The state of Montana you see in the photo illustration at left was formed by some 500 or so high school seniors attending 1982 Boys State. I'm in the top row, ninth from the right. Keep reading, because there's an even more amusing picture of me from the summer of '82 below.
I became nostalgic for my home state this week, while reading the news stories explaining that Montana had gotten competitive in the presidential race. This is being treated as a somewhat shocking development, since Montana went for Bush by 20 points in 2004 and generally supports the Republican candidate for president.
Actually, it's no big deal. I am surprised that a Montana gun manufacturer would fire its CEO (and the company's namesake) after he announced his support for Barack Obama. After all, the governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, is a gun-toting Democrat.
Montana is like a lot of western states. It tends to support the Republican in national elections but is less predictable in state and local elections. The "unity ticket" of Schweitzer and his Republican Lt. Governor John Bohlinger Sr., whom I've known for 30 years, are a lock for re-election. Steve Bullock, who competed against me in high school cross-country, is poised to win the (mostly nonpartisan) attorney general's job as a Democrat. The state's lone congressman, Denny Rehberg, whom I served as an aide in the 1985 Legislature, is a Republican. The Dems controlled the upper house in the last Legislature, while the GOP ran the lower house.
The U.S. attorney, Bill Mercer, worked with me in '85. I could write a whole story about Bill, who's been in the news a bit, mainly for raising eyebrows when he agreed to take the No. 3 job at the Justice Department while still serving as U.S. attorney for Montana. That sounds like something Bill might pull off. He's charming, smart, has a good sense of humor, and has been running for governor since he was 15.
The fact that one degree of separation exists between me and many of these Montana politicians doesn't make me special. In a state with fewer than a million people scattered over the fourth largest land area in the U.S., politics is personal. In Montana, people know people who run for state office. And unlike Alaska, which also generally fits the profile, Montana isn't in the tank for one party or the other.
Generally, its three electoral votes are overlooked by the presidential candidates. This year, however, Obama decided to go to Montana and meet-and-greet. His two days there gained national attention because he watched his wife at the Democratic National Convention from a living room in Billings. So that might partially explain why Obama is competitive in Montana and other red states, although I think a larger fact is at work.
And we'll get to that in a moment, but first, the photo you've been waiting for ...
It was the summer of of 1982 when I was selected to go to Boys Nation, the American Legion mock-government gathering in Washington, D.C., that Bill Clinton once famously attended. Bubba had his picture taken shaking JFK's hand. I, on the other hand, got this souvenir picture of myself in perfectly ghastly plaid pants, standing next to Pat Williams, the western district congressman from Butte, and my fellow Boys Nationer, Pete Putzier.
UPDATE: Peter Putzier is now a senior AAG in the Alaska Attorney General's office specializing in Indian law.
(About those dollar signs: When I upgraded my Mac to a new operating system, my scanner stopped working, so I had to download a shareware scanning program ... which watermarks every image with randomly-placed dollar signs until you agree to pay for the program. As you can see, the placement of the watermarks was poetic, so I left them in.)
(About those pants: Denny Rehberg just read this piece and wrote in to say, "Thought I was the last to wear plaid pants when I wore them to my high school prom in '73." So I had to explain to him that his Mom probably took them to the Goodwill, where my Mom, god rest her soul, bought them.)
In the year that picture was taken, only one statewide office was held by a Republican, attorney general (and future governor) Marc Racicot. The governor of Montana (Ted Schwinden) was a Democrat. So were both U.S. senators (Max Baucus, John Melcher). The Montana Legislature was controlled by Democrats.
And yet, Ronald Reagan would carry Montana in 1980 and 1984. But voters supported Clinton in 1992 at the same time they were putting Racicot in the governor's mansion and Republicans in other statewide offices.
So if politics is personal on the local level, what is it on the national level? Veteran state government reporter Chuck Johnson observed earlier this week that while isn't quite in Missouri's league as a bellwether, "Montana's track record isn't bad" when it comes to presidential elections. Johnson argues that Montanans have "horse sense." Or maybe they just like picking winners.
And it's this way across much of America. Forget about 2000 and 2004 for a moment; the more typical electoral college outcome is a landslide, with lots of states piling into the victor's column. So if Montana winds up going for Obama, by the time the TV networks announce that fact on Election Night, it won't be news.
Previously on TV Barn: I profiled John Bohlinger Jr., son of the lieutenant governor, my lifelong friend and currently the bandleader on NBC's "Nashville Star."
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