Generation Recreation with Michael Pearlman
Obama’s Next Challenge: Working with the Red State West
Voters in places like Sheridan, Wyoming; Rexburg, Idaho or Red Lodge, Montana don’t know what to think of Obama and don’t feel they can trust him yet.By Michael Pearlman, 11-06-08
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I’m uncomfortable ascribing cult-like status to politicians, but it’s hard not to resist Obama mania. I so badly want to believe that our new president can deliver on his promise of an administration that uses hope instead of fear to wield power. Yet rural Wyoming has proven especially resistant to Obama fever and his message of “Change we need”.
The cold and threatening weather that moved across the Bighorns on election day afternoon mirrored the mood of many Wyoming Republicans contemplating an Obama presidency. I woke up this morning in a Wyoming county where 68 percent of voters supported McCain, a vivid reminder that all politics is ultimately local. My dyed-in-the-wool Republican neighbors are protective of their jobs in the oil and gas industry and loathe tax and spend liberals. They’re worried that Obama will take their guns, cost their business more money and have Washington bureaucrats making land use decisions about where they can play with their motorized toys.
While the international community welcomes president Obama with open arms, American voters in places like Sheridan, Wyoming; Rexburg, Idaho or Red Lodge, Montana don’t know what to think and don’t feel they can trust him yet. They want to know how their way of life will be impacted with a Democrat in the White House, running the show.
A writer for the Idaho Statesman logically suggests that “Western Democrats and environmentalists will have more influence on federal land decisions” under Obama. What I want to know is, what will Western Democrats ask for, how much money will be available to pay for it and how are Republicans going to react?
Public lands and our forests and rivers have suffered from neglect over the past eight years. Forest Service and National Park Service employees have watched as budgets were gutted and research projects were manipulated. At the same time, the Bush administration was busy smoothing out bumps in the road for oil companies to get a piece of the pie, virtually auctioning off every piece of available land they could. There’s now a sad backlog of maintenance projects in parks and forests and fire-suppression efforts are challenged because of a lack of funding.
An Obama administration is likely to allocate more resources to these cash-strapped federal agencies. The Democrats are also going to make policy decisions that have the power to begin transforming the economies of Western communities. I’m curious how Republican representatives with friends in the oil and gas industry will react to Obama’s budget and funding proposals for alternative energy research. Will entrepreneurs look to the West as a land of opportunity when it comes to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels?
To achieve its goals in the West, the Obama administration is going to need to be more open to compromise than Bush and his cronies. To ignore local sentiment with regards to land use is to return to politics as usual, with everyone protecting their own turf and using lawsuits to fight unpopular policies. It won’t be long before the battles begin anew. Will local control be wrested from Westerners hands though policy makers? Can land use compromises be reached? Watch carefully to see who Obama selects as Secretary of the Interior for a hint of what the next four years are going to be like for public lands protectionists. I’d like to be optimistic, but I can only hope that Obama’s political revolution has the ability to work alongside a populace that believes in environmental protection, but on its own terms.
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Comments
"To whom it may concern, you live in a state that takes more from the Federal Government than you give back. Therefore, until further notice you are hereby regarded as a welfare king and/or queen, and a socialist. So if your socialist a** is going to whine about other people leeching off the system, please move to Taxachussets first.
Sincerely,
Barack Hussien Obama
P.S. By executive order you are now considered gay married to Hank down the street. Deal with it you welfare queen."
That way all the welfare cowboys in places like Sheridan will know right where they stand in the pecking order.
"Compromise" doesn't work very well with people who consider Obama a soclialist/communist. Nothing he does will please them, and the public lands need the protection anyway.
Give a thought to our country and what we can do to rebuild it instead of funding more playgrounds for you. Then we can all have a dream we can believe in.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=13515
It shows areas that voted more and less Republican this cycle than in 2004. Basically there is a racist strip through Appalachia of bitter people that cling to guns and religion, and the rest of the country got better.
Hope my friend...and also rest assured that these troglodytes are destroying their own schools, financial future, and insuring their own backwards-ness. If they want to poison their kids with hate and Creationism, I say we let them (but be vigilant to keep the infection isolated). When they have beaten themselves to absolute failure, through sheer ignorance and bigotry, they will come to us with their hands out, and we will help them.
