Jerry: What's that black stuff on your hands? Have you been painting?

Carrie: It's ink. I'm practicing being fingerprinted.

Jerry: Why are you doing that?

Carrie: During his campaign, our new Secretary of State Lawerence Denny said he wants to fingerprint voters to avoid fraud.

Jerry: What's his worry? The Republicans swept the Idaho elections. They won every statewide office.

Carrie: That's puzzling because some Republican candidates had some real baggage. It's well-known that Mr. Denney tried to rig voter redistricting a few years ago. He also killed a bill which would have eliminated higher pensions for former legislators like him who get elected to state offices. So how come he won?

Jerry: Maybe it was the big money Republicans and their PACs poured into the campaigns?

Carrie: No. The Democrats also poured in big money. But they got trounced.

Jerry: Was negative advertising the deciding factor?

Carrie: Again, both sides did plenty of negative advertising. I didn't like watching the evening news because the ads were so annoying.

Jerry: So what was it?

Carrie: Nationally, I think it was a referendum on the Obama Presidency. The Republicans gained seven seats in the Senate and now control both Houses of Congress.

Jerry: Certainly Idaho is one of the reddest states in the country but it wasn't always that way. Back when I was young, Idahoans used to elect Democrats.

Carrie: Was that before or after the Ice Age?

Jerry: I'll ignore that. Cecil Andrus, John Evans and Frank Church are some famous Idaho Democrats. In my younger days, many of my farmer friends thought Republicans were the party of the rich and the Democrats spoke for agriculture and the working class. Nowadays, they all vote Republican. I think the shift came when the Democrats, in their quest for equality, embraced the social changes of the '60s.

Carrie: Do you mean social issues like civil rights, abortion, gay rights, etc.?

Jerry: Yes. When Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he was euphoric. But that night he also said "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come." Nowadays, if you look at a TV map on election night, the Confederacy is solid red.

Carrie: How does that apply to Idaho?

Jerry: Just as the south changed parties to vote their social values, Idaho has followed suit. Nowadays, the controversial social issues are abortion and gay rights, both of which the Democratic party support. Neither of these are favored by the majority of Idaho voters. In 2006, 63 percent of Idahoan voters supported adding the amendment to our state constitution defining marriage as between "one man and one woman."

Carrie: But the polls claim Idahoans rank jobs and education as their top priorities. Opposing gay rights or abortion is further down the list.

Jerry: Most of us would answer that way. But what they don't ask is whether you'd vote for someone who could deliver jobs, better education AND supported gay rights or abortion.

Carrie: Hmm... on election night, Governor Otter did say his defense of traditional marriage was a major factor in his re-election.

Jerry: It's unfortunate that economic issues like creating a well educated workforce take a back seat to cultural biases.

Carrie: Remember what business guru Peter Drucker said, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast."

Jerry is a retired farmer/rancher and native Idahoan. Carrie is a retired nonprofit administrator. They live in Idaho Falls.