Schweitzer at the Convention

by: Jay Stevens

Tue Sep 02, 2008 at 12:59:44 PM MST

Whatever. It was fun. I admit it.

Anyhow, I'm still finding interviews and clips of the Good Guv from last week. Below the fold are a sample...

The transcript:

It's been ince LBJ, since a Democrat has gotten to 50 percent in Montana in a presidential election. Bill Clinton got 38 and a half percent and 41 percent; Al Gore got 32 percent; and the day that I was elected governor of Montana, John Kerry got 38 and a half percent. And right now, in Montana, in the polls, and it has been for the last three months, it's dead dang tied, 45/45 between (applause) Barack Obama...

Now, we started this off by talking about the last two election cycles, and they were saying, well, maybe something's happening in the West. Let me tell you, what has happened in the West in the last two election cycles, two election cycles ago, the entire Rocky Mountain West had Republican governors. Today, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas all have Democratic governors. (Applause.)

That's all happened in the last couple of election cycles.

We don't have a parliamentary system in this country. You probably know that. People don't show up and say, are we voting for the Tories or the whatevers; they vote for personalities. You vote for an individual. There are more people that are not Democrats and Republicans than there are Democrats and Republicans. People vote for individuals that represent their interests, and in the Rocky Mountain West, they've been voting for people who look and talk like these Democrats.

So that's what's changing in the West. (Applause.)

Salon also interviewed Schweitzer on Thursday. When asked about whether health care or energy should be the first problem to be tackled, Schweitzer answered:

Both. You can't pay for healthcare if we're sending a trillion dollars a year to dictators. Bottom line is, we gotta stop hemorrhaging, and the hemorrhaging is full-flung. Climate change, that is the long-term economic hit to our economy. The short-term economic hit to our economy is the largest transfer of wealth from one economy to another economy. So, create a new energy system in America, and create an energy system that's cleaner and greener and is designed by American engineers and built by American workers. Once we get that right we can afford to invest in healthcare and education.

On McCain's problem in Montana:

I don't know a single Republican in Montana who would get in a fight in a bowling alley for John McCain. That's tough for him. He just doesn't have a base that is committed to him.

The HuffPo's Mark Nickolas got a chance to ask ten questions of Schweitzer on Thursday, which was full of interesting material. As a Montana-focused political wonk, my favorite into was about the potential of the Native American vote in this election:

They're seven percent of the population of Montana and, as you may know, Barack Obama has been adopted by the Crow Tribe and his name given by the Crow Nation is Barack Black Eagle and he's going to get roughly 95 percent of the Indian vote in Montana. The Indian reservations are also the youngest populations in Montana. The average age of Montana is about 38 while the average age on the reservations is about 21. So, having Obama's people out there, organizing, getting young people registered to vote, making sure they turnout to vote, is a three or four percent difference. And whoever wins the state will do so by a couple of percent, so it's a big deal.

Discuss.