We will help them because our vision of America includes helping our fellow man. But we will also call them Socialists and mock them mercilessly at the same time, because seriously, these are the idiots and morons who sent e-mails all over the country calling other people Muslim, anti-American, and the "antichrist".
In short, if you teach a man to fish, he may just show up at your world class trout fishery and talk about "God, guns, and gays" all day, but if you slap a man across the face with a fish and then tell him to shut up and eat it because he done killed all the fish in his own stream by being a Republican and if he thinks he is going to mooch your fish there are going to be some ground rules, you will feel a lot better and so will Uncle Sam.
Now for my concerns about Obama: We know nothing about what he believes, more about what his associates beleive, we do not know why he and the DNC fought in court to keep his birth certificate from being released, I was very concerned about his statement that he is going to bankrupt coal fired electric plants, no mention of where we are going to get electric while he tries to find an alternative. He really knows nothing about managing even a state, much less a country.
By the way, President elect Obama is not related in any way to American blacks, his black blood comes from Kenya, his mother was a white American, and that is the half that is an American.
Enviros push their environmental ideas in elementary schools becaue that is where kids are impressionable. O spent those formative years in an Islamic school in Indonesia.
I wonder what Obama will cut to try and balance the budget. He has a lot of areas he promised to fund. His proposed tax increase on top 5% and reduction for lower 95% will not work. Given Biden's comments of lowering to $150k we start getting range of top 10% of taxpayers. If the rate is increased too much on this group of people they will change compensation methods and investment options resulting in lower taxes. This will ultimately force the increase on taxes to the top 20% of taxpayers. This may start hitting people in the $75k range. At this point I think there will be a taxpayer revolt and the Democrat party will pay down the road. They can try to keep on top 10% but I think too high of an increase and they will get the diminishing rate of return effect.
It will be an interesting time the next few years watching Reid, Pelosi and Obama shift this country to the left. Hopefully they do not enact policies that dump/keep us in a depression for the next 10 years. If we hit a depression stage it will be hard for most people to tolerate spending on many of items you suggest there is a backlog of in the national parks and forest. I am for more funding for the nationl parks and forest but I think we have to cut funding in some of the social programs to pay for it. IMHO
Cheers and flame away.
P.S.
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20081106_ap_crossburnedonlawnofobamasupportersinnj.html
Obama's birth certificate? Why was that a big deal anyway? And why do you keep bringing it up after the Obama campaign released it to the public?
Obama in a Muslim school in Indonesia? Apparently he went to two public schools in Indonesia as a child, one of them Catholic, the other one Muslim, none of the two teaching religious extremism or bomb-making skills. He later went on to get a law degree in Harvard, so apparently his overall education was pretty good. And he wrote about it in his book, so what is the big deal with it?
Worried about his foreign connections? What the heck is that supposed to mean? You don't like the fact that his father was a foreigner? Or that people in other countries like him? I can't see how foreign connections could be a bad thing to have for a president.
And who cares where his "black blood" comes from, Kenya or the US? You say you don't care about race, so why bring this up at all?
The only point you bring up that is worth discussing is his statement about putting a cap and trade system on energy producers, so that the ones who are responsible for emission of greenhouse gases have to pay for it, and not the general public. Apparently you think that we should subsidize polluters because we need the energy they produce. I disagree strongly, but at least this is not a frivolous and baseless charge.
These bright red areas are not going to change. Therefore, President Obama doesn't need to give them anything, especially if it means that his supporters have to forgo something they expected their loyalty would win.
In other words, Cody and Rexburg ought not to expect any favors.
Mr Pearlman, are your neighbors at all concerned and/or loath borrow and spend big government conservatives? Or did they embrace the Bush ruination of our economy over the past few years?
In the worst case, if nobody comes up with cleaner ways of producing energy, this would drive up the price of energy to reflect the real costs. However, there is no reason for pessimism, given the historic record of resourcefulness of people and companies.
Of course, we could also try to ignore the problems of carbon emissions and nuclear waste and hope that it won't get too bad during our lifetime. Just leave it to future generations to sort out the mess... The choice is up to you.