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 […]
Death of (another) red state
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 […]
Posted inGoat
The also-rans…
Their names are familiar, but not the way we know “John McCain” or “Barack Obama.” They raised a total of about $6 million — compared to more than $650 million raised by Obama and $360 million raised by McCain. In case you missed it, Ralph Nader (independent, raised $3.9 million), Bob Barr (Libertarian, $1.3 million), […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Passing gas
Western states struggle to capture methane emissions from coal mines
Posted inGoat
The gun lobby’s circular firing squad
Gun activists believe — perhaps correctly — that the future of their hobby is bound up with the financial health of the companies that make guns. That’s why the NRA campaigned so heavily for the 2005 gun liability bill, which keeps gun manufacturers and dealers from being held responsible for crimes committed using their products. […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Real Mormons are diverse
As a Mormon with Eastern roots, I found this article woefully lacking (HCN, 10/27/08). Mormons are not part of the Christian right cabal. Look at Harry Reid, for crying out loud. I voted for the Green candidate in 2004, and Obama in the California primary and may well vote for him again. Ray Ring simply […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
River giveaway, too
“The great giveaway” did a great job of bringing attention to the Utah BLM’s mad rush to finalize plans that manage 11 million acres in Utah (HCN, 10/13/08). Unfortunately, the article and most other news coverage of this issue overlooked what these plans mean for Utah’s rivers. These plans make recommendations on which rivers should […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Perspective on the religion card
The Mormon Church engages in overt political activism, and as such it deserves the same muckraking scrutiny as any other advocacy organization (HCN, 10/27/08). Its claim to foster moral leadership shouldn’t exempt it from critique. Ray Ring’s revelations about the “underbelly” of Rexburg are relevant to the investigation of a politico-religious institution that clearly aims […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Kokopelli attacks
Teri Paul, the director of a state park museum in Blanding, Utah, found herself the victim of a surprise attack recently. The cause? An anatomically correct statue of Kokopelli, a fertility god of ancient Indians, which has greeted visitors to the Edge of the Cedars Park Museum since 1989. Kokopelli, a well-known denizen of the […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Guns and God
Kudos to Jonathan Thompson, who will surely get plenty of negative responses to his editor’s note in Volume 40, Number 19, from numerous fundamentalists whose understanding of the First Amendment is nearly nonexistent (HCN, 10/27/08). I’m happy to have a Constitution that, at least on paper, allows everyone to worship whatever deity or higher power […]
Posted inGoat
So goes the West?
After two almost-too-close-to-call presidential elections, New Mexico is now considered safe turf for Barack Obama. But more interestingly, in a poll taken just two days ago, things were looking up for the rest of New Mexico’s Democratic candidates. Currently, Republicans hold one of the two U.S. Senate seats and two of the three U.S. Congressional […]
Posted inGoat
High noon for GOP moderates
As Ray Ring observed back in July, there’s a growing rift between conservatives and moderates in the Republican Party in the West. This is something that most of us have lost sight of over the past few months, during which the news has been about the contest between Republicans and Democrats, not the internal power […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
While you were voting …
Bush administration races ahead with environmental policy changes
Posted inWotr
The patriotic thing to do
Maybe I’m crazy, but I think that paying taxes is patriotic. And I’m tired of hearing Americans, especially Westerners, whine about their tax burden. I’m no economist. Taxes aren’t a subject I normally pay attention to – except once a year in April – but during the presidential campaign the rhetoric around taxes was impossible […]