About town: an evening in the wilderness

When one is heading into potentially hostile territory, camouflage is essential. Blending with the natives requires careful attention to detail, and going to the Montana Wilderness Association's benefit in Billings is no exception.

Having someone inspect the disguise is important, so an expert is called in.

First try: tie-dye t-shirt, patched and frayed cut-off jeans, headband, hemp sandals.

"Trying too hard. You need to be yourself."

Second try: button-down shirt, Carharts, cowboy boots, baseball hat with the logo of an oil well and the words "EARTH FIRST! -- (we'll drill the other planets later.")

"Do I actually have to say anything about that?"

Third try: khaki shorts, subdued tropical shirt (untucked,) Chacos (Birkenstocks were considered, then laid aside.)

"You might actually make it in and out."

Driving up and parking, caterwauling sounds are heard from a block away. Of course, this is the main attraction. The locally famous Longtime Lonesome Dogs were hard at it.

The table at the admission gate is approached, eyes raise up at the headwear: "You're not a member of the Wilderness Association, are you?" Not even in the door and the first failure has already happened. The EARTH FIRST! hat is quickly shoved in a pocket with a sheepish look -- how did that thing get grabbed by accident at the last second? Oh well. As it turns out, these folks seem happy to take anybody's $5 to help the wilderness.

First lesson learned. Wilderness people use money, too. Sigh of relief.

Those behind me are asked if they would like to join the Wilderness Association. Why wasn't that question asked? Right -- the EARTH FIRST! hat.

Next stop: drinks. OK -- got this one down. Don't ask for a glass of white wine.

Beer. Only $3? Apparently wilderness people don't use very much money -- or perhaps it's a ruse to get us a bit lubricated in hopes of getting us to spend more at the silent auction.

The wheat beer is cool and refreshing. The lovely companions choose the amber and seem pleased as well. Early birds get the prime seats. Life is good. The only Birkenstocks in sight are on Dennis Nettiksimmons -- the Chacos were a good choice for blending into the background. We may make it in and out after all.

The Dogs are an equal opportunity band -- half the men sport copious facial hair, half are clean shaven. The peer pressure in the group is subtle -- no long pants, only khaki shorts (but not all the same shade of khaki.) There is a token cowboy hat as a nod to diversity. The cowboy hat, along with the beer, makes one a little more relaxed.

A sharp blues riff rips through the air. Yes, it is that Gazette blogger-guy Ed Kemmick (second from right, above.) The boy can play. And sing.

And his guitar is, well, to die for.

Sometimes the lyrics are hard to compute: was that really someone dreaming about being married to a mermaid and having ten kids, in between yodels? Well, everybody gets the blues about something.

As the accordion player leads the way through the "Orange Blossom Special," and the second wheat beer is safely in hand, things get even more relaxed. Johnny Cash did that one, so it's really getting comfy. Tight harmonies, nice mandolin playing, harmonica (Kemmick again,) bluesy slide guitar (the fraternal Kemmick.) Maybe this wilderness stuff is OK, after all.

The hours flies by -- next thing you know, we're all singing "This Land is Your Land" together to wrap things up, the Chacos are feeling more natural on the feet, and well, all we need is love.

Time now for the best bratwurst since Munich and some vegetarian chili while waiting. Looking around, it is clear that no-one is going to notice a meatless concoction going down the gullet -- they're all eating it too. Tasty.

The intervening performers keep the crowd busy while things are setting up for Tyler Burnett, and there's time for one more beer before settling down. Having heard their praises sung, this was something to look forward to.

No disappointments here. A clue that there is some serious musicianship going on is the when you have to glance up periodically to confirm that there are still only three guys on stage. Stephen Brown's voice is like a fine old peaty single-malt, Parker Brown's guitar sparkles and growls, and Pat Epley on drums is ghost-noting away, creating a wall of percussive sound. And how can you argue with two Van Morrison songs to start out the set? One feels young.