12/31/2004
Happy New Year
by Bob Brigham on 8:21 am.
The changing of the calendar is always a good time for reflection. According to Montana journalists, the top 2004 story was the Montana Democratic Party sweep — the “Montana miracle” as it has become known nationally.
George Ochenski’s End of an era: A gubernatorial look back puts things in perspective.
| Comments (2) | Permanent Link | Categories: general, montana, political, republicans |
Equal Protection Clause and Benefits
by Bob Brigham on 8:05 am.
“But in the end, the people win. Fairness wins.”
-Rep. Christine Kaufman
| Comments (1) | Permanent Link | Categories: health care, montana, political, same-sex marriage |
Bohlinger’s Seat
by Bob Brigham on 7:52 am.
Unnamed writers for the Gazette have the latest on the jockying for a free trip to Helena. It looks like Yellowstone County Commissioners will get three more names today. In a mature display of democracy at its finest, the article suggests it may come down to drawing names from a hat.
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12/30/2004
Lee Newspapers Skewed Polls
by Bob Brigham on 9:46 am.
Lee Newspaper has learned once again that Christmas cheer exists in Montana. In fact, they proved it with their latest holiday poll. This yearly tradition of Lee Newspapers kissing up to authority is one of the benefits of incumbency in Montana. Elected officials get a positive skew in holiday polls which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as Lee spreads the good news throughout the state. Merry Christmas, enjoy the present.
| Comments (4) | Permanent Link | Categories: montana, political |
Why does Matthews hate his Party?
by Bob Brigham on 7:59 am.
I’m no shrink, but if I were I would probably be able to write all day about the twisted mind of Rep. Gary Matthews. For reasons that probably account for many of the pages in DSM IV, Rep. Matthews is a Democrat who thinks Republicans should decide the Democratic leadership in the state house.
Chuck Johnson covers the story today in an article overflowing with great quotes. Like this one from Roy Brown as he contemplates becoming a legislative girlie man:
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| Comments (5) | Permanent Link | Categories: democrats, montana, political, republicans |
12/29/2004
Wanzenried – Matthews Showdown
by Bob Brigham on 8:40 am.
Who will be the Speaker of the Montana House? The smart money is on Dave Wanzenried, but Mike Dennison is trying to undercut Democrat’s historic court victory by floating rumors that Gary Matthews (D-Cow Capitol) is plotting a cross-aisle coup. Before you read any further, remember this is just a crazy scenario by a reporter who is already missing the constant flow of wacko news generated by the former GOP majorities.
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| Comments (6) | Permanent Link | Categories: democrats, montana, political |
12/28/2004
Sorry for the Lack of Posting
by Matt Singer on 7:42 pm.
Howdy, folks. I’ve been in Billings hanging out with the family. I’ll be returning to Missoula, normal life, and normal posting soon. I’ve had a variety of thoughts while I’ve been here, but two worth highlighting for my most valued readers.
Here, for your financial gain, are my two recommendations for how to get rich:
1) Start a chain of sports bars in China. At some point they will catch on, make a name for yours before anyone else can.
2) Be a music store with ITunes kiosks where people can get new music for their IPods, especially useful for people lacking high speed internet connections or who like to shop for music with friends but just want the music on their equipment.
The latter idea is nothing short of brilliant and ties into some thoughts I’ve had on futurism. Major predictions: imminent demise of both DVDs and CDs, people who buy albums will buy albums again (damn purists), but books will survive. I’m not holding my breath when it comes to newspapers.
Happy New Years to all and a big thanks to Bob Brigham for providing the big news.
Congrats to Brian, Jon, and Dave for completing the trifecta.
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Supreme Court RULZ
by Bob Brigham on 6:09 pm.
Democrats get a clean sweep in Montana. Democrats won the governor’s mansion, the state senate, and now they have tied the state house meaning they win the Speaker’s Gavel!
Update (from Matt at 7:46 PM) – The Gazette story confirms my prediction. The Supreme Court ruled 6-1. The lone dissenting vote was Jim Rice. He’s the lone partisan Republican on the bench. He is not, however, the only conservative jurist. Both Gray and Warner fall into that category. They both voted in the majority. No opinion exists yet as the Court voted to issue an order now and an opinion later due to the timelines involved.
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12/20/2004
Sirota-Ochenski Debate
by Bob Brigham on 2:45 pm.
Since the election, David Sirota has published two very interesting articles examining how Democrats can win in the west. Writing first in the Washington Monthly and then in The American Prospect, Sirota lays out a number of insightful angles for Democrats to consider as we focus on the West. His first article was trashed by George Ochenski, writing in the Missoula Independent. As a firm believer in a Western strategy for the Democratic Party, I believe this is an important debate. But I also believe a closer examination reveals that Sirota and Ochenski actually share a very similar vision.
