MT Governor Brian Schweitzer v Max 'Let the lobbyists write Health Care Reform Bill' Baucus poll

I hope ol Max gets the message and hangs it up.

Yep, that's the guy. He spent his own $$ to officially register two VETO brands with the state and burned the message into half-assed legislation that was sent to his desk. He did the branding outdoors, so as not to create a smoke hazard for workers inside the state capitol building.

I don't want to rain on your parade, and I'm sure there are nice folks in Montana, but a music festival is not exactly a sign of liberalism.

Throughout history bigots have loved to watch spectacles of how lesser humans live their lives, like watching animals in the zoo; like when the Native Americans were first brought before the European nobility to put on shows for them.

Again- I'm not saying that is the case here, I'm just saying that acceptance of a multi-cultural music festival is not the same as acceptance of multi-cultural neighbors, or multi-racial neighbors, multi-religious neighbors, or multi-sexual neighbors.

Instead of raining on, why not join the parade by finding out this is not a singular event in Montana? Throughout history, bigots have been with us, just as knee jerking broad brush wielders who don't want to notice there is diversity all over, along with people who celebrate it.

This event I used is an illustration to hopefully inspire some of the jerking knees who tend to put down Montana at any opportunity to THINK and maybe investigate beyond the worst case headlines they may have based their opinion of an entire population on. But this event would not have had such turn out for several years if a lot of people didn't want to participate. Not a singular event but an illustration to debunk the narrow views held by too many.

Happened to be in a small town in eastern Mt, known for being very conservative, heavy on fundy xian and even RW yahoos a few months ago. There was a nationwide push to raise awareness on the point of "It Gets Better". Easily 3 out of every 5 people I encountered that day were wearing purple and/or tolerance and pride buttons.

Montana is not what many think. Don't write it off. The GOP will spend a boatload of corporate cash and $$ from the national party here because it doesn't cost as much to run a senatorial campaign here as in larger population states, but the vote counts just the same. Denny Rehberg is an all hat and no brain, uncaring drunk who does what the GOP and it's big business puppet masters tell him to. They will be out in force to fund white washing Denny's abysmal congressional record and help him unseat Tester.

Jon Tester is a real farmer and a man who understands that Main Street needs saving. Please help his cause by considering that Montana is a lot more than the cartoon image too many have taken as fact for too long.

Montana history is full of examples of progressive actions. That many voters here have gone right is really not so different from the way things have gone across the nation. Want to win the heartland? It's do-able. Dr. Dean made that point. Win by not writing off based on some inaccurate profile of the voters here.

Oh, and in most counties, votes here are hand counted, hand verified. Seems big urban voters have to vote and hope the machines are honest. ;^)

I know there are spots of blue in seas of red- I live in Florida, and I would hate to be judged by the actions of Florida's government!

I'm just saying that a cultural music festival is not the same as immigration laws (well, I guess that's not a big issue when you border Canada!), and being against gays getting beaten is not the same as being for same sex marriage.

When people speak in generalities, that does not mean there are no specific outliers.

I speak in generalities about Florida all the time, in ways that do not describe me- they just describe Florida on average, and the way Floridians on average vote.

Thinking beatings of gay people here probably rarer than where you are. Yeah, one errs in judging a general population by the actions of just a very few. That was my point.

I lived in Montana for 30 years - I know exactly what you mean. Because MT is small on population and it's largest city (still Billings? or has Missoula moved ahead?) is less than 200K people, the generical US impression is that MT is back water - horseback riding rather than cars, outhouses rather than indoor plumbing etc etc. I even had some snot nosed college aged student from MA, with whom I had the pleasure (?) of speakingwith in Mexico, ask me if I knew where MA was.
MT is diverse and certainly not all red-neck bigots. Even the conservative bent of much of the state is bending toward the middle in many regards. Threat of air and water pollution, of destruction of wildlands with poisonous fracking waters - these destructive ways don't sit well, even with conservatives

Billings still the largest metro area, but both Missoula and Bozeman have grown A LOT, as has Helena. Butte has become a bit of a tech wonderland. Trust the Butteians to find a way to make boom out of bust years!

Montana is soon to reach it's 1,000,000th citizen. Ah, well, there goes paradise ;^) Actually, many of the problems here now are results of the migration of trust funders from back east and California who want to escape those places. They love the wild places so much they want homes there, but want all the services like in their old urban homes, and as to the wildlife, wonderful, except: Hey there Bambi, get off my lawn!

Gallatin County (Bozeman) resorted to publishing a bit of a reality handbook for new residents. It was necessary to point out things like: it snows here, a lot, and there are only so many plows, so don't expect a cleared road to your wilderness-bordering home by dawn. Storms sometimes knock out power; transmission lines are long and sometimes fixing them has to wait for the storm to end and roads to clear; buy some candles and a flashlight. Oh, and yes, we have wildlife. They are wild and don't give a whit about your land title deeds. They do not observe your personal lot boundaries and they will delight in munching the offerings you make to them by planting lots of tasty flowers and shrubs.... that kind of thing. ;^)

I managed to introduce a whole town to the joys of hummus and Armenian flat bread, and did so at a time the whole nation was rattled by 9-11 and fearful of strangers with strange customs and foods. Though Bud Lite is still the official sacrament in my area, one can get a Guinness in the small local store now. I even bought a jar of grape leaves and some real Greek yogurt recently. Time marches on and it's not just beans 'n flapjacks like too many urbanites think.

We did have a pair of 10 year old boys who fled the hell that is Ohio a few years back. They hitch hiked, and even stole/drove a car to make it to the Missouri Breaks where they planned to file for a homestead and find a pair of wives to live happily ever after with. Took locals and officials some time to round up the little car thieves as they ducked and covered when anyone was about, fearing hostile Indians were going to get them. Nearly starved, plenty thirsty and dirty to a whole new level when caught, their exploits were amazing. But it did give us some concern as to just what sort of education kids were getting back in more eastern, urban areas of the nation! Student to teacher ratios much more conducive to education here.