Piles of Pieces from a Now-defunct Site

Welcome to this broad sampling of news stories from my days at a small regional news website based in Missoula, Montana, called NewWest.Net, which I left in late 2008. The weekly Missoula Independent recently ran a short and thoughtful item about the nature of news on the web, and how everything gets lost when the host server goes dark.

That’s what was happening at NewWest.Net. The site had suffered hard in the summer and fall of 2008, and apparently it ran out of money recently.

The web addresses where these old stories have existed will soon lead to dead-ends. I admit that it’s tempting to believe that online news, then, is somehow fundamentally different from print news, but I don’t know if I believe that. Each magazine, each sheet of newsprint will someday mold and decompose, no matter what we do.

The online stuff just seems more temporary because it can vanish when the lights go out, I guess. But I’m one of those people who believes that all things are temporary. Some are just more so.

Several weeks ago, a friend emailed me a link to the Missoula Independent story, and so I went back to NewWest.Net. I saved a selection of the things I posted. My goal was to save the ones with legs, the few that might be capable of keeping up with the passage of months and years.

The columns were the obvious first choices. Those include the one about backpacking with my son in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. I like that one, because it brings back to my mind a host of outdoor adventures with my son, including a great hunting trip we made with my good friend Rob Chaney, who still writes in Missoula where he lives with his lovely wife and two kids.

Other columns explore the shifting political landscape of the West, especially the growing political and voting power of Natives.

Another pile of news stories explores some of the happenings in the West at the time. Often my goal was to explore the links between local phenomena and the larger events of the day. For instance, when Lehman Brothers fell apart in the financial collapse of the summer and fall in 2008, I found places in Montana and around the West where the principals at Lehman Brothers had invested money. I do regret, though, that I never truly painted the broad picture with Lehman’s final CEO Richard Fuld and the Big Banks, at least not like I did with billionaire Bill Foley. Maybe it’s time to do that….

And then there are the political news pieces, like the one that tracks down the ridiculous comments of Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, made at a fundraiser in Pennsylvania. The comments had sparked a mini-maelstrom in conservative circles on the Internet, but so few of the bloggers and commenters out there of any stripe are willing to actually track something down. I did. And I’m quite proud of the result.

And lastly, I included a sampling of other stories, mostly about crime and tragedy. I’m not necessarily interested in misfortune as much as what I think it means.

I do hope this blog provides me with a way to write in a compelling way, broadly, about the things I find worth exploring. And I hope these pieces provide something of a prologue.

Note: I’m not particularly interested in leaving the pieces as they first ran. I’ve found simple grammatical errors in some places. Also, I have to admit that sometimes I wrapped up the pieces with trite wordplay, simply because I was in a hurry to get onto the next item or because I wasn’t quite there yet as a writer. I intend to follow-through with my earliest intentions when possible.

A New Political Day in Montana: Can The State Matter?

5-12-08

The annual Truman Dinner, organized by the Yellowstone County Democratic Party in Billings, has long been a homegrown affair held in a low-ceilinged conference room in a downtown hotel. Local candidates would mutter for a few moments and then sit to scattered applause. Later, the small, overdressed crowd would browse tables of donated items in a silent auction. A staple of the event was a goofy performance by a retired high school teacher named Jack Johnson, who would dress like Harry Truman and deliver one of the former president’s famous speeches.

It was a great forum, in a kitschy sort of way, for Montana’s citizen-legislature-in-the-making, but not this year.

This dinner was held in the gussied-up cafeteria of the University of Montana-Billings. There was neither a silent auction nor speeches by local candidates. After the meal, everyone trooped over to the college athletic center, where Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota gave a polished pitch for a Democratic surge across the High Plains and the West. A parade of major speakers followed, and clips of rock music blared in the interludes. The speakers’ images appeared superhuman on massive screens alongside the stage. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal leaned on the podium and delivered a subtle and folksy endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nominee. The crowd rose to its feet, campaign signs waving. A wall of Obama fans in the bleachers cheered and stomped. Then former President Bill Clinton took the stage like a superstar.

“This is the darnedest election I’ve ever been in in my life,” Clinton said.

A few months ago, Craig Wilson, one of Montana’s most prominent nonpartisan students of politics, predicted that Montana’s Democratic primary would garner little if any national attention and few ad dollars. Montana’s never really in play, he argued. The real story of a close primary would be the super-delegates, he said.

“We’re in the wrong hinterlands,” Wilson added. Small states like New Hampshire staked out important primary territory long ago. Montana has more of a lame duck status, he said, holding its primary long after other contests have decided the winner. “We’ll be lucky if somebody is flying over from Chicago to Seattle and parachutes into Missoula or Billings for an hour campaign appearance.”

Wilson’s primary notions can be forgiven. The days of cross-country speeches from campaign trains were long gone. It seems the only political insiders who dreamed Montana might be worth wooing—and that the state’s 24 Democratic delegates might make a difference—worked for Obama, who envisioned a true 50-state campaign while it still seemed a bit lunatic. He courted Democrats in Idaho, Utah and Washington, for instance, and handily chalked up wins.

