Word: schweitzer
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...fact, after the Montana state legislature passed the resolution opposing the Patriot Act, Governor Schweitzer decided to put some icing on the cake by pardoning 78 Montanans who had been convicted of sedition during World War I--a far more egregious case of the government trampling civil liberties than the Patriot Act is. "Most of them were German immigrants," Schweitzer told me. "Some of them were arrested for speaking German in public, others for refusing to buy war bonds. We had a big ceremony, and family members from 31 states came to honor their ancestors. It got pretty emotional...
...Schweitzer is one of the great, over-the-top showmen of American politics, sort of like Bill Clinton on methedrine. He's a tall man with a wide open face and a flat northern-plains accent, who keeps up a steady patter of rowdy stories and observations and is perpetually accompanied by his border collie, Jag, which has become a major celebrity in Montana. The Brian Schweitzer Show is so entertaining--he has been featured on everything from 60 Minutes to The Colbert Report--that it's easy to overlook the substance of the man. Schweitzer has a master...
Later I asked Schweitzer how a Democrat could sell that energy pitch in a presidential campaign. "I can do it in a 60-second spot," he said. "Put me on the clock." And he was off to the races: "Folks, we've got a problem. We Americans use 6.5 billion bbl. of oil a year. We produce 2.5 billion ourselves. We import 4 billion from the world's worst dictators. We need to stop doing that. We can save 1 billion bbl. through conservation. Things like more efficient cars, homes and appliances. We can produce another 1 billion...
...about 40 seconds, according to my clock, but he was speed rapping. Which raises the question of Schweitzer's own presidential ambitions. "Heck, I just got elected in 2004," he told me last summer. "I've got to make this energy thing work in Montana first." In fact, the real flaw in the Rocky Mountain Blue electoral fantasies is that the Democrats' leading candidates, especially the junior Senator from New York, elicit groans in the Rockies. "I just don't get this Obama thing, either," says Orbanek, the Grand Junction newspaper publisher. New Mexico's popular Latino Governor Bill Richardson...
...real impact of the Rocky Mountain Democrats on their party may be more spiritual than electoral. Their informality and egalitarianism, their lack of bile, their can-do optimism stand in refreshing contrast to politics as it is practiced in our nation's capital. One night last autumn, Schweitzer took me to Jake's Restaurant in Billings, one of the better steak houses in his state. "Oh, hi, Governor," the hostess beamed. Schweitzer asked her if she had a table available. She frowned over her reservation list. "Sorry, Governor, we're full up," she said. "You want...