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Thursday, July 3, 2008

Obama Ahead in… Montana?!?

posted by on July 3 at 12:20 PM

That’s what a new Rasmussen poll says. And it’s well-timed, as far as the Obama camp is concerned, since Obama will be spending his Fourth of July in beautiful Butte (hometown of our very own Adrian Ryan).

What’s going on in Montana?

Obama’s relative success there is actually part of a larger trend of Mountain West states turning purple (and maybe even blue this year), something I wrote about for The Stranger back in 2006 when I profiled a rugged Montana Democrat named John Tester—who ended up unseating three-term Republican Senator Conrad Burns and is now the junior senator from the state.

How did Tester do it? From my profile:

Watch Tester in action and it’s not difficult to see why his persona plays better in Montana than that of, say, John Kerry—who, for all his hunting photo ops, was still an urbane liberal in a barn jacket. In Butte, after having crossed first Iron Street, and then Aluminum, Platinum, Gold, and Mercury Streets, I came upon Tester walking across Granite Street. He was wearing cowboy boots and a barely matching outfit: olive herringbone jacket, purple shirt, and dust-brown slacks. His impressive gut preceded him. His trademark blond flattop identified him. And his mangled left hand, from which he lost three fingers to a meat grinder in his youth, was waving back at supporters.

Behind him walked two aides in Carhartt jackets and sturdy shoes, looking, to the citified eye, more like ranchers than political operatives. They all ducked into the Labor Temple, where a podium had been set in front of two television cameras and several rows of empty chairs. Montana is an empty state, the third emptiest in the country in fact, with only 6 people per square mile compared to Washington State’s 88 per square mile (and far behind New Jersey’s 1,134 per square mile). It’s also a state filled with people who don’t want to be watched too closely or told what to do; there were a number of union-member types at the Labor Temple event, but they chose to stand in back, behind the cameras, leaving vacant the chairs that had been provided for them.

The theme of the press conference was tax policy, and Tester flipped around the typical Republican attack line about “tax-and-spend liberals,” calling Burns a “borrow-and-spend conservative” who’d been overfriendly with the likes of Jack Abramoff, signed off on wasteful appropriations, and helped run up the national debt. He also slammed Burns’s reported support for a national sales tax, saying that in a poor state like Montana such a tax would “put the kibosh” on many families being able to send their kids to college, never mind being able to take a minimal vacation.

“It’s nice to go out fishin’ sometimes,” Tester noted.

Will Obama wear a Carhartt to the Butte Fourth of July parade? Will the Chicago pol be able to talk fishing like Tester? Will he be as well-received as polls suggest? Stay tuned…

RSS icon Comments

1

Fnarf called it.

Posted by w7ngman | July 3, 2008 12:46 PM
2

The Dakotas are next.

Posted by w7ngman | July 3, 2008 12:49 PM
3

Which states will McCain manage to pull off winning, if any?

Posted by Just Sayin' | July 3, 2008 12:54 PM
4

The Dakotas haven't been polled in months, just like Montana before today.

Posted by w7ngman | July 3, 2008 12:55 PM
5

Short comments are tasty.

#3, Idaho?

Posted by w7ngman | July 3, 2008 12:58 PM
6

Obama needs to become versed in water rights: If he does that every rancher in the West will vote for him. Don't know what water rights are about: Google it.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | July 3, 2008 1:07 PM
7

Some of us told you this a while back - especially those of us with relatives and friends from Montana.

Most of the West has had it with the America-hating Incompetent Republicants.

Obama should stay the f... out of water rights - only n00bz like McSame would jump into that one this year. Leave it to the states for now.

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 3, 2008 1:17 PM
8

I still think McCain will end up winning most/all of the inland-west states (except for Colorado and New Mexico, I hope!). But, I find it so reassuring that Obama is polling so well in some of these... it just means McCain has to spend more time there, rather than Ohio, Florida, Indiana, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. So, if Obama can make trips to places like Montana and North Dakota to keep the McCain camp playing catch-up, go for it!

Posted by James | July 3, 2008 1:19 PM
9

"Urbane liberal in a barn jacket" Oh, that's right, Obama doesn't wear a barn jacket. Hubris loses elections, I'm pleased to say.

Posted by Vince | July 3, 2008 1:21 PM
10

Obama's not going to win Idaho, though he'll surprise a few people there. Idaho's probably 10 years away from voting D for anything. Unless McCain completely falls in the toilet, which is always possible. There's a reasonable chance that of highly visible "senior moments" in public forums, like maybe a debate or two where he just loses his grip; THEN Idaho might go.

But Montana? Dem governor, two Dem senators -- what's red about that?

Posted by Fnarf | July 3, 2008 1:37 PM
11

More importantly, Eli, did Montanans march for Obama in a Pride Parade?

Posted by Andy Niable | July 3, 2008 1:43 PM
12

Montana's Republicans are really libertarian and libertarians have no tolerance for the religious right. Any one from Montana knows that abortion will always be safe there, that the legalization of medicinal marijauna was no surprise and that the environment became a huge issue for Montanans once they realized the policy of the Bush administration was taking away their beloved areas of hunting and fishing.

Posted by unred | July 3, 2008 2:39 PM
13

Will, seriously, stop using "n00bz" and its variants until you learn what it means.

Posted by Fnarf | July 3, 2008 4:24 PM
14

NYT:

"Senator Barack Obama said Thursday that he might “refine” his plans for a phased withdrawal from Iraq after meeting with military commanders there later this summer. But later, he hastily held a second news conference: to emphasize his commitment to withdrawing all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office."

But he gave a speech so you see he's actually very different on foreign policy um hmmmmmm

Posted by PC | July 3, 2008 6:47 PM
15

Right, PC.

I suspect what the military commanders told him is that you can't just pack up and haul out of there in two days; you need to coordinate very carefully even for the simplest troop and material movement, let alone for moving 100,000 people and a trillion dollars worth of equipment out of a war zone. It ain't like moving house. I think the fact that Obama is paying visible attention to reality is a positive sign, not wolf peeping out of sheepskin.

Posted by Fnarf | July 3, 2008 9:51 PM
16

Wall Street Journal and Washington Post have New Mexico in the Obama win column.

Idaho .. probably not, but you never know.

And Fnarf is correct on what happened re the military - Dana Priest was talking about it today in chat and there's been quite a bit of back-channel chatter about the logistics of getting out of Iraq and removing the Red Bushies in the pipeline.

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 3, 2008 10:14 PM

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