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(Trivia Question: Today is the 30th anniversary of what event?)
The Democrats convene in Gotham this week. To win in November, they can't cede the West to the Republicans. The GOP has won the West in every election since 1968; in that time, the Democrats took the White House only once.
Our own Gov. Roy Romer chaired the Democrats' platform committee, but Romer hasn't got a clue as to how to carry the West. The idealistic platform addresses matters that should be important -- jobs, education, opportunity, fairness, environmental protection.
Republicans know better. They understand that the West is more mythology than geography. If a candidate mouths the myths, we will love him, no matter what he does.
Recall Jimmy Carter's infamous hit list
--
senseless water projects that the federal government should
no longer fund? Hereabouts, it made Carter about as popular
as scabies. But Ronald Reagan was idolized in sagebrush
country, even though he didn't fund those projects, either.
Reagan knew how to praise the Bureau of Reclamation.
To a Westerner, words speak louder than actions. Carter talked environmental protection while enhancing our economy with boondoggle fast-track oil-shale plants and coal-gasification schemes. But nobody liked him, even though our economy boomed then.
Reagan said that if you'd seen one tree, you'd seen them all. But his economic policies led to the closure of hundreds of mines, smelters and sawmills -- and when they're shut down, they're not despoiling or polluting.
Further, Reagan halted a major environmental threat, suburban sprawl. If the shrinking middle class can't afford houses, then nobody builds vast tracts of covenanted homes.
No region suffered more than the West under Reagan, and yet no region supported him with more enthusiasm. Mine payrolls vanished, stores closed, farmers were foreclosed -- but never mind, Reagan said the right things.
Republican candidates fill their speeches with paeans to Rugged Individualism and Spirit of American Enterprise which won the mythic West.
That's all a lie, of course. The federal government played a huge role with its soldiers, along with subsidies to railroads, silver mines and beet farmers. Foreign interests -- English, Scotch, Dutch -- invested heavily in industries, ranches and canals. The real Old West was a polyglot land where blue-eyed English-speakers were a minority.
But no Democrat since Lyndon Johnson (who claimed that his grand-daddy died at the Alamo) has had the cojones to ignore history and tell us the lies we love to hear about how our pioneer ancestors single-handedly tamed a continent.
Unless Bill Clinton gains more talent at dissembling,
we'll be stuck with four more years of George No new
taxes
Bush. Bush may not know much, but he does know
how to tell people what they want to hear, and that's all
it takes to win the West.
Trivia Answer: The first stage appearance of the Rolling Stones was on July 12, 1962 at the Marquee Club in London. Of the original line-up, only two remain, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The others were Brian Jones and Ian Stewart, both deceased, Derek Taylor (later with the Pretty Things) and Mick Avory (later with the Kinks). If you knew this, you should cut your hair, clean up your habits, get a job and become a responsible citizen.
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