http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/state/2004-12-14-dems-hidden-election_x.htm?POE=click
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In Montana, which Bush won with 59% of the vote, Democrats took control of the Senate 27-23. Before the election, Republicans had a 29-21 majority.
"To label Montana as a 'red' state based purely on the presidential race ignores what's happening at the local level," says Brad Martin, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party.
What this tells me: Let's go after Colorado, North Carolina, and Montana. Spend money there and take them back, the people are ready for it. We just haven't communicated with them as a Party.
Howard Dean will be the next Chair. This is a good thing. The New Democratic movement (let's give it a catchy name, shall we?) is coming from the bottom up. Howard Dean discovered this firsthand by becoming the first candidate to field questions on a blog. If he brings this to the Party and can translate local gains into national gains, we win three more states in 2008.
Martin says many hunters and other sportsmen in Montana are swing voters turned off by Republican policies they view as anti-conservation -- support for mining,logging and drilling for oil and gas.
Montana Republican Party executive director Chuck Denowh agrees that the GOP is struggling to keep the sportsmen in the fold.
"People who normally vote Republican on the gun issue are straying," he says. "Whenever we're allied with the extractive industries, timber and mining, we have a hard time defining the issue to show we also support conservation."
And this tells me to go after the sportsmen. Engage these people on a local level, tell them that the liberals are not out to get your gun. We're more concerned about the environment you're carrying your gun around in, and that's what we have in common. Besides, if the Democratic minority in Congress wanted to drastically change gun laws, they would have no support whatsoever, and the public outcry would be overwhelming. No more of these bullshit goose hunt photo ops, you're not changing one single damn vote with those images on the teevee.
And that's how it has to be done: by bypassing the Corporate Media Cartel and working from the ground up. From blogs, to supermarkets, to local legislators, to local teevee news. The communication rift between the left and right today is a direct result of a complacent, servile Corporate Media. We never would have become this fractured if network and print media had just done their damn jobs from the beginning, dug up the truth, and reported it like they did in the rest of the world. They've chosen to render themselves obsolete, so let their ratings eat it.