“I’ve met people here who’ve never been involved before,” said Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath, who is running for the state supreme court. McGrath credited the grassroots Obama campaign for making the entire primary process more relevant.

Some people evidently still think a 50-state campaign is a little strange. In a conference call with reporters last week, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist repeatedly emphasized that his candidate had won the “key states.” It’s true, too. Clinton won California, Texas and Pennsylvania, to name a few of the perennial battlegrounds.

But this time it seems the key states won’t deliver the win. States like Wyoming, which broke for Obama, have made California less important. It’s about time.

Back in the summer and fall of 2000 if Al Gore had diverted to Montana just a small portion of the money his campaign had poured into Florida, he might have prevailed that November. After all, Gore didn’t need all of Florida’s electoral votes. In the election-night cliffhanger, he was only one vote short. Any of the write-off states could have put him over the top.

Politicians in the West have welcomed Obama’s attention. It feels pretty good. One of Gov. Freudenthal’s lines about Obama was that he “was country before country was cool.”

But Obama’s campaign didn’t blindly pick the strategy. Democratic candidates have been making headway across the Mountain West in recent years. In 2006, Montana became the focus of national political attention—and a huge pile of Democratic money—in the final days of the campaign as Sen. Jon Tester unseated his embattled rival Conrad Burns.

Clinton has made an effort to jump on the 50-state bandwagon. Her campaign opened an office earlier this month in Missoula and Billings. This morning, her campaign announced another campaign appearance by Bill Clinton tomorrow in Kalispell. With both Democratic candidates campaigning and spending in the Big Sky, country has become pretty cool.

It sure seemed like it at the Truman Dinner, where the major television news stations even had cameramen and reporters and where retired schoolteacher Jack Johnson (and his Truman act) was nowhere to be seen.

The Indelible Search for Buzzworthy Buttons

8-25-08

	“Get your buttons,” said Qiana Holmes, who hasn’t stopped to think about the collectibility of her wares. Too busy keeping up with demand.

Mike Ziri’s first political buttons in Denver?

“I’ll get an Illinois and an Indiana,” Ziri said.

Ziri stood outside the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. Qiana Holmes pulled his buttons from a board, which then blew over in a strong gust. He’s not a collector, yet. Today he’s just looking for cool buttons.

That’s the first rule offered by the American Political Items Collectors, which holds conventions of its own: collect what you like.

Ziri’s a delegate from Illinois to the Democratic National Convention, and he’s meeting up with a friend from Indiana. He craned his neck, looking around. That seemed to be what everyone was doing.

“Business is good, except for the wind,” Holmes said. Her Arizona-based business makes buttons and T-shirts and follows Barack Obama’s campaign. Delegates and tourists love buttons that reference their home state, she said. That lets her know the geographic origin of the crowds that move past her.

“Texas went fast, so they’re here,” Holmes said.

Another popular button features Rosy the Riveter, rolling up her sleeves.

“I have that. It went fast,” Holmes said.

Buttons are getting a lot of attention this year. There’s even a pilgrimage to Denver by a crew who are chronicling themselves on youtube.

Near the convention Kerry Tucker plied his original designs. He’s new to buttons, an opportunist. His are less conventional. He’s trying to stand out from the crowd of lapel messagery. One says, “I heart black people.”

Two years ago, guitar-toting peace activist Hans Vermeersch thought of a great button for an Oregon race he briefly worked for: “Folk the Vote.”

“They were, ‘It sounds too much like….’ Yeah! That’s the whole point! It’s buzzworthy,” Vermeersch said.

For Natives, It Feels Good to be Change-Makers

In Denver, some 134 delegates from across Indian Country are convening, hoping to showcase the power of the Indian vote this presidential season and grab the attention of the nation’s leaders.

8-25-08

	The Indian vote is making the difference in Montana, said Jason Smith and Ryan Rusche, right.

Wolf Point is a long way from anywhere, but the small Montana town on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation far on the windy flats of eastern Montana has a field office for Barack Obama.

When the Obama campaign telephoned Ryan Rusche, an Obama delegate and the county attorney there, asking how long it would take him to find office space, he replied, “About 15 minutes.”

At noon Monday, Rusche and Jason Smith, of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes from the Flathead Indian Reservation, gathered with most of the rest of the 134 delegates from across Indian Country in a room in the Colorado Convention Center in Denver on the first day of the Democratic National Convention.

While some in the room extolled the record number of delegates, Rusche and Smith talked about the decade-long swell of the Indian vote’s importance in Montana.

“You could argue that Indians tipped the balance in the Senate,” Smith said, referring to the high turnout on Montana reservations in 2006 that gave an edge to challenger Jon Tester, a Democrat, in his white-knuckle-tight race against Republican Sen. Conrad Burns. Tester helped give the Democrats a slim majority in the Senate.

The same could happen this year in the presidential race, he said.

This year primaries in some Montana districts had Indians running against Indians, added Rusche. Then the two talked about the importance of Indian candidates and the reservation vote in Montana.

Not everyone in the room felt buoyed by their state. The Washington tribes had only three delegates this year, compared to five in 2004. Washington did have several representatives of its Native get-out-the-vote campaign.

