Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter

Book Review: Greg Lemon’s “Blue Man in a Red State”

By Joan McCarter, 8-12-08

A former political and environmental reporter, and a fixture here at New West, Lemon followed Schweitzer around for the better part of a year working on this biography, despite that fact that Schweitzer was rather dubious about the whole prospect. “I don’t know who you think’s going to buy this thing,” Schweitzer told him. Nonetheless, through dogged determination, Lemon got his story.

His occasional frustration in getting there periodically peeps through, and is something to which I can relate. Last fall I scheduled an interview with Schweitzer, expecting to have 45 minutes or an hour with the Governor to talk about how the West was shaping up in 2008. Three hours, and a personal tour of the state capitol, later, I’d heard about Montana’s most famous stray dog, pine bark beetles, sagebrush, carbon sequestration, his family’s immigrant roots, and the last few weeks of th Tester campaign. The man can dodge a question like nobody’s business, and you don’t even really notice it’s been dodged until you go back to the transcript. But the getting there is fascinating and always entertaining.

Lemon’s book provides an excellent sketch of the career of this unlikely Montanan, from his family’s ranch near Geyser, to a Catholic high school in Colorado, to Libya and Saudi Arabia, where he headed up some experimental and innovative agricultural programs, and learned more about the middle east than arguably any other governor in the country--and understanding that has made him a vociferous opponent of the Iraq War. What drove Schweitzer to politics isn’t entirely clear, His emergence from nowhere to seriously challenge Senator Conrad Burns in 2000 still has some Montanans baffled, but after that solid run, his taking the governor’s seat in 2004 seemed to surprise few.

The book is most instructive, in my opinion, for political watchers and hopeful Democrats looking to the west for clues on how to turn this region Blue when Lemon gets down to the populist part of his portrait of Montana and the Governor. While Lemon is still focusing on the well-established paradigm of Gods, guns, and gays, he doesn’t notice that Schweitzer has managed to put that stuff by the wayside with significant success. What’s driving Schweitzer’s political will is a deep-seated conviction to the common good.

“I’m always thinking. I like growing business; that’s exciting. I like developing energy.... But how does it affect the last and the least? What can we do to make it better for those people who probably never will get to the front of the line? How can we make their lives better? How can we pull them along? How can we make them the most they can be? how can we make them build their self-esteem and self-respect? What more can we do?”

Out of that conviction comes a focus not on the distractions and the distinctions of politics that have been forced on us by the conventional wisdom--"wisdom" that far too many Democratic politicians have been willing to buy into for the past two decades. Lemon nails, almost unconsciously it seems, the heart of Schweitzer’s success in Montana and a potential road map for Democratic politicians who are willing to heed it:

Middle-class families want someone who understands they have to work to jobs to raise a family while still trying to find some money to put aside in a retirement plan. And someday, if they’re lucky, they would like to give their children money for college and maybe even a down payment on their first home. At a Democratic rally in D.C. in 2006, Schweitzer said, “Democrats will win elections when they figure out how to talk to those families.”

These families don’t want the government intruding in their lives, but they want good roads, good schools, social security, and health care. They don’t mind paying taxes if the taxes are fair. They don’t often think about the environment, but when they do, they think about how it would be nice to make it cleaner. They want the price of gas to go down and wouldn’t mind buying an affordable hybrid car. They go to church but don’t want people telling them what to believe. They get uncomfortable talking about abortion and gay marriage, and though they’re important issues, they sure are tired of people arguing about them. They want the basic liberties of free speech and gun ownership, even if they don’t hunt or carry a gun.

That’s a pretty good summation of your basic Montana voter, and minus the gun issue (it really is different out here), I’d argue it’s not too far off in describing the majority of Americans. Schweitzer has been able to bypass getting hung up on the label Republicans would impose on a Democrat by dismissing most of the hot-button issues and focusing on a strong populist agenda, one that includes a strong civil libertarian component.

Schweitzer’s most likely Achilles heel is also the project closest to his heart: tapping Montana’s vast coal fields in a visionary--though as of yet completely out-of-reach--coal-to-liquids program. Schweitzer’s relentless push for this program, despite the fact that sequestration technology hasn’t been developed, industry hasn’t yet committed, and after a decade of drought, there’s no water to do it, has been frustrating and disturbing to many Montana progressives I’ve talked to.

It also places Schweitzer at the crux of a battle being waging throughout the West, one which he is well aware of: development vs. preservation. Thus far, as Lemon demonstrates, Schweitzer has been able to navigate that divide fairly adroitly. But achieving his vision to exploit Montana’s vast resources while keeping it the last, best place is going to provide a tall challenge, even for a politician as adept as Schweitzer.

Editor’s note: Joan McCarter’s weekly blogs are part of NewWest.Net/Politics’ “Diary of a Mad Voter” feature, a group blog, published in partnership with the Denver Post’s Politics West intended give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the ‘08 election cycle. For more columns check in with www.newwest.net/madvoter. And for more information on each of the bloggers, click here.

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