The Democratic
presidential debate in Nevada this November was promoted as a
chance for candidates to engage with the West and its concerns, but
it might as well have been held in Anywhere, USA. The moderator,
four journalists andmost of the audience ignored every critical
issue that?s central to us here.
The first issue is
growth, and the eight states of this region by virtually every
indicator lead the nation in population gains. During the 1990s,
six of the nation?s 10 fastest-growing states were in the Rockies.
In the middle of the current decade, this region also leads in GDP,
housing starts, family income gains, new small businesses, energy
development and gains in ethnic diversity. In many of those
categories, the West leads by several-fold.
Throughout
the life of this country, Americans have moved West. It has been
and remains our seeking place, and in finding our frontiers we have
come to recognize, if not entirely understand, the constraints that
accompany them.Today?s West presents significant Gordian knots, the
untying of which is the stuff of presidential leadership. Yet the
debate turned out to be a kind of political bait-and-switch in
which nobody explored the unique problems and opportunities facing
residents of the Rockies, and by extension, all Americans.
This is the land of wilderness areas, national parks and
vast publicly owned prairies, deserts and forests. They?re home to
the migration routes of the country?s great herds and flocks, all
now shrinking and under the challenge of retaining their
primitiveness in the face of ever-encroaching human activity. Yet
there was not a single question about the tension between
population increases and the fragility of the land?s carrying
capacity.
As always, smart journalists found it easy to
prod the candidates toward accusation, all the while ignoring the
one issue over which we Westerners are always ready to fight. That
issue is, of course, water. Water presents the great national
imperative here in the Rockies, home to the headwaters of the
Missouri and Mississippi to the east and the Colorado and Columbia
to our west, but not a single question about water scarcity asked
of those whowould be our President.
Climate change,
global warming and their obvious consequences –desertification,
drought, crop loss, business failures — all portend catastrophe
here in these states. Surely, those who would lead us in the White
House must have a response to these issues as well as to the
runaway oil and gas development that?s so radically affecting
environmentally sensitive corners of our region.
What
else was ignored? Many of the first Americans live here. Not one
question was asked about the despair that affects so many of them
on reservations. Fires, most of which begin in national forests in
our region,ravage our landscape and threaten the lives of
firefighters asked to protect homes. But not one question was asked
about our priorities for fighting fire in the West. Agriculture, it
almost goes without saying, remains a leading industry in the
region, yet not one question was asked.
There was a time
when federal candidates paid attention to these states, but that
was decades ago. For 40 years we have, with few exceptions, been
political-campaign flyover country. Occasionally, a candidate will
play cowboy, tipping his Stetson just so; another will ski down our
ski slopes,more for the photo op than the champagne powder.
That is beginning to change, and it?s time we insisted on
it. The Democratic Party has agreed to hold its presidential
nominating convention this summer in Denver. For the first time in
history, presidential debates are being held here in the Rockies.
We have assembled a series of state-by-state presidential primaries
and caucuses. Our purpose, of course, is to include the Western
voice in the nation?s presidential selection process and to engage
the nation in understanding the promise and problems of all its
various regions.
The candidates and journalists must take
notice — not because of any false Western pride but because this
storied region offers each American fresh answers to old,
unresolved questions. This place presents breathing and thinking
space from which to ponder rational solutions. Everyone who lives
out this way joins each of you who live elsewhere in understanding
that because ?all politics are local? we want a president who
understands America– all of it.
Pat Williams is
a contributor to Writers on the Range (hcn.org). A former Montana
congressman, he teaches at the University of Montana in Missoula
and is also Northern Rockies director of Western Progress, a
nonpartisan public policy institute.
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