Big Sky Blog

KULR-8 in Billings is reporting that Vice President Dick Cheney was in Billings today on his way to the Big Horn River to fish for trout.

Wyoming native Cheney knows where the best fishing is, Montana!

Many Montana bloggers were excited about Barack Obama’s visit to Butte, America on Independence Day; here are some of their recollections:

Miss Bonkrood, one of the longest-running Big Sky Bloggers, got to shake his hand, and experienced both joy and disappointment:

Then about 5 minutes or later we realize that he is, in fact, making his way down our side of the street shaking hands and holding babies. Both my camera and my friend’s camera had died by then. Elation + disappointment…I’m so glad we hauled our asses out of bed and went out there and stood in front. What an awesome day. Sunburn: totally worth it.

Another veteran blogger, Patia Stephens, was pretty emotional about seeing Obama:

It was at that moment that I got verklempt — choked up — and tears came to my eyes. Why? I don’t know, exactly. Maybe it is because Obama’s candidacy has given me hope for my country after years of disappointment and sadness. Maybe it’s because I believe he has the potential to restore justice to the United States of America, as well as our reputation in the world.

The Smith family traveled from Great Falls to see Obama in person:

After about 30 minutes at the exit to the museum, (we) spotted a small group of people leaving the museum, walking across the tennis court about 50 yards away. Sure enough it was Barack and what I would assume was a group of Secret Service agents. Everyone that was waiting in the area we were in jumped out of their cars and I took a couple of pictures. Even though we didn’t get to see him in the parade, or very close, it wasn’t a bad trip at all and we got to see Barack.

And Big Sky Cairn tells of visitors from Idaho, and also offers up details about the other politicians that were on hand (click to read it all):

A group of people seated near my family had driven all the way from Post Falls, ID only to find out that morning that Obama would not be riding in the parade…Other than some inconvenience to local residents, businesses and the like, the Obama Fourth of July extravaganza seemed to run smoothly. And my family was able to secure our usually parade viewing spot without incident, so we were happy.

ADDED: Maleesha and her family also got up close & personal with Obama:

So when we told 3 1/2 year old AJ that Rockobama was going to be in Butte’s parade, he jumped up and down like we were going to Chuck E Cheese. Long story short: after 2 hours of cheesy floats, local politicians, line dancers, and the annual Pirate Bus, we all got to shake Mr. Obama’s hand.

By the way - for the record, I am not an Obama supporter. I’m just trying to gather up some first-hand accounts of his visit.
All in all, it sounds like most people got what they wanted out of Obama’s visit. Another big “get” for Montana in a crazy election year!

With all the attention that Montana has been receiving lately re: the 2008 Presidential campaign, some people might think that it is normal for candidates to hold multiple rallies in many Montana communities and for a presumptive candidate to spend Independence Day in Butte…but 2008 is not a typical election year. According to Montana: A Contemporary Profile by Michael Malone back in 1996:

The state has only three electoral votes…not surprisingly, Montana sees few presidential campaigners; for, as The Almanac of American Politics rather dubiously puts it: “Only Alaska, Idaho, Utah, and North Dakota are farther out of the national political jetlanes.” The state does have a presidential primary, but weather conditions force it to be late. It parallels the much bigger New Jersey primary in June, and thus it attracts little attention. Most observers agree that a regional primary in the Rockies, like that in the South, is probably our best hope in that regard.

Maybe this election year, with demographics and primaries not behaving as predictably as in years past, will shake up the political landscape just enough to keep presidential nominees on their toes in future campaigns, and not take Montana - even with only three electoral votes - for granted.

By the way: most of the above concerns the Democratic party nominees…um…John McCain, do you even KNOW where Montana is? You’ve probably got my vote, as a semi-Republican, but it sure would be nice if you would acknowledge our statehood.

It’s been confirmed that Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama will be visiting Butte, America on the 4th of July, aka Independence Day. A former Butte resident ponders the excitement, and Big Sky Cairn notes the possible consequences of the ensuing media circus:

…I’m not sure how to feel about Obama’s decision to come to Butte for the 4th. On the one hand, it’s kind of cool. But…there is the real possibility that his presence will ruin the very idyllicism that his campaign is trying to harness. Police officers who would have had the Fourth off, will now be working security. Thousands of out-of-towners will invade the parade route. And journalists of all sizes and stripes will be working Harrison Avenue for B-roll and man on the street interviews. Yes, it is going to be Mansfield-Metcalf part deux.

But the best part of Obama visiting Butte - again! - is summed up by a commenter over at Left In The West: “I’ll bet the butt cheeks of all those liberals in Missoula are clenching, big time.”

I’ll admit that I wasn’t paying too much attention to the Republican primary a couple of days ago, but now that the dust has settled, I’m…uh…surprised that the Republican nominee for US Senate is perennial candidate Bob Kelleher (official site). His nomination has even garnered attention from some of the blogosphere big boys, including the folks over at the Volokh Conspiracy and Wizbang Blog. If you’ve never heard of Kelleher, here’s a little background:

For the last 44 years, Kelleher has run for office 16 times and lost 15. His only taste of victory came in 1971, when he was elected a delegate to Montana’s Constitutional Convention. There, he helped replace the state’s century-old territorial constitution with one of the most progressive governing documents in the nation. Kelleher’s political passion then, as now, is unique - and largely unpopular: He wants to replace the U.S. Senate, House and presidency with a parliament. Kelleher, an 85-year-old attorney from Butte, will challenge Democrat incumbent Max Baucus in November. The new nominee’s views are far from the mainstream Republican party in Montana. He has run as both a Democratic and a Green Party candidate.

