The news chatters with suggestions that some Western Democratic governors will take jobs in the new cabinet being formed by President-elect Barack Obama. Montana’s Gov. Brian Schweitzer … ! Arizona’s Gov. Janet Napolitano … ! Wyoming’s Gov. Dave Freudenthal … ! New Mexico’s Bill Richardson … ! Any of them would be good as the […]
The pundits are wrong
Posted inHeard Around the West
No greater love
As the Bible says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” A football player in his senior year at Mesa State College in western Colorado didn’t die for his teammates, but he willingly sacrificed his right pinky finger. After offensive lineman Trevor Wikre broke the […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
From the Beltway to the mountains
His close-cropped hair, aviator shades and straight-backed bearing hint at his Navy past, but the silver hoop in his left ear and baggy bike shorts give Keith Baker a twist of hip outdoorsy-ness. He stands in the HCN office with his wife, Evelyn, also in bike garb, and their dog, a sleek weimaraner named Prana. […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
A battle for the land – and soul – of the West
Denver native Stephen Trimble fell in love with the West from the back seat of the family car. On summer field trips with his mother and geologist father, Trimble developed a fine eye for red-rock country and the light that filled unspoiled valleys and vistas. He’s since produced gorgeous photography books and insightful natural and […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Throwing off the yoke
Where the Ox Does Not Plow: A Mexican American BalladManuel Peña235 pages, hardcover: $24.95.University of New Mexico Press, 2008. An alcoholic father, a patient, long-suffering mother, a history of anxiety and depression, and a blinding desire to escape a troubled childhood. If that sounds like every other memoir you’ve read in the past decade, you’d […]
Posted inArticles
Mayberry and Peyton Place
Given that the vast majority of Americans (almost four out of five) live in urban areas, we small town residents might well feel flattered by the attention we received during this presidential campaign. Not all the attention was complimentary, though. Democratic nominee Barack Obama observed that “You go into some of these small towns in […]
Posted inGoat
Ed Marston loses commissioner bid
Yes, Colorado turned blue. But in western Colorado’s Delta County, the GOP prevailed, giving the nod to the McCain-Palin ticket. Democratic congressman John Salazar fared best, getting about 45 percent of the vote. Not one Democratic candidate won here, from the top to the bottom of the ticket. I know something about being a Democrat […]
Posted inWotr
Can the Forest Service get back on track?
It’s been a dismal eight years for the U.S. Forest Service. When the Bush administration took office, it immediately suspended a popular measure to protect 58 million acres of backcountry public forests from new roads. Instead, the agency became consumed by firefighting. Since 2001, stopping fire has grown from about 15 percent of the agency’s […]
Posted inGoat
Mormon Church wins on gay marriage
Swayed by an alliance of the Mormon Church, evangelicals and Catholic bishops, voters decided yesterday to use two states’ constitutions to ban marriage for gays and lesbians … … even though, I’ll interject, constitutions are normally intended to ensure the civil rights of minority groups. California’s Proposition 8 was the most intense gay-marriage battle ever […]
Posted inGoat
Green state defeats green(ish) ballot measures
California’s raft of green ballot measures this election looked like the start of an enviro-revolution. Almost. Proposition 7 would have required California to generate 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050, and Proposition 10 would have authorized a $5 billion bond issue to promote alternative energy and alternative fuel vehicles, with about […]
Posted inGoat
Republicans seem tougher in Northern Rockies
As the Barack Obama wave swept much of the West, carrying fellow Democratic candidates to many victories, the Republicans in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming proved to be more resistant. John McCain won the presidential races in all three states. In the Congressional races, the Democrats apparently took one House seat that had been held by […]
Posted inGoat
Death of (another) red state
As ABC News put it, “the traditionally red state of Colorado has seen a wave of blue voters.” The state picked Obama for president, probably boosted by high turnout among Hispanics, 20 percent of the state’s voters. The last time Colorado went blue was in 1964, for Lyndon Johnson. Dems now control both U.S. Senate […]
Posted inGoat
California still true blue
The pundits may have waited until the last possible second on election night to call California, along with Oregon and Washington, and pronounce Democrat Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States, but there was never really any doubt that the electoral-vote-heavy-weight Golden State would embrace the Illinois Senator by a wide margin. With […]
Posted inGoat
The bluest of blue states
Prior to yesterday’s election, New Mexico was just about evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. While Dems controlled the State House and Senate, and a Dem lived in the Governor’s mansion, two of the three U.S. Congressional seats were held by Republicans and the state was represented by one Republican and one Democrat in the […]
Posted inGoat
The Red Desert
While much of the West took on a blue hue last night, staunchly Republican Utah stuck to its guns. McCain won by 63 percent of the vote, making Utah his strongest supporter after Wyoming. Incumbent Republican governor John Huntsman ran away with 78 percent of the vote. Of the three Congressional races, incumbents won two. […]
Posted inGoat
Northwest races down to the wire
I had grand plans of coming to the office this morning and writing definitive post-election blogs about the races we’ve been following in Washington and Oregon. But it’s almost time for lunch, and the two most interesting races — Dave Reichert vs. Darcy Burner for Washington’s 8th Congressional District and Gordon Smith vs. Jeff Merkley […]
Posted inGoat
Nevada’s swing to the left
Swing state Nevada went Dem in the Presidential elections, by a margin of some 12 percentage points. The results were a shocker for some, but if you take a look at the county-by-county results you see that only Washoe and Clark Counties, home to the population centers of Reno and Las Vegas, went for Obama. […]
Posted inGoat
Arizona stays red
Well, there weren’t too many surprises coming from McCain’s home state yesterday. All of the incumbents, even Harry Mitchell, D, in the 5th Congressional District, held onto their U.S. Congressional seats, and the Mac nabbed the state’s presidential contest, albeit by a narrower margin than most talking heads expected. Ann Kirkpatrick, D, bagged only open […]