Big Sky Cairn

From a great little Montana fluff-piece in the Economist, we get this gem:

“Ten years ago one of the endangered species in the West was the Democratic governor. Today we’re a solid blue bridge from Alberta to Mexico—Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Kansas, Oregon, Washington”, Mr Schweitzer says. Such facts have led to speculation that the future of the Democratic Party lies not in poaching the odd Southern state in presidential elections, but in building a reliable Democratic base amid the Rockies.

I’ve written about this before - and I still think that Montana’s soul is at stake over the next ten years. What scares me is that whenever anyone outside of Montana writes about Montana it sounds a lot like what the Economist said above. Montana is the future of the Democratic Party…

I have two takes on that, because for that to happen, either the Democratic Party or the Mountain West is going to have to change.

The better option is that Democrats move back toward their populist roots abandoning the Liberal ideals of the Californias and Massachusetts. The Liberal Left doesn’t really love the Mountain West, but they tolerate us because we help give them the majorities they need. For the Mountain West to establish itself as the heart of the new Democrat Party those liberals would have to be exorcized from their controlling role and new, more moderate leaders like Baucus and Schweitzer would have to take over. But the truth is, I don’t see that happening - we just don’t have enough electoral votes.

The more realistic option is that it will be the Mountain West and not the Democratic Party that changes. The liberal-wing has too much control in the Democrat party. My guess is that - over the next few decades - as all of the urban liberals retire and want to leave the social paradises they’ve constructed they will look for a good place to nest. Sort of like aliens looking for a new planet to colonize. And national stories like this one that portray Montana and the Mountain West as “the future of the Democratic Party,” will draw them here like an Arecibo message.

I hope I’m wrong, but that’s why I always get an ugly feeling in my gut when Montana gets national press. Those stories aren’t written for Montana. They are written for East Coast liberals who still swoon over western clichés like the ones Brian Schweitzer was oozing:

Mr Schweitzer revels in rural wit: in a previous interview he said he has “more guns than I need and fewer than I want.” Montana has six guns for every resident, he tells me, after asking me if I own one. “In Montana we think gun control is hittin’ what you’re shootin’ at…Out here in the West we Democratic governors are just as likely as Republican governors to be packing a pistol.”

When it comes to press, I prefer the kind that’s written in other states and printed in Montana’s papers for Montanans to read - not the other way around.

My two cent rant:

Just once, I would love it if the reporters who fall in love with Montana would see the state. Montana is not the novelty strip of brothels and an environmental disaster in Butte.

I would love it if a reporter, or diarist in the Economists case, could take a drive from Browning to Glasgow and tell the rest of the country what they see. Maybe then they could get a glimpse of what the state goes through when our Governor is only interested in bringing his Hollywood friends to the Paradise Valley. The Hi-Line, my home, is struggling. What goes untold in the Governor’s great sales pitch to coastal liberals is the appalling state he has left our native Montanans in. Although I am sure he would have his fly-in buddies convinced the natives live in wonderful, oppulant teepees.

Montana is a great state, the best in my opinion, but it is not all like Bozeman. Just like anywhere else we have imbalances in quality of life. A Governor who perpetuates the coastal elite sterotype of Montana at every turn is not helping us.

But you know, what other state can you drive 450 miles from your hometown on a two-lane road and run into numerous people you know and have a good time time. The honest, hardworking, and down to earth people make Montana great, it would just be nice to have a Governor who shared those values.