Obama in Butte for the 4th of July
Sen. Barack Obama celebrated Independence Day in the mining city with his family. Check out our photo gallery, and click on the image for a larger version.
Sen. Barack Obama chose to celebrate the Fourth of July in Butte with his wife, Michelle, and daughters, Malia and Sasha. The Obama family attended the Independence Day Parade and hosted a "family picnic" at Montana Tech where Obama gave a brief speech, cooked hamburgers and chatted casually to fans. Photos by Alexia Beckerling [more]
Montana in Play
Obama Celebrates in Butte, America
Sen. Barack Obama celebrated July 4 in Butte, MT, honoring a spirited working-class town rich in history and signaling his seriousness about contesting the state in the general election. Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post has a thorough analysis of the political dynamics of the Butte visit and the Democrat's New West strategy. Gov. Brian Schweitzer had nice things to say, which has not always been the case in the past. It was also a family occasion for the presumptive Democratic nominee. The Montana Standard has full local coverage and New West's Alexia Beckerling photographed the event.
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Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
When in the course of human events….Happy Fourth of July! Celebrate by raising a little patriotic hell. [more]
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Diary Of A Mad Voter: Heath Haussamen
New Mexico GOP Should Be More Open
Shortly after the 2006 primary election, the Republican Party of New Mexico's central committee entered a closed-door meeting with J.R. Damron as its gubernatorial candidate and emerged with John Dendahl as its candidate. Damron's withdrawal from the race, which allowed the party to place Dendahl on the ballot, was a surprise move that didn't help the party at all: Dendahl was steamrolled by the Bill Richardson re-election train later that year.
The switcheroo earned the GOP some criticism. What happened in that private meeting? Was Damron pressured to drop out? Who orchestrated the change? Rank-and-file Republicans had no opportunity to vote in the primary for or against the man who represented their party at the top of the ticket that year -- a controversial, fire-breathing politico many Republicans loved but others were embarrassed to call their own.
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from the new west blog: shouldn't we expect better?
The Politics of Spin: Situation Normal
Politicians on both teams are so busy hollering at each other and issuing dueling blame-game press releases about the price of gas and energy policy, other issues are drowning in the noise.
An inexhaustible supply of put-down quotes are standard fare at the Senate Republican website as well as the Senate Democrats’, not to mention in media reports worldwide.
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Sen. Barack Obama is leading Sen. John McCain by five percentage points, gaining ground with younger voters in Montana, according to a new poll from Rasmussen Reports.
Forty-eight percent of voters polled by telephone said they would vote for Obama while 43 percent said they would vote for McCain. The last time Rasmussen polled Montana voters, in April, it was just the opposite. McCain was leading with 48 percent to Obama's 43 percent.
The poll shows Obama is most popular with voters under the age of 30, where he has a 27-point lead. McCain was more popular than Obama with voters older than 50.
Party loyalty is strong for both candidates, with 89 percent of Democrats going for Obama and 85 percent of Republicans going for McCain.
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WHERE IS THE HOUSE BILL?
Congress Needs to Walk the Talk on Recreation Fees
On June 18, finally, Congress started seriously looking into the runaway recreational fee charging policy of federal agencies, primarily the U.S. Forest Service (FS), but it's still just talk. We've had enough of that, so let's just spike this pay-for-play policy, which is at best an extreme stretch of the legal authority given agencies by Congress--"given," sort of, I should say, since our elected leaders never even debated it or voted on it.
Even though it's moving at glacier speed, we at least have the Baucus-Crapo Bill, S. 2438, introduced in the Senate to spike the Recreation Access Tax. This is clearly a bipartisan issue, ripe for election-year politics. Now, we need a sponsor for a similar bill in the House.
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From The New West Blog
Western Govs Decide to Craft Energy Plan
Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, the newly elected leader of the Western Governor's Association, is pushing other Western Governors at the annual meeting in Wyoming to collectively come up with a national energy initiative to guide the next president's policy.
The group will work over the next 12 months to come up with a plan, which governors have said the federal government has been sorely in need of, that addresses climate change and energy independence.
The timing is good, Huntsman said, and that means this time, the new administration might listen to what Western governors have to say. He tells the Deseret News that be it McCain or Obama, the next president is going to need to take advice from what Huntsman calls "the most energy relevant region."
More from The Denver Post here.
More from the Deseret News here.
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From The New West Blog
NRA to Unload $40M Against Obama
The National Rifle Association plans to spend about $40 million on this year's presidential campaign, with $15 million of that devoted to portraying Barack Obama as a threat to the Second Amendment rights upheld last week by the Supreme Court, Jonathan Martin at Politico.com reports.
"Our members understand that if Barack Obama is elected president, and he has support in the Senate to confirm anti-gun Supreme Court nominees, [the District of Columbia v. Heller decision] could be taken away from us in the future,” Chris Cox, head of the NRA’s political arm, told Politico.
Ben Smith, a Politico.com blogger, says the consequences might be "tougher going in some of those long-shot states, notably Montana and Alaska, where gun rights are big but where Obama may out-organize McCain."
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