New West Network

My Page: Joan McCarter

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

The litany of damage done by a government of, by, and for Big Oil really is too much to try to delve into in one essay. Suffice it to say, the Iraq War wasn't the only gift to the friends of Bush and Cheney out to maximize profit. Millions of acres of our public lands sweetened that pot. Trying to figure out how to ameliorate this giveaway is going to be one of the biggest jobs the next Secretary of Interior faces. I agree with Bill Schneider, please let it be Raul Grijalva. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

The Bush administration has given the incoming Obama team (and the American people) yet another middle finger. First they announced--on Election Day, the day the American people decisively rejected "drill, baby, drill"--that they were putting huge swaths of Utah's most beautiful and fragile canyonlands under the auction block. Now they think they've figured out a way to make their policy of "rape the land first, don't bother with the questions ever" permanent. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

The headiness of election eve (was it really only a week ago) and some apparently very bad polling gave me a little too much confidence in western voters in making last week's predictions. But elections do have consequences, and while a few key races didn't turn the way Democrats had hoped, there's a new sheriff in town who's got a very tough job ahead of him in dealing with messes in the West. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

Election Day for politicos is like Christmas Eve for a five-year old. You've tried all year to be the best you could, to do everything right so that you get your reward on the big day. But on that day, there's nothing left to do but wait for the capricious hand of an outside force to determine your fate. Since you're past the point of altering the outcome, you speculate about what the day might bring. We do know that tomorrow morning we're going to wake up to a vastly different national political landscape. Here's what it might look like closer to home. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

It's happening everywhere. In New Mexico the weekend before last, I talked to folks who had stood in line for as long as three hours to vote on the first day of early voting. Reports then started coming in from my friends on a Nebraska campaign--record numbers of people were signing up for absentee ballots, or were showing up at elections offices to cast their ballots.

Then I went to Arizona and hear it again. The hotel workers and cab drivers in Las Vegas had all voted. My friends on campaigns in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska reported the same thing. Even in Idaho, the evening news here in Boise is reporting two and three hour long lines of voters. Everywhere, people just can't seem to wait until Tuesday to get this done. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

I was recently in Nebraska, where Democratic Senate candidate Scott Kleeb has his endorsement interview with the Omaha World Herald and came out of it mulling over one question in particular: What would a Democratic majority in Congress and a Democratic president mean for the rural American west, particularly since the Democrats are the party of urbanites? [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

Charles Pelkey and Reese Jenniges have an in-depth and informative look at what might just shape up to be a major upset in the West next month--Dick Cheney's old House seat might very well flip to a Democrat. I'm going to trust a Wyomingite on a Wyoming race before my own gut feelings anytime, but my observations from a trip there last week confirm for me much of what they report. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

As posted here on New West last week, with their gubenatorial candidate lagging far behind and single digit lead for McCain in the state, Montana Republicans are throwing their own version of a hail Mary, taken right out of the Karl Rove playbook. Yup, they’re trying to take away the vote.

For the Montana Republican Party to argue that this is anything but a partisan effort to steal the vote is laughable--they are targeting the six counties that most reliably vote Democratic. Why not the whole state, if they’re so worried about the integrity of the vote?

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

The most ballyhooed, most anticipated, most fraught with jeopardy debate of the cyle is now behind us. And what is there to say but "meh"? The stakes for both candidates were negative. Sarah Palin could come out looking even less fit for the job than she was going in, and Joe Biden could have come across as obnoxiously condescending. Neither performed to those low expectations, which made the debate much easier to watch than I, for one, anticipated. [more]

Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

A couple of weeks ago, one Mountain West scribe announced "A Western woman redefines the presidential race."

But it turns out that this breath of fresh air has turned out to be just another politician, and not a very polished one, at that. The McCain campaign has assiduously kept her away from the public spotlight, and the few national interviews she's done have been, well, painful. [more]