commentary

Writing about Palin is like a room that’s so messy you can’t clean it up because once you get started you realize it’s five days of around the clock work so you just continue to wallow in the mess, even though you’re miserable about it.

Also, it takes a lot of energy to sustain this level of outrage, but it's too important to let the energy go.

Analysis of the audacity of McCain’s decision to choose a running mate with the audacity to think she is qualified to be president is easy to find. Feminist analysis is everywhere. Information on her history and background, quotes, facts, scandal, corruption, jokes and videos are posted and reported by the minute. My head has been spinning since the day her choice was announced.

I finally decided to just write about how I feel. [more]

Race to Govern Montana

At the first gubernatorial debate of the season, held Monday evening at the Montana Theater on the University of Montana campus in Missoula:

Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer touted his energy record, job creation and investment in education;

Republican candidate Roy Brown said he would bring property tax relief, eliminate the business equipment tax and develop Montana's natural resources;

and Libertarian Party nominee Stan Jones said he would get government out of the picture. [more]

From The New West Blog

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. [more]

the election

The polls indicate that Sen. John McCain is riding a post-convention bounce, boosted as well by running mate Gov. Sarah Palin's popularity (which could prove particularly advantageous in the West). In Montana, a state Sen. Barack Obama visited five times before Labor Day as he vies for its three electoral votes, McCain surged to an 11-point lead in the most recent poll. That's compared to a five point Obama lead in early July.

But, as is the case nationally, the Obama campaign is relying on its ground game -- in Montana, that's the 15,000 or so volunteers making phone calls, knocking on doors and registering people to vote -- to tip the election its way. [more]

Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath declined to investigate comments made by Gov. Brian Schweitzer at a fundraising event in Philadelphia on July 14, describing the speech as "admittedly intemperate" and saying "the accusations contain no allegation supported by fact."

Yesterday, NewWest.Net broke the news about Schweitzer's speech before the Trial Lawyers Association, in which he jokingly said he had tampered with the 2006 election, in which fellow Democrat Jon Tester narrowly beat Conrad Burns for the U.S. Senate. [more]

tester's win

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said in a July fundraising speech that he tampered with the 2006 election, in which fellow Democrat Jon Tester narrowly beat Conrad Burns for the U.S. Senate.

Specifically, Schweitzer jokingly described how he rigged the release of one county's election results with the goal of avoiding a recount and how he prompted reservation cops to run-off Republican poll watchers to keep them from harassing Indian voters.

"You know the governor," said Sarah Elliott, Schweitzer's spokeswoman. "He's an animated storyteller. He loves to tell stories. He was joking about the Tester election, at a time when we were in the shadow of Florida. He meant absolutely no offense. He got going and told stories in his usual animated way. That's really all there is to it. There wasn't any attempt to influence" the election or the results. [more]

So this is how I happened to stand in front of a stage in a nightclub in downtown Denver during the Democratic National Convention while Sen. Max Baucus belted out a rendition of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues."

What to make of it? That's harder to say.

I should mention that to be a journalist within the scripted confines of the national political conventions is, mostly, to gin up controversies (Will Hillary's die-hard supporters fall into line?), be spoon-fed story lines (Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin walks the walk) and be turned away from the private big-money bashes where tongues are loosened by drink and the lobbyists mix with lawmakers and delegates. [more]

watching the polls

A poll released Tuesday by Rasmussen Reports has John McCain up 11 points over Barack Obama in Montana, 53 percent to 42 percent, compared to the one point advantage he held in a similar poll conducted at the end of July.

With only a handful of polls conducted in Montana with fairly large fluctuations -- Obama had a five point lead July 1 -- it's tough to gauge how accurate this one is, but it would appear that adding Palin to the ticket boosted McCain, considering that 44% view her very favorably. It could also be a Palin-fueled convention bounce, typically short-lived.

But it doesn't bode well for Obama in Montana, one in a trio of traditionally red states -- North Dakota and Indiana, too -- with high ratios of working-class Democrats where the campaign is going "full steam ahead," as campaign manager David Plouffe said during a briefing with reporters today. [more]

From The New West Blog

The Constitution Party of Montana has submitted Ron Paul as their nominee, meaning he'll be on the Montana ballot with McCain and Obama (and Nader and Barr), according to Left in the West. It could cause some trouble for John McCain.

[more]

Guest Column

U.S. agriculture provides the safest and most abundant food supplies at the lowest prices in the world. As consumers, we are all affected by the farm bills passed by the U.S. Congress every three to five years and signed by the president. They set the policies for production, health, safety, and distribution -- including exports -- of the nation's food supplies.

Farm bills do not just happen. Each takes months of study, discussion, debate and compromise. For the complicated, tiring passage of a farm bill, there are grandstanders like Sen. John McCain and farm policy advocates like Sen. Barack Obama. [more]