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...presidential campaign begins, there are lessons to be learned here for both national parties, but especially for Democrats, lessons involving both style and substance. The top-line Democratic candidates for President in 2008--people like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards--are a decidedly un-Western crowd. They tend to be coastal, urban, legislative. They tend to talk too formally--and too much about too little. They tiptoe and kowtow when confronted by the gothic array of Democratic interest groups. At a time when political pomp and blab have come to seem prohibitively pompous and bloviational, Rocky Mountain politics...
...Democrats have profited by supporting comprehensive plans--increased border control, along with guest-worker provisions and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants--that reflect both the growing influence of Latino voters in the region and the needs of the local farming and construction businesses for labor. Democrats also tend to reflect a Western let-and-let-live attitude on social issues like abortion and homosexuality. But given the traditional Western aversion to lockstep conformity, none of the above are hard-and-fast rules...
...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...
Making matters worse, Americans tend to cope with stress in all the wrong ways. A November survey by the advocacy group Mental Health America found that we frequently deal with chronic stress by watching television, skipping exercise and forgoing healthy foods. The problem with these coping mechanisms is that they keep you from doing things that help buffer your stress load--like exercising or relaxing with friends or family--or add greater stress to your body. Indeed, using many of our most cherished time-saving gadgets can backfire. Cell phones and mobile e-mail devices--to give just two examples...
Using several different types of brain scans, Pruessner has shown that people who test below average on self-esteem also tend to have smaller-than-average hippocampi. The differences become clear only when you compare groups of people, Pruessner notes, so you can't look at any single person's brain scan and determine whether he or she has low self-esteem. But when you look at overall results, they suggest that a smaller hippocampus simply has more trouble persuading the rest of the brain to turn off the stress response...