office, and Gary Glenn saw his chance to do to Michigan what he did to the Gem State. How bad was he in Idaho? Idaho papers to this day report on his activities in Michigan, and ponder, “do they have any idea how bad he really is?”

Idaho wasn’t always a hard right-wing state until the Right To Work people descended. You’re probably wondering how many people in Idaho belonged to a union. There were enough back then to back up Democratic Party candidates – about seventeen percent union membership – and get them elected, and the Idaho government actually functioned and got stuff done. Once Glenn and company got Right To Work passed in Idaho, and Gary Glenn spent eight long years destroying the political landscape in Idaho to get the right people elected into Idaho’s state legislature, Right To Work passed in a bitter feud Idahoans remember today. Former aide to Governor Cecil Andrus, Marc Johnson, remembers, including the time Governor Andrus refused to allow Gary Glenn, who was then a “hired hand” of the Idaho Cattleman’s Association to step foot inside his office.

It’s surprising really how much the good people of Idaho keep track of Gary Glenn’s activities in Michigan, like for instance that time during the 2008 primary Glenn sent out this email asking evangelicals to go to churches and convince them to vote for Huckabee instead of Mitt Romney. It’s clear in this memo Gary Glenn is an anti-Catholic anti-Mormon bigot who used religious decisiveness to get out the vote. Oddly enough, it was people in Idaho who remembered his behavior in their state and called him out on his activities in Michigan:

OK Gary. You have always been a loud squawker even when you were on the Ada County Commission. So, in the spirit of total disclosure, I have to say you are the only Republican incumbent I ever voted against. You made such a disaster of your one term in office that you became an embarrassment even in the heart of heavily Republican Ada County, Idaho. That colors my opinion of you. In my prejudiced mind, you started off with two strikes against you. You pretty well burned your bridges here in Idaho with a lot of the Republican party save for a few, You left Idaho because of your reputation. Say whatever you want, but your value in Idaho politics was severely limited by your approach … My cynical side tells me any involvement with Mormon activities has an underlying motivation to line your pockets…

Please do click the links and read all of the comments. There’s a wonderful debate where several people call out Gary on his bigotry and remind him the real reason he left Idaho.

And this is just one example of Gary Glenn flaming out on a blog. There are plenty of examples of him letting his bigotry shine in online discussions, like in this RedState forum where he’s posting as AFAMichigan, or GGMichigan, depending on which screenshot you look at on the Wayback Machine.

It’s ironic that Gary Glenn and his campaign manager would resort to this sort of underhanded tactic, when there is plenty of dirt available on the Internet from Gary Glenn. Anyone saying a disparaging word about him finds GGMichigan or AFAMichigan or gglenn, or any other online profile he’s bothered to use out there flaming back, confirming what the people of Idaho know, and what more people in Michigan know every day – Gary Glenn is an underhanded, contentious coward who can’t find any actual dirt on his opponent, so has to invent it to create controversy.

As for the activities of “gmalicoat” on Michigan-Sportsman.com, the fact that the account is banned is a good indicator that Mr. Malicoat is telling the truth about sharing the account. Forum administrators tend to ban accounts when they find it’s being used by multiple people.

Gary Glenn left Idaho for greener pastures and politicians in Michigan. His horrible political legacy in Idaho is so bad, he’s still talked about today in that state’s media. It only takes six months to become a resident of the state of Idaho, but people who remember Gary Glenn and what he did the fourteen years he lived there still call him a carpetbagger, which is a nice way to say, “not one of us.” Considering Idaho has the friendliest people you will ever meet in the United States, that says a lot about Gary Glenn.