"Purple" Politics

Is Schweitzer the Face of New Western Politics?

By Courtney Lowery, 2-18-05

	Photo Courtesy of Brian Schweitzer.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer really makes a person want to root for him, regardless of one’s political leanings. He’s a self-proclaimed dreamer who wears jeans and a red power tie in the Governor’s chamber. His hour-long interview with New West in January was loud and tangential – a little different than sitting down with former Gov. Judy Martz. Although, we could get Martz to answer a question. Schweitzer seems to still be campaigning, slapping his hand against the table, and talking about big, big plans. It’s hard to know if he’s purposefully sidestepping questions, doesn’t know the answer or is simply so worked up he forgets your question in the first place. His energy is inspiring, but nearly exhausting.

We talk for a bit about economic development and he swizzles his way around his feelings on the development of natural resources. He starts talking about coal bed methane, grabs my notebook and writes down the symbol for sodium, so I don’t forget it. It’s the key, he says, to developing the trillions of cubic feet of coal bed methane in Montana without compromising the water supply. He’s confident about this -- but wait, he’s onto another topic – hydrogen. You can use coal to develop hydrogen and we’ll be into hydrogen before we’ve exhausted our coal supply, he says. He desperately wants to show me a contraption he has in his office that runs a propeller on hydrogen. His aide brings it in and sets it on the dark brown, heavily lacquered table in his chambers. He hunches over it and watches as it works – all the while giving me a chemistry lesson on the power of hydrogen. He looks like a mad scientist.

“This is the future,� he says, again slapping the palm of his hand against the table. “That’s why it takes a dreamer; somebody who can look beyond. Somebody who can say it’s time to dream of the possibilities and start putting the pieces together for the future… Part of what you need in a governor is somebody with some vision, somebody who can look beyond the horizon.�

Earlier that day, Schweitzer had a meeting that showed that it truly is a new era at the Montana Capitol. He sat down for a meeting with the Buffalo Field Campaign, an activist group known for camping out outside Yellowstone National Park to document and protest the hazing of buffalo that wander outside the park’s borders. It was the first time since the group was formed nearly 15 years ago that a governor had agreed to a meeting.
“It’s really an honor to finally get respected,� said Mike Mease, one of BFC’s founders.

Schweitzer is charismatic and comfortable to be around (despite his exhausting energy). Anyone is welcome in his chambers and he’ll make the time to see you, no matter who you are or what your credentials say. (He is rumored to only sleep 2-4 hours a night, so he does have a little extra time for meetings). But he is not the down-home rancher he has been painted to be. Sure, he has a rural background and has made his living in agriculture, but I’m not so sure he would be able to relate to the folks in Dutton (my hometown of roughly 300 people). I am sure, however, that he would do everything in his power to understand those folks. The caveat is don’t let his campaigning fool you, he’s no regular Joe. That might just be a good thing. I love the farmers in Dutton, but I don’t think I would want them in the governor’s office and come to think of it, neither would they.

There is no question that Schweitzer has dreams and grandiose plans for the state. The question now is will they come to fruition? He says he’s ready to lead Montana into a new age of economic development, but at what cost? He wants economic development by leveraging Montana’s way of life and scenery, but he also wants to develop coal and coal-bed methane as long as it done the way he wants it done.

He talks about fostering the switch from a resource-based economy to a service-based one. Ok, we’re with him. Then, he starts talking about using that knowledge-based economy to develop natural resources. Wait just one second… this scares us. Would developing natural resources put the West in the same predicament it was in a decade ago? The boom has left, leaving unmanageable scars on the landscape that now make it nearly impossible to attract a “service-based� economy, because an information technology company based in Hartford, Conn. doesn’t want to set up shop near a tainted pit. They want to come to Missoula, not Butte, and there is a reason for that. Our last governor was a self-proclaimed “lap-dog of industry.� She wanted to develop natural resources too, and she did. Where did that get us?

But wait, he's got more.

“I want to make sure we understand here that the knowledge-based economy does not preclude the resource-based economy,� he says. “It adds value. When we look at possible deals in venture capital in Montana, most of them so far, have to do with natural resources because our knowledge-based economy is growing up around the natural resource business. It’s still about adding value to our natural resources. We will have pure knowledge-based opportunities, but right now, those opportunities are based around natural resources.�

We beg to differ with this statement, for obvious reasons. We’re not drilling anything to publish New West.

But he keeps going with a chemistry lesson on coal, coal-bed methane and hydrogen. He makes sense. He’s a soil scientist, so he knows this stuff. He’s not the typical Democrat, nor the typical Montana Democrat for that matter. Perhaps that is just what the state needs.

“I’m a might be a hybrid,� he says.

Is he the new face of Western Politics? The leader of the “purple� shift?
He’s not sure either.

“That’s for you bloggers to figure out,� he says.

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