“I’m a Lummi,” said Julie Johnson of Clollam County, “and I’m a delegate from Washington state.”

Johnson said she had been telling young people to get involved.

“I thought, ‘Maybe I’d better get involved,’” she said with a laugh. She was sitting next to her friend and the former chairwoman of the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecelia Fire Thunder.

“Obama had better mention Indian people Thursday night in his speech,” Fire Thunder said, “Or I’m not going to campaign for him.”

Johnson wrapped her arm around Fire Thunder’s shoulders, laughing, “Don’t say that!”

“I mean it. He’d better mention Indian people Thursday night. He needs to recognize us in his speech.”

Then Fire Thunder got serious.

“I wanted Hillary in there,” she said. “For Hillary to get as far as she did, it’s a blessing. It shows we can break away from oppression, that we can think, feel and be politicians as good as anyone.”

The same goes for Obama, Fire Thunder added.

“I never thought I’d see a woman or a person of color make it this far. It’s not a good-old-white-boy’s-club anymore,” she said.

For One Missoula Company, the Democrats Are Just the Latest Convention-Goers

8-26-08

	Turning them out to wake up the Democrats, Missoula-based Chad Morgan goes to all of Liquid Planet’s new locations.

One organization with a prominent—although not political—role at the Democratic National Convention in Denver is Liquid Planet, the Missoula-based beverage purveyor.

The company’s familiar logo of a Classical figure drinking from a globe-shaped jug has a prominent spot inside the main entrance of the Colorado Convention Center.

“Oh yeah. We’re here,” said Chad Morgan, Liquid Planet’s vice president of development, in the middle of a busy late morning spree of latte-making. “We’re building outside as well.”

I asked him if he was here for the convention.

“No. Well, yes. It is convention-related,” he said, meaning related to conventions in the larger sense, and not in this particular case of the resident Democrats.

Liquid Planet is a national partner of Centerplate, a national company that managers conventions and sporting arenas in, for example, Portland, San Francisco and San Diego.

Morgan turned back to his espresso maker and whipped out two more lattes.

“So, yeah. We’re not here for the convention. This is just one of the events,” he said.

Gov. Schweitzer’s Tampering Comments Spark Controversy

Schweitzer jokingly described how he rigged the release of one county’s vote tally on election night 2006, when Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester narrowly beat Republican Conrad Burns, to avoid a recount. Was it a joke?

9-10-08

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 laughingly  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.

“He’s just telling a story. He did not tamper. I wouldn’t let him or anyone else,” said Mary McMahon, head of the elections office for Silver Bow County. “I have to take some humor with it, otherwise it would drive you crazy,” she added. “As for the inference, I resent that.”

A spokesman for Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson, whose office oversees elections, said, “I sincerely hope this is not true.”

As of Wednesday morning, no investigation was underway by either the Montana Attorney General or the U.S. Attorney for the state.

The speech, available online, features the governor’s signature storytelling about his grandmother homesteading on the Montana prairie as a 17-year-old illegal immigrant from Ireland.

Then Schweitzer regaled the Trial Lawyer’s Association with how, two years earlier, he had promised to deliver another Democratic U.S. Senator from Montana.

“I’m back to tell you we got it done,” Schweitzer told them. This is what he said: Out-of-state Republican poll watchers intimidate Native Americans at the polls, or, in his words, “there’s liable to be some sons-of bitches… who are going to show up, stand in front of the polling place” and drive away a portion of the voters. So he prompted reservation policemen to threaten the interlopers with indefinite jail time in the agency jails if they didn’t get off the reservation immediately. It worked, he said. “We didn’t lose one Indian vote.”

Then Schweitzer described watching Tester’s lead narrow on the night of the election, as the numbers came in. He wanted to avoid a recount, he said, as most Montana counties are controlled by Republicans, who would have handed the victory to Burns.

So Schweitzer pressured the Butte-Silver Bow election administrator, in not so many words, to stall the release of her county’s results to maintain Tester’s razor-thin lead. He also called the administrator “as nervous as a pregnant nun” at being phoned by the governor.

Secretary of State Brad Johnson’s office fielded no complaints of this kind of tampering at the time of the election, said spokesman Bowen Greenwood. He did field a complaint on Tuesday this week about the governor’s remarks from Tammy Hall of Bozeman, who asked the Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath and the U.S. Attorney General’s office to investigate the governor’s remarks.

The office of Johnson, a Republican, does not have investigative authority.

A spokeswoman for McGrath, a Democrat, Lynn Solomon said the state attorney general’s office, as dictated by state law, doesn’t conduct investigations because of requests from the public.

McMahon, election administrator in Butte, described how human error on election night in 2006 led to some discrepancies between the electronic vote counter and manual counts. McMahon stopped the count, found the error and fixed it. The entire day lawyers from both major parties watched the collection of ballots, the count and her office’s own recount. She did everything by the books and defends the independence and integrity of her office.

“He had absolutely no influence,” she said.

The governor did call, she said, to get the latest numbers. The two never spoke directly. She passed along a message that she would get results to his office when she had correct numbers, and she did, after she delivered the news to the press, she said.

As for the governor’s nun comment, she said, “I resent that.”