the new west conference

Timothy Egan on Dems’ Success in the West

By Matthew Frank, 10-23-08

	Timothy Egan. Photo by Graham Coppes.

Of all the changes taking place in the Mountain West, the most salient with the election less than two weeks away are the political shifts, with a few once reliably “red” Western states leaning Barack Obama’s way and, perhaps more tellingly, a growing number of Democrats governing and representing them.

Which is why New York Times columnist Timothy Egan, a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner and third generation Westerner (his grandma grew up in Butte), gave tonight’s keynote address at the annual New West conference in Missoula, Montana.

Egan said Democrats’ success in the West can largely be attributed to taking social wedge issues off the table, namely “gays, guns and God.” Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer was the first Western Democrat to do that, Egan said, which has allowed him to start a political dialogue about important economic issues to which everyone can relate.

“The stereotype (about Democrats) is changing, finally,” Egan said.

We’re looking at a possible landslide come November 4, Egan said, citing the preponderance of polls that show a significant Obama advantage, including one released today that actually suggests an Obama lead in Montana (most have shown McCain up by between five and ten points). Egan thinks Obama will come close in the state but won’t pull it out.

Egan also believes there will be a reverse Bradley effect in the West. Why? “Blacks are almost an abstract notion,” and Obama usually did better in Western primaries and caucuses than the polls predicted, he said.

If Obama does win, it will have a huge effect on the West, Egan said, in part because he will appoint a new Secretary of the Interior, or an “Emperor of the Outdoors.” Rumored candidates include Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, King County (Washington) Executive Ron Sims, and Schweitzer, who Egan called an “evangelist for ‘clean coal.’”

Egan is uniquely qualified to speak to the historic economic context in which this election occurs, having written The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl.

On the Great Depression, Egan said: “There are so many similarities between why that contagion brought down the American economy and why this one may as well.”

As for its effects on the West, he said you can’t lose $2 trillion in the stock market, as we’ve done this year, and not have it ripple through the entire economy.

Egan’s address was followed by a panel discussion with Lee Newspapers correspondent Jennifer McKee, Idaho Statesman columnist Dan Popkey, Wyofile editor in chief (and long-time LA Times writer) Rone Tempest, and NewWest.Net founder and publisher Jonathan Weber.

A couple notes from that discussion: Tempest said, “If this is a wave election, then (Wyoming’s) the surfer that missed the wave.” McKee debunked the myth that the fastest growing towns in Montana are being flooded with Democrats. And Popkey, who spent five months reporting the Sen. Larry Craig story, said Craig didn’t resign because “to do otherwise would destroy who he was in his own head.”

NewWest.Net’s Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies conference continues Friday. Click here for the agenda. We hope you’ll join us.

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