"Blue Man in a Red State" by Greg Lemon

Reprinted from "Blue Man in a Red State: Montana's Governor Brian Schweitzer and the New Western Populism" by Greg Lemon. Copyright © 2008. Published by TwoDot, an imprint of The Globe Pequot Press.

Chapter 5: The Populist

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer has been called a "prairie populist." In some ways, it's an easy label to hang on him, but one that's perhaps not entirely accurate.

Populism, to define it with a broad stroke, elevates the rights of individuals over businesses or corporations. Montana populists have historically been bent on reforming labor and mine-safety laws, and they've been interested in women's suffrage and the direct election of senators (U.S. Senators were elected by state legislatures until the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1913.) As a party they were at their most powerful in the early twentieth century.

John Morrison and Catherine Wright Morrison, in their book, Mavericks: The Lives and Battles of Montana's Political Legends, wrote, "Montana's first populist movement grew up around dissatisfaction with territorial conditions and the
consequent cry for statehood. The white male voters that peopled Montana before 1890 were recalcitrant spirits who . . . teased and despised the eastern ‘dudes' that Washington's Republican presidential administrations imposed upon them."

In populist fashion Schweitzer has championed land access for hunters and fishermen, gone to bat to freeze college tuition, and tried unsuccessfully to close what he calls tax loopholes, which, according to the governor, allow out-of-state corporations to elude paying their share of state taxes. Schweitzer's also pushed unsuccessfully for ethics reform in Helena. (He would like to limit the ability of politicians to leave office and step immediately into the role of lobbyist.) He's also publicly railed against out-of-state landowners who, he says, are buying up land in Montana and shutting out the public.

A cynic would say that Schweitzer's positions more accurately reflect his sharp reading of public sentiment as much as his earnest intention to promote change. Out-of-state landowners have, in some very prominent cases, tried to limit public access, but they have also funded local charities and conservation efforts. For instance, the Stock Farm Club, a gated development built in Ravalli County by investment mogul Charles Schwab, established the Greater Ravalli Foundation. Its focus is on providing college scholarships for local teenagers, food and clothing for low-income children, and school supplies for local teachers. On the conservation side, in 2007 Roger Lang, a former Silicon Valley CEO, placed his eleven-thousand-acre Sun Ranch, located in the Madison Valley near Yellowstone National Park, under a conservation easement. The easement protected a large expanse of critical elk, wolf, and grizzly bear habitat.

Schweitzer is certainly smart enough to see both sides of these issues. But as a third-generation Montanan, he's also in sync with his electorate. Montanans still have their suspicions of the "eastern dudes," and he knows it.

National reporters, those who have met him, talk about his bolo tie, blue jeans, and "gilded" silver belt buckle. But he likes to describe himself as a good listener. "All the time, I move and shift based on new information that I gain," Schweitzer said. "I'm very good at developing irrigation and crops. I'm world class. Everything else I'm a work in progress. I'm listening to what people have to say about issues, about places, about objects."

Schweitzer pointed to his support of all-day kindergarten. He ran for governor intending to provide more support for higher education, particularly community colleges and technical schools. But once in office he began listening to educators who said that early education was vital. So he shifted his position a little and put more money in kindergarten. "I didn't know that before. I didn't believe that before, but I do now."

But how did his populist image emerge? Three years into his administration, his personality and history are still enigmas. Numerous times in interviews with his associates, I was told that a person hadn't even heard of Schweitzer until he ran against Burns in 2000. Some of his biggest supporters didn't even really know what he was doing before then. One of his cabinet members, Mary Sexton-whom Schweitzer appointed to head the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation in 2004-said that she believed she'd been in 4-H with one of Schweitzer's brothers.

He's one of the most popular governors in Montana's history and yet no one seems to know much at all about him.

Chapter 7: Across the West

Schweitzer calls it “The Blue Highway,” — a strip of liberal governorships from Montana through Wyoming and down to Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. This ascendancy of Democratic governors, with Schweitzer in the vanguard, have been able to court conservative and moderate voters by taking on issues Democrats had previously ceded to the Republicans.

In an article for Time magazine, Joe Klein wrote, “Something strange and tangy is happening in the Rocky Mountains. The Democratic Party is being reborn, with a raft of colorful candidates who have won the hearts of independents and moderate Republican voters.”

Klein maintains that the top-tier Democratic presidential candidates are coming off overly liberal and urban, traits that have never played well with Rocky Mountain voters. “At a time when political pomp and blab have come to seem prohibitively pompous and bloviational, Rocky Mountain politics is fresh and innovative and fun. It might not be a bad idea for Hillary and Barack and the rest to pause for a moment . . . and take a look at what’s happening just west of Iowa, in an electorally overlooked region of the country that just may hold the key to winning the White House in 2008.”

Democrats in the Rocky Mountains have found success by being pragmatic and moderate, he wrote. This has meant defending real solutions to issues vital to the region: energy, growth, conservation, natural resources, and immigration. Democratic governors in the region are lowering taxes and coming up with innovative ways to address the demand for alternative energy. “Democrats also tend to reject a Western live-and-let-live attitude on social issues like abortion and homosexuality. But given the traditional Western aversion to lockstep conformity, none of the above are hard-and-fast rules,” he wrote.

Brian Schweitzer, not unlike his populist peers, has a portfolio of positions that more accurately reflect the varied tastes of his constituency than cater to his party. In terms of gun control, he has said, “You take care of your guns; I’ll take care of mine.” With regard to gay marriage, Schweitzer told Charlie Rose that, while Montana recently passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and woman, it’s not that simple: “Montana is a libertarian place. Keep the government off our back, out of our bedroom — we don’t want to hear from you unless we need you.”

When Rose pressed him on how he personally felt, Schweitzer balked, but did say, “We’ll work on legal means for adults to live their lives together — civil union, something like that.”

As opposed to some of his other counterparts — and further rejecting his constituency — Schweitzer embraces faith in a way that seems entirely unaffected. He graduated from high school in a Catholic abbey in Colorado. Taking care of the “last and the least” was something he learned in his youth from his parents. His family was always finding ways to aid those who were less fortunate. “We just always knew it was important to help people out,” he said.

In his 2007 State of the State address, he quoted the Gospel of Matthew: “For a tree will be known by its fruits.” This was meant as a challenge to the Montana legislature that was just beginning one of the most contentious sessions in recent history.

He has a way of appealing to both parties by refusing to look like either. He claims to be fiscally conservative, wanting to cut taxes as often as he can, but he is also pro-environment, to a point. He has said, “People are investing in places like Montana and Colorado and New Mexico because they want to live there.” It becomes a quality-of-life issue, involving quantifiable resources like education and public health, but also intangibles like community and recreation. “We’re going to protect their quality of life because we’re going to maintain the quality of places for recreation,” he told Rose.

However, that issue which is nearest and dearest to Schweitzer — coal development — introduces contradictions, both in terms of his views toward the environment (it will require strip mining, which has attracted criticism from the green lobby) as well as his specific agenda with regard to big corporations (he would like to see incentives in place to attract certain relevant industries to Montana). Not surprising, perhaps. For a state as dynamic and as imbued with contradictions as Montana, any reductive tag, be it “conservative” or “liberal,” “Democrat” or “Republican,” is going to only tell half the story.

Read more about the book at http://www.greglemonmt.blogspot.com and contact the author directly at lemon.greg@gmail.com.

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