BOISE, Idaho — Longtime Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus’ life and legacy were celebrated and remembered by an overflow crowd of more than 1,300 at Boise State University on Thursday, with friends, families, fans and even former political foes in attendance.
Idaho GOP Congressman Mike Simpson said when he was first elected to the state Legislature, he thought of politics as a dichotomy between Republican and Democrat, rather than right versus wrong. “And it used to frustrate Republicans that in the most Republican state in the nation, we could not elect a Republican governor,” he said. “… for 24 years we could never figure that out.”
“It took me a while to figure out that there must have been a lot of Republicans voting for this Cecil Andrus character,” he said to laughter.
“I finally came to the realization: They weren’t voting for a Republican, they weren’t voting for a Democrat,” Simpson went on. “They were voting for a man – a man who shared their dreams, their aspirations, that cared about the education of their children and would protect the beautiful place that we all called home. Somebody they could trust.”