Word: mountaineers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There is a distinct Rocky Mountain Democratic agenda, which emphasizes pragmatism and moderation. Some of the issues are local and perennial, including how to manage growth and resources like water in the nation's fastest-growing region. But even the local issues have national implications. There is, for example, a competitive mania among the new Democratic Governors about developing alternative energy sources--especially the region's vast coal reserves and agricultural products. They are staunch fiscal conservatives. In fact, the booming economy has enabled most of the Democratic Governors to lower taxes. Immigration is a huge issue in the region...
...Actually, the one thing we all have in common is our style," says Ken Salazar. The new Rocky Mountain Democrats are populist, unpretentious, egalitarian and tough. They tend to be avid hunters and fishermen. (I was with Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer one day when he reached into his pocket for a pen and pulled out a 30.06 rifle bullet.) A surprising number of them have backgrounds in law enforcement. Of the Democrats who have been elected Governors in the all-blue stripe of states running from Montana to New Mexico, only Bill Richardson of New Mexico has spent any time...
Democrats are not yet dominant in the inner Mountain West and may never be, not as long as states like Utah and Idaho remain a deep conservative crimson. They made only modest gains in the 2006 congressional elections, taking away one Republican seat in Colorado and two in Arizona and adding Jon Tester's Montana crew cut to the U.S. Senate. But they have had considerable success in local elections--and not just their stunning successes at the gubernatorial level. Since 2004 they have also won control of the Montana senate and both houses of the Colorado legislature...
Indeed, there are those who believe that the gradual purplification of the West may have dramatic national consequences. If the Democrats can pick off a few Rocky Mountain states to augment their strength in the Northeast, upper Midwest and West Coast, they may be able to build an electoral majority that does not include the ferociously conservative South. As Thomas Schaller of the University of Maryland pointed out after the 2006 elections, "For the first time in more than half a century, the minority party in the South is the majority party in both chambers of Congress." Schaller...
...West was the birthplace of the Wobblies (International Workers of the World) in the late 19th century and the scene of some of the great unionizing battles of the early industrial age. The state capitol in Montana is filled with statues of famous Democrats. More recently, the Rocky Mountain states were equal partners with the South in the rise of the Democratic Leadership Council. The region was filled with creative, moderate Democratic Governors in the 1980s--people like Dick Lamm and Roy Romer in Colorado and Bruce Babbitt in Arizona. Colorado had two well-known Democratic Senators, Gary Hart...