WE NEED THIS GUST OF FRESH AIR

Please, Let it be Grijalva for Interior Secretary

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post and several bloggers are naming Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) as a "leading contender" for Obama's pick for Secretary of the Interior. This cabinet position usually goes to a westerner, and Grijalva would be an excellent choice.

He current chairs the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands and has been an outspoken advocate for protecting national parks, wilderness and wildlife habitat in the West, recently opposing the Bush Administration's plans for oil and gas leasing and coal mining in critical areas and resisting deep cuts in national park budgets.

The New President and the New West

Here in Montana, and across the Rocky Mountain West, the election of Barack Obama represents the startling culmination of social, cultural and political changes that have been underway in this region for many years. You've heard a lot of this by now: the Mountain West, increasingly populated by amenity-seeking coastal migrants and Latino immigrants, and with an independent-minded electorate that's resistant to Republican over-reaching on social issues, is no longer solid red, but rather "in play." And if the breadth of Obama's victory ultimately rendered the electoral votes of Colorado and New Mexico and Montana and Nevada superfluous, the deeper significance of the changes remain.

It certainly didn't play out the way any pundit might have predicted a couple of years ago. Obama, for starters, is hardly the "Western" candidate that many Western Democrats imagined would be the standard-bearer for the inevitable breakthrough. "You guys have a nice deal around here," Obama said in Missoula last spring, with all the wonder of a first-time tourist. He joked about going fly fishing (a river runs through it, after all!), but it's hard to picture him in waders.

FIRST AND ONLY ON NEWWEST.NET

Sportsman’s Warehouse CEO Speaks Out on Cooper Firearms Controversy

Anybody who has been following the cyber-firestorm over pro-Obama statements and campaign contributions made by Dan Cooper, president and co-founder of Cooper Firearms of Stevensville, Montana, knows that as part of the collateral damage, life has gotten hectic at Sportsman's Warehouse.

After the story broke on October 28 in USA TODAY and became the subject of my column on NewWest.Net five days later, gun owners angry with Cooper besieged Sportsman's Warehouse's 66 superstores and corporate headquarters with threats of a boycott if the company didn't stop selling Cooper's products. Then, gun owners angry with gun rights activists calling for the boycott went into those same stores threatening their own boycott if America's Premier Outfitter didn't continue selling Cooper products.

You got to feel for Sportsman's Warehouse, obviously caught in the middle of a controversy they didn't create, so I called CEO Stuart Utgaard. He was anxious to clear it up for us.

THE SCARIEST THING THAT HAPPENED ON HALLOWEEN

Gun Lobby Attack Dogs Strike Again

Something extremely scary happened last Friday on Halloween. Dan Cooper, President and Founder of Cooper Firearms of Stevensville, Montana, resigned.

Not so scary, you say. Well, wait until you hear why. If you believe in freedom and that there's a reason why the right to free speech is the First Amendment, prepare to be terrified.

Editor's note: Links to three updates at the end of the story.--Bill Schneider

washingtonpost.com chat with newwest.net

Q & A: The West in Play

NewWest.Net editor and reporter Robert Struckman chatted live on washingtonpost.com this morning, discussing the nuances of the political changes taking place in the Rocky Mountain West.

The transcript after the jump.

WHAT THEY DON'T SAY IN THE DEBATES

McCain, Palin, Earmarks, and the DNA of Bears and Harbor Seals

Last Friday, at the onset of the ongoing congressional struggle over our "main street economic rescue package," fifty million of us watched Republican presidential candidate John McCain debate his Democratic rival Barack Obama. And tonight, as Congress is finishing up our economic rescue, even more than fifty million of us will watch Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin face off with Democrat Joe Biden.

Based on what happened in that presidential debate, I strongly suspect she won't say anything about the grizzly bear or harbor seal DNA.

mccain vs. obama

The State of the Race in the Rockies

Emboldened Democrats spent the summer eagerly looking West with the expectation of picking up electoral votes in the Rockies while skittish Republicans have fretted about losing what once was a reliably red region. In particular, Barack Obama's campaign has been courting voters in Colorado, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico -- all states carried by George W. Bush in 2004. Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, have campaigned extensively in the Rockies and -- perhaps most telling -- Democrats decided to stage their convention in Denver in an effort to reach out to the region's voters. But all this was before the Republican National Convention and the arrival of the much-loved and much-loathed Sarah Palin. An unpretentious Idaho native and the governor of the wildest of Western states, many assumed that she would crush the Democrats' Mountain West insurgency. Now that we have some distance from the conventions -- and before the debates commence -- it's a reasonable time to examine where the race stands in the Rockies.

Guest Commentary

American Hunters and Shooters Association Responds to its Critics

Editor's Note: If you visit NewWest.Net regularly, you know I've frequently written about the gun issue, the National Rifle Association (NRA), and the rival organization, the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA). Every time I mention AHSA, commenters claim the group is nothing but a front for anti-gun groups or the ultra-liberal wing of the Democratic Party, or both. To address these concerns, I asked the ASHA to respond in detail to these claims. The Advisory Board of the AHSA prepared the following guest commentary exclusively for NewWest.Net.--Bill Schneider

The recent national Slash and Burn: Why Does the National Rifle Association Leadership Support Congress's Biggest Opponents of Conservation?", a report prepared by the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA) to shed light on NRA’s dismal conservation record, has once again fired up the old McCarthy-style, NRA-attack machine.

Rather than question the accuracy of the report, AHSA critics, once again dredge up old character attacks of AHSA leadership and guilt by association innuendo. In the past the AHSA leadership has not responded to the ridiculous NRA attacks, but now may be the best time to publicly respond to the absurd allegations that many NRA apologists on the internet feel compelled repeat.

From The New West Blog

McCain, Obama Talk Sportsmen’s Issues with Field & Stream

Outdoor magazine Field & Stream has posted interviews with presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, providing insights into their positions on conservation, energy exploration and gun rights.

While neither candidate hunts or owns a gun, both have been busy wooing those who do -- especially as the Rocky Mountain West has emerged as a battleground.

A cursory summary after the jump.