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| Comments (3) | Permanent Link | Categories: democrats, montana, overreach, political |
12/18/2004
Schweitzer needs help
by Bob Brigham on 3:06 pm.
As the Missoulian reported this morning, Governor-elect Schweitzer is looking for ideas. We all want to see him succeed so let’s help him. If you have a good idea, let him know:
| Comments (3) | Permanent Link | Categories: democrats, montana, policy, political |
Update on HD 12
by Bob Brigham on 1:28 pm.
Neil Ullman, the Field Coordinator for the Montana Democratic Party, sent out an email last night about the legal battle over conservative double-votes. I quote:
Today a Lake County District Court judge ruled against us to throw out 7 illegal ballots counted for Rick Jore. While we are disappointed with this ruling, we are now appealing to the Montana Supreme Court and asking them to overturn the district court's decision.
Mike Meloy, the attorney who presented the case, did a wonderful job on presenting our case and building on the facts of the case. We fully expect to win our appeal and for Jeanne Windham to serve as the next representative from House District 12. Both Mike and Jeanne remain optimistic as do all of us at the Democratic Headquarters in Helena!
This email also included an important link for more information.
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| Comments (6) | Permanent Link | Categories: corrupt, democrats, montana, overreach, political, republicans |
12/17/2004
Conservatives Can Vote Twice
by Bob Brigham on 5:19 pm.
If you are a conservative it is fine for you to vote twice and let the conservative election judges assign your vote to the leading contender. That is today’s opinion by District Judge Kim Christopher of Polson.
This decision comes as a surprise to nobody and is little more than a formality. The Montana Supreme Court will issue the final opinion and not even the most cynical watchers expect them to go along with this wing-nuttery. One person, one vote.
| Comments (2) | Permanent Link | Categories: corrupt, democrats, montana, overreach, political, republicans |
12/16/2004
Blogosphere takes note of Montana
by Bob Brigham on 4:14 pm.
Since this fall’s election, the blogosphere has taken a great interest in Montana. So far today, Kos has mentioned Montana in three different posts. As Matt noted, I had a quip quoted in one, but for the record I don’t think candidates in Montana should make gay marriage the center of their campaigns just as I would counsel against bar fighting. The point I was making is that Democrats need to earn a voter’s respect before asking for a vote. First respect, then vote…always in that order.
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New Guest Blogger
by Matt Singer on 3:46 pm.
Joining the team is Bob Brigham, referenced by Kos, an ex-pat Montanan, and the author of this valuable Swing State Project post. His name may be familiar as he is also the author of “I am a Reform Democrat” as well as a blogger with the NDN. He’s joining us for at least the duration of the session as he wants an opportunity to blog with a Montana audience. Say hi to Bob, who will hopefully introduce himself soon.
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Tester’s Name is Floated by Kos
by Matt Singer on 2:40 pm.
Readers know I’ve been talking up Big Sandy’s Jon Tester for a while. The newly minted Senate President is a badass. Kos has floated his name so I won’t feel bad doing it. He’s looking at challenging Senator Burns in 2006. The man has 7-fingers and a real chance to win. As for Kos’s hypothesis that Montana is on the way to swing-state status, let me just say that it won’t happen in ‘08 with Hillary and Montana will take real work by the Democrats. As I noted in a heavy breakdown of demographics in this state, the two Democratic age groups are senior citizens and the under 30 crowd. The 30-45 crowd is fiercely conservative. Things in Montana may get worse before they get better for Democrats.
Kos quotes Bob Brigham, a Montana ex-pat, as saying, “Westerners want candidates with spine. You could probably run on gay marriage in Montana if your campaign plan was to bar-fight your way across the state — people would respect that.” This is an overstretch, but there’s a hint of truth there. Montana likes fighters. And Montanans are getting sick of the Bush-style conservatives.
One thing that Kos notes is that Kerry did better in Montana than Clinton in ‘92. I don’t have the ‘96 numbers, but ‘96 was, of course, a different year. One thing to note is how well Perot did. It was Ross’s second best state in the country with nearly 28% of the vote. Montana has a weird centrist streak. Multilateral but withdrawn in world affairs, questioning of free trade agreements, neither pro-big-business nor pro-big-government, pro-union, and pro-balanced-budget. Montanans don’t like taxes but we’ll pay ‘em. And we have a long history of electing up from nothin’ dirt farmers and miners.