If you’d like to see Kelleher in action during a previous election - and see how he compares to former Blue Man Candidate Stan Jones - check out this Comedy Central interview. In other Kelleher news: some Ron Paul devotees want to adopt Bob, and a Daily Kos blogger (from Great Falls) offers some thoughts.

First up is a site called the Daily Yonder; it focuses on rural America, and this week turned its attention to the Presidential campaign stops in Great Falls.

Audrey Sholtey, the 2008 Miss Rodeo Montana, has a blog! Related Montana beauty pageant entries: Miss Montana 2007; Miss Teen USA; Miss Montana 2006; and Miss Montana 2005.

Sad: Ed Kemmick, one of the forces at The Billings Gazette and one of the first journalists in Montana to grok the world of blogging, is hanging up (at least for a while) his most awesome “City Lights” blog. We’ll miss ya, Ed - but you know the door is always open for a return!

And before you complain about higher gas prices, take a look at the Gas Temperature Map. Here in Montana, we’re not doing too bad compared to most of the rest of the country.

Shaping up to be a busy few days in Montana: the “full court press” is on as candidates and proxies begin criss-crossing Big Sky Country to rally support for our last-in-the-nation primary on June 3. Hillary Clinton appeared in Pablo today; Bill Clinton will be appearing at several locations this weekend, including Stevensville, Great Falls, and Helena; and Barack Obama will be in Great Falls on Friday evening. Meanwhile, the Flathead Beacon has an interview with both Democratic candidates, the Liberal Wacko proclaims fealty to Obama, and a homeowner in Great Falls displays an unusual pro-Clinton sign.

And if you’d like to talk about the political campaign, you should give a listen tonight (Wednesday) to Montana’s very own “Small Town, Long Streets” call-in podcast, hosted by Craig of MT Politics.

This week, Small Town, Long Streets returns to its regularly scheduled 9:00 p.m. slot. On the agenda tonight: Obamagasms, the upcoming primaries, and whatever else rings our bell. Remember, this is a call-in program, so I encourage you to do so.
Phone: (718) 664-9769
Email: podcast@mtpolitics.net
Yahoo! IM: mtppodcast

Other tidbits to get you in the mood for the primary: latest M-D poll shows Obama with a huge lead over Clinton; the view from Miles City; and the Montana division of Operation Chaos is up and running in an effort to keep the Dems in turmoil.

Whew. Promises to be an interesting - entertaining, even - several days!

My Saturday morning routine is like this (with some parts excised because this is, after all, a family blog): Get out of bed, stumble into kitchen, start coffee, check email.

Usually, I don’t get much of anything — even the hate mail has slowed up some. I must be losing my touch.

Anyway, I’ve been using the Google News alerts to email me links when certain events happen. It’s very cool, and only rarely sends irrelevant items.

I expected to get at least one alert this morning, as related to my earlier post so I didn’t pay too much attention to it when I first opened the alert.

As is my habit, I’ll often click over to read something else in the middle of a post while I try to get my thoughts together. (All two of them.) So, I went back to my mail client (Thunderbird, in case you were wondering) and read the rest of the alerts.

There was one entitled, “Doctor faces murder charges for ‘mercy killings’.” Mercy killings? Ennis?

Long story short (yeah, right), it was the doctor who used to practice in our local clinic before he hung out his own shingle. I always thought of him as mainly goofy, and a borderline quack, so I guess I’m not overly surprised now that I’ve had a couple hours or so to digest the news.

My first reaction was an out loud, “Oh my God.”

The odd thing is that the incident was right around a year ago, in the same time frame as Jamie’s murder. Give or take a little bit, but given the previous murder rate (essentially zero since the beginning of time) in Ennis, that’s quite a coincidence.

In reading the article, I get the distinct impression that he knew what he was doing, and went ahead and did it.

But Bischoff said charges weren’t filed earlier because none of the family members were willing to testify against him.

[. . .]

“I gave her a shot to make her feel more comfortable and ease her suffering,” he said. “Three or four of her family members wrote me thank you letters.” (Emphasis mine. –Ed.)

This is just bizarre.

For a state racked by drought any reports of rain are welcome. I see here the western part of the state got a nice rain and I heard on the radio the northern part of the state really got a nice rain. In fact there were complaints about the rain in the northern part of the state since it has interrupted wheat harvest.

I didn’t hear about the real dry spot in the state getiing much rain though, the south-east and south-central part of the state. I know I didn’t get any rain out of the storm and it’s really getting dry out here. Gathered some yearlings to the corral because I needed to pull porcupine quills out of three head and within minutes they had the ground beat into a fine, dusty powder and were really raising the dust. We desperatly need some rain, maybe the next system starting tommorow will bring some in. I kind of doubt it though.

Under the influence of fear, which always leads men to take a pessimistic view of things, they magnified their enemies’ resources, and minimized their own. Titus Livius

The sun is rising on the beginnings of the venture, put together by david, of the bigskyblog.com. I thank him for the invite to post from the Middle of Nowhere on this collabrative Montana blog. All of us that love Montana know it’s The Last, Best Place and this is a way to share it with all. The only problem I see is I am going to need a tutorial on how to use Wordpress. I can’t make heads or tails of all these buttons where you compose your posts. A little bit too much for this cowboy to comperhend.

To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! … It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it. Henry David Thoreau