| As requested, Wulfgar! wrote up a great post on his reaction to Bill Richardson's dropping out of the presidential race last week. In it, he rightly notes that "he was the only candidate on either side of the aisle who really appeared to understand the West." In a very real way, Richardson's fate is tied to the role that the Rocky Mountain West has played in the presidential contest.
This was supposed to be our year, after all. The DNC recognized the brewing possibility for change here, and maneuvered to have the Democratic Convention in Denver. Nevada's primary was pushed up in the schedule to give a chance to the presidential candidates to air their views on Western issues when it still mattered.
Today, Kossak mcjoan - herself a Westerner - examines the political environment in the region, and rues the fact that the West hasn't become key to the current race, because the West has a lot to teach politicos, especially Democrats (emphasis hers):
There is also the risk of misreading the basic anti-partisan orientation of [the region's independent] voters as a longing for bipartisanship. It's important to note that, in the context of this region, anti-partisan is not the equivalent of bipartisan. Western voters are highly pragmatic, looking for problem solvers first, and ideological debate is of less interest than action. Misreading this as some great yearning for comity can result in short-lived and uneasy compromises that erode the Democratic brand and end up diluting policies and programs. That doesn't have to happen. Voters in the Mountain West are more swayed by results than by process. Battles can be won, even in the most unlikely of places, by taking strong, principled, progressive stands.
[snip]
Taking strong, controversial, and unabashedly progressive stands hasn't proven to be the direction that either of our front-running candidates tends to take, at least not thus far. In a primary campaign, they arguably don't have to, but they might want to start getting some practice in before the general. If they want to win the West, and arguably the country, they're going to have to show some of the grit of those illustrious Western Dems.
Discuss. |
