Harley Brown, whose Idaho governor debate performance put Idaho in the spotlight, dies | Opinion

Harley Brown called me up a couple of months ago, leaving a voicemail that he was going to run for president and he wanted to give me the scoop.

I didn’t call him back.

Brown, of Nampa, a perennial candidate for various offices in Idaho, died Oct. 25. He was 69.

If the name sounds familiar, you might recall him from his 2014 run for Idaho governor when he helped to put Idaho in the national spotlight for an embarrassing debate that went viral.

Brown was running against then-incumbent Gov. Butch Otter, along with Russ Fulcher and Walter Bayes.

Brown, clad in a black leather vest, biker’s hat and biker’s fingerless gloves, cigars poking out from a shirt pocket, spat out one-liners, calling himself a “proverbial turd in the punch bowl” for his political incorrectness, and saying “we are cop magnets like a Playboy bunny gets hit on all the time.” He summed up the field for governor thus: “a cowboy, a curmudgeon, a biker or a normal guy. Take your pick.”

Idaho Public Television, which hosted the debate, put the debate on a 30-second delay in case Brown used any profanities, which he was known for.

Bayes did his part, too. Dressed in khaki pants and a khaki Western shirt with pearlized buttons, the white-bearded Bayes quoted from the Bible and perhaps served as a harbinger for today’s Republican Party, declaring that “half the Republican Party are Democrats and half the Democratic Party is Communist.”

Maybe Brown and Bayes were just ahead of their time.

Bayes and Brown’s demeanor and dress on one side of the debate stage stood in stark contrast to the suited and serious Otter and Fulcher.

The visuals and the quips gained the attention of national news outlets, and Idaho became the butt of jokes on late-night talk shows.

It was an embarrassing moment.

Statesman political reporter Dan Popkey, who was a debate panelist, said the attention “distracted from the serious business of electing a chief executive.”

Popkey reported at the time that Otter insisted the pair be invited to the only debate in which he participated.

Fulcher told Popkey that Otter knew it would turn the debate into a “circus” and that Otter was responsible for the “mockery of the Republican Party and of Idaho.”

But Otter told Popkey and a couple of other reporters that the real reason was because Otter had promised Brown that he would include Brown in any future debates after Brown was denied entry into the GOP primary debate for Congress in 2000.

Otter said Brown showed up at the debate at the College of Idaho in Caldwell and angrily started kicking camera equipment and making a general ruckus, according to Popkey.

Otter said he asked Brown to come outside and promised him that if Brown calmed down, Otter would not agree to appear in any future debates in which Brown was on the ballot without Brown also getting an invitation. Fast-forward 14 years, and Otter kept that promise.

It wasn’t the last time Brown showed his temper, particularly over the issue of whether he would be included in a debate.

In 2018, Brown threatened radio host Nate Shelman for not including Brown in a gubernatorial debate. Shelman took the threats seriously enough to report them to police.

Brown ran twice for the U.S. House, twice for Ada County Highway District, Boise mayor and City Council, Idaho Senate and twice for Idaho governor.

Running for president, though, was Brown’s ultimate goal, saying in the 2014 debate that being governor would be good practice for him when he eventually became president.

He said God told him he would make Brown president, and Brown said he got the presidential seal tattooed on his arm.

Considering today’s politics, I wonder if he just might have made it.