Here in Western Montana, the three most revered political Montanans are Jeanette Rankin, pacifist Republican and first woman elected to the House of Representatives (serving two terms, perfectly situated to vote against entry to WWI and WWII); Mike Mansfield, the liberal miner-turned-professor-turned-Senat or-turned-Majority-Leader-turned-Am bassador who served in the Majority Leader position longer than anyone in history and served in all three branches of the military; and Pat Williams, the Butte native who went to Congress in ‘78 and fought for wilderness and public lands, defeating the conservative Ron Marlenee in the fiercely contested fight of ‘92 and winning a three-way race with an opponent from the left in ‘94. A few things unite these three: standing up for working people, fierce independent spirits, and long-term respect both inside and outside Montana.
The exciting thing about being a Democrat in Montana right now is that I look at our current crop of leaders, Brian Schweitzer, Jon Tester, and Dave Wanzenried, and I see people who remind me of the giants of the past. They’re independent. They’re fighters. They speak their mind. And they’re Montanans, through and through.
This year, Bush lost a lot of support from Montanans, noticeably from what I consider the “thoughtful conservative” crowd that has grown increasingly nervous, both here and across the country, with the fundamentalist hijacking of their party, the willingness to go to war without an exit plan, and with the fiscal irresponsibility. Call it The Atlantic Monthly set. These people have shifted in Montana (at the top of the ticket as well as lower down). The question is whether others will follow.
| Comments (4) | Permanent Link | Categories: democrats, montana, political |
Must-Read Matt Miller Column
by Matt Singer on 1:50 pm.
I got 17 hours of much-needed sleep last night. I’ve turned my film in to be developed and now I’m catching up on some bill paying. I did, however, want to direct people to Matt Miller’s most recent column “The Lesson of ‘Armorgate’.”
I certainly didn’t expect those stunning TV images of Donald Rumsfeld being questioned on armor shortages by the troops to be the centerpiece of President Bush’s economic summit – but I also didn’t expect our entire political and media culture to skate past this episode without marinating in its lessons. When the biggest military spending hike in history produces shockingly inadequate results on the front line, the massive mismanagement – and GOP hypocrisy – needs to be examined.
Go read the whole thing.
| Comments (0) | Permanent Link | Categories: policy, political, republicans |
Choices, Choices
by Daphne Lasky on 1:08 am.
Alright, thanks to my newly-instituted blogging commandment (Thou shalt not “frame” recklessly, or something like that…) this entry is going to be a two-parter.
Part #1: Amy Sullivan writes that Democrats must “change the perception that they are pro-abortion”, and I wholeheartedly agree. “Abortion on demand, without apology” -type rhetoric is easily seen as hostile and threatening. What’s worse, I think, is that speaking about “abortion rights” is restrictive. When the discussion is centered around abortion, you can only talk about, well, abortion. There are a host of other topics (sex education and access to contraceptives are big ones) that get cut out of the discussion. This is odd, because ultimately, the goal of groups like Planned Parenthood, NARAL, etc, isn’t to ensure that women can get an abortion at the drop of a hat. It’s to ensure that individuals everywhere are able to make responsible decisions about their own lives, and about their own families. Let’s start talking like it. The frame of the day is…….”pro-choices.”
Part #2: Being pro-choice isn’t about the choice to have an abortion–it’s about the choice of when to start a family, and about ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to make responsible decisions for themselves and their families. Far before a woman finds herself facing the decision of whether or not to have an abortion, important choices have been made. The circumstances vary from case to case, but might include an adult woman’s decision to have sex, our society’s encouragement of the sexualization of young girls, a health teacher’s choice to not teach about contraception, or the government’s unwillingness to make safe EC available to women. Any one of those choices made differently might have prevented a woman from finding herself facing the possibility of abortion. By working to affect these earlier choices, we can make abortion more rare, and allow men and women to raise families on their own terms. Through comprehensive sex-education, and by ensuring that contraception is both affordable and accessible, it is possible to empower individuals to make positive choices about their own lives.
ps. Once the discussion is broadened , it becomes much easier to attack Republicans for failing to live up to their own pro-life rhetoric; in this article, Glen Stassen and Gary Krane point out that abortion rates are undeniably linked to economic concerns.
pps. Read William Saletan’s Slate piece about this issue. Some of what he says makes me cringe, but basically, I think that his point about talking about abortion in terms of family is important.
| Comments (2) | Permanent Link | Categories: democrats, general, political |
12/15/2004
It’s Faithbased
by Wulfgar on 3:41 pm.
I’ve read recently that if Montana were to secede from the United States, we would immedeately become the world’s 5th largest nuclear power. Regardless of whether that’s true or not, being a stockpile for nuclear armaments also puts a bulleye squarely on my home state. We here in the north exist as a target for those nations that are ICBM capable. It should go without saying that I am keenly interested in the Reagan/Bush missile defense shield.
Of course, I also carry the burden of being reality based, which is why I find it so important to convey this simple message:
It doesn’t work! It hasn’t worked! It probably won’t work!
Our geographically closest ally won’t support it, because they believe it won’t work. The effort to push for this initiative distracted our national security advisor from the real threat of al-Quada; Reagan’s star-wars dream turned national security into a fantasy/nightmare. I realize that a can-do spirit counts for a great deal in the success of any program, but when the price tag is in the hundreds of billions of dollars, for a failure of an effort, the question must shift from “if” to “why”.
Oh yeah, that’s why.
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Left Out of the East
by Matt Singer on 3:15 pm.
I’m back and safely through customs. Beijing is awesome. Get over there and the sooner the better cause it is changing quickly in order to get ready for its big ‘08 coming-out party. I’ll have more posts on the culture shock, funny anecdotes, and my own worthless thoughts on the political state of the country in the days ahead. In the meantime I’m pretty tired and behind in my work here so I hope the guest bloggers can help a bit in the days ahead.
Round of applause to Daphne and Wulfgar. I like the stuff I’m seeing.
| Comments (4) | Permanent Link | Categories: general |
12/14/2004
War Paint
by Daphne Lasky on 12:40 am.
Though I have an odd affection for ancient political art/propaganda (the Augustus of Prima Porta is a personal favorite), I usually can’t bring myself to admire contemporary artistic attempts at political statements, much of which tends toward the shrill and hysterical. So, I was pleasantly surprised to read this NY Times review of Steve Mumford’s work. Mumford (who I’d never heard of before, so don’t feel bad if you haven’t, either) is a painter who has been embedded with US troops in Iraq on and off since April of 2003. Over a total of ten months spent in Baghdad, Tikrit, and Baquba, he has been posting his paintings and writings under the title “Baghdad Journal” on the Artnet online magazine.
The work is often haunting, but it is the concept itself that is exceptional. “Convinced that the war was a huge blunder,” Mumford went to Iraq in order to paint it. Think about that for a minute. How many people can you think of who were against the war and yet thought even for a minute about going to Iraq to find out more about it? Reading his essays (admittedly, I haven’t read all 16 yet…but come on, folks, its finals week…), it becomes evident that, though he developed personal relationships with US soldiers and Iraqis alike, he maintained a critical perspective throughout his travels. Mumford displays a remarkable ability and willingness to expose his preconceived ideas to outside challenges. And this exposure did change his ideas. His empathy for the troops is evident in the journal, and
now [Mumford] is on the fence about whether the occupation can succeed. As he put it, “The Bush government made some really insane mistakes.” Yet he began to understand the invasion differently after hearing firsthand about life under Mr. Hussein. “My consciousness was raised by the Iraqis themselves,” he said.
Though the art world may be disappointed to see the shades of gray (pun intended) Mumford presents, I see nothing wrong with the change that took place. Artists, of all people, should be able to allow their experiences to shape their ideas. As a matter of fact, we should all be able to get over our pride and moderate our ideas when necessary.
Mumford’s choice of “slow” ink and watercolor as media, as opposed to “fast” photography or video, was a good one. The patience and extended observation involved in drawing go hand-in-hand with Mumford’s thoughtful and open-minded initial concept.
The very act of drawing often led to deeper engagement, with soldiers and civilians alike. “Because I would be sitting there drawing for so long,” Mr. Mumford said, “everyone around me could see what I was doing, so there was none of the fear of the photograph. A lot of the time Iraqis who might not like their photograph taken would be happy to have me make a drawing, and this would lead to conversation.”
The monochromatic drawings are striking (look at this one and this one). Tension and isolation are recurring themes, yet individuals still maintain a certain sad dignity. In my favorite drawing, a woman crosses an empty street in the uneasy aftermath of a sniper shooting. A few soldiers stand in the background, and electric wires crisscross the sky.The result is a compelling scene full of quiet conflict. Never one to like everything, I’ll say that the more developed full-color watercolors are disappointing. They have the static look of drawings made from photographs, and the clarity of the monochromatic drawings is lost with the addition of bright acidic colors (this could, of course, just be my computer screen, but I don’t think it is).
Overall, Mumford presents a frank and moving account of his time in Iraq. I’ve said enough, I think, so go read it for yourself.
| Comments (1) | Permanent Link | Categories: cultural, general |
