David Sirota saw the Democrats'
Montana miracle from the front row.
There aren't too many states in the union redder than Montana. George Bush won the state by more than 20 points in November. The state legislature and governorship in the capital, Helena, have been in GOP hands for 16 years. Sparsely-populated Montana is represented by only one congressman, the far-right Rep. Denny Rehberg, and by two senators, an ultra-conservative Republican (Conrad Burns) and a conservative Democrat (Max Baucus) who often votes with the Republicans. The state's electoral votes are conceded so automatically to the GOP that neither party's candidate campaigns there. Culturally, with the exception of a few rich Hollywood types who weekend in places like Big Sky, the state could hardly be further from the metro-cosmopolitan culture of the coasts. To give but one example, Montana has the highest percentage of hunters of any state in the union.
But in November, a Democrat, Brian Schweitzer, won the state's race for governor. Schweitzer not only won, but he also won decisively, beating his opponent Bob Brown, the Republican secretary of state and a two-decade fixture in Montana politics, by a solid four points. His victory was so resounding and provided down-ballot party members such strong coattails that Montana Democrats took the state senate and four of five statewide offices.
Sirota maps out Schweitzer's winning strategy.
- They offered a great candidate in Schweitzer.
- He ran as an outsider, a reform candidate, battling against two decades of one-party Republican rule.
- He wooed small businesses by targetting big box retailers like Wal Mart who are laying waste to downtowns everywhere.
- He appealed to environmental sensibilities of hunters and fishermen.
Like I've said a million times before, the NRA has won the gun control battle. And being an issue that never resonated with me, I say good riddance. Gun control can and should remain a local issue.
But more interestingly is the increased merger between environmental concerns and the hunter/fishermen community. I've already written that environmental issues can deliver the West to the Democrats, but not in the "traditional" environmental frame. Spotted Owls won't win us any elections. But pristine hunting and fishing areas will.
Working with a local outdoorsmen group in Gallatin County, which includes Bozeman, Schweitzer drafted a 9-point plan to protect cherished hunting and fishing access rights on public and private lands. Among other things, Schweitzer called for keeping public lands in the state's hands, for spending more money to maintain them for hunters and anglers, and for using fees from hunting licenses to buy easements from private property owners to give sportsmen easier access to fields and streams. He unveiled this plan at a town hall meeting of conservative hunters and fishermen in Bozeman, to happy applause. Randy Newburg, a Republican who heads the Headwaters Fish and Game Association in Bozeman, effectively endorsed Schweitzer, calling access a "special" issue, and accusing Republicans in Helena of trying to "sell it off to the highest bidder."
The beauty of the access issue was three-fold. First, it helped Schweitzer make inroads with the constituency of outdoorsmen that is normally Democrat-averse. Second, it let us speak to both left-leaning environmentalists, who wanted public lands and wildlife herds maintained, and right-leaning outdoorsmen, who wanted a place to recreate and a steady population of game to hunt. This was especially important because we did not want to alienate the enviros who would be out in force on election day to vote against an initiative to permit cyanide leach mining. Stern, who had a deft sense of strategy, once pointed out, "Hunters can be some of the biggest environmentalists around, even though they don't think of themselves that way and would never in a million years label themselves that."
We won the Wyoming governorship on such "environmental" issues (coal bed methane interests versus ranchers) as well.
Sirota is right -- most of these persuadable voters in the west would hang themselves rather than be labeled "environmentalists" -- a large failing in the part of the environmental movement's ability to properly frame itself. But hunters, fishermen, ranchers and other such outdoorsmen in the west and across the country are natural allies of the environmental movement.
The GOP will be unable to wedge on the gun issue much longer. It's dead at the national level. Now if we can continue to make Montana-style inroads into the sportsmen community, we can help turn that swath of red across the rockies into a happy purple.