Steve Fenberg, of Forward Montana's sister organization New Era Colorado, and I (wearing my Forward Montana hat) have an op-ed in the Denver Post today highlighting how young Westerners are repainting the Rockies blue.
Call it blowback from the Sagebrush Rebellion. The same region that took a turn for the hard right a generation ago is now trending blue. The secret in the story is said to be a lot of things - different, authentically Western Democrats, and maybe an influx of people from California - but it may be simpler than all that.
The descendants of the rebels themselves - today's Western youth - are leading the charge for a more Democratic West. If the trends continue, the Republican Party may find itself in a world of hurt.
Now, I don't think the Republicans have lost the Millenial Generation. Nor do I believe they need to. But in order to have a chance with Millenials, who are the largest generation in American history, they need to change a bit. They can't mix unilateral foreign policy with anti-government, anti-science, and anti-diversity views and expect to get much support from a generation whose views are distinctly multilateral, communitarian, environmentalist, and tolerant.
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My old employers at the Progressive States Network have compiled the results of a few legislative sessions. It's pretty sad to read over as they look at what happened in New Mexico, Washington, Maryland, and then Montana. Those other three states all had progressive leadership and commonsense Republicans. They didn't go crazy and make Islam the state religion or ban the Bible or require that heterosexual couples have abortions prior to entering into compulsory same-sex marriages.
They did things that polling shows Montanans want. They expanded access to health care, set targets to tackle global warming, built up internet access to tear down the digital divide, raised the minimum wage, enacted paid sick leave for families, and strengthened education.
Meanwhile, in Montana, we had a rightwing meltdown that will cost the state tens of thousands of dollars per day for a special session. And that's just counting legislators, not caucus or non-partisan staff, operating costs, or anything else.
USA Today is reporting that five Western states (AZ, CA, NM, OR, and WA) are banding together to launch a regional cap-and-trade initiative to fight global warming. This is the sort of thing that (I think) Montana should do. If we can reach a regional agreement and cap-and-trade is the method, it does not put Montana at a competitive disadvantage economically (put that in your pipe and smoke it, develop-at-any-cost crowd) and it does take a meaningful step forward toward reducing greenhouse gases.
Cap-and-trade isn't idea, but, structured properly, it may actually be preferable to a mediocre cap. And, let's face it, it is a significant step forward from the status quo.
