From The New West Blog

Despite Palin, West Still in Play, Schweitzer Says

By Matthew Frank, 9-15-08

Moose, snowmobiling and so-called small-town values have been injected into the presidential race thanks to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, but it doesn’t mean she and Sen. John McCain are a lock to win Western states, says Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

As the Chicago Tribune reports, Schweitzer was the featured speaker at Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry Sunday, and he said Montana, Colorado and New Mexico are still very much in play and he doubts polling that shows McCain gaining ground.

“Polls bounce back and forth. After every convention you get a little bit of a bounce,” said Schweitzer. “They were about tied when they started and they’re about tied now.”

Schweitzer also suggested polls don’t reflect Obama’s support among younger people.

“If you want to start talking about the people who are underpolled, start talking about college students, start talking about young people,” said Schweitzer, who said that the cell-phone generation isn’t being reached in surveys.

“We’ve given them the greatest challenge with a non-sustainable food system, a non-sustainable energy system and yet they are up to the challenge,” said Schweitzer. “They’re going to vote for Barack Obama and they carry cell phones.”

For a thorough unpacking of Palin’s Western identity, check out Katherine Roberts’ piece in the New York Times.

A few weeks ago a national conversation about (moose hunting) would have seemed unlikely. But that was before the emergence of a candidate who has divided the country in unexpected ways — not simply because of her record and her views, but also because Governor Palin comes from a place in the West that embodies deep-seated ideas and myths and contradictions about the role of the frontier in the American psyche. In some sense, Ms. Palin has become a metaphor for Alaska itself, and as grand a landscape as Alaska is, the current discussion is less about a geographical location than about a state of mind, or states of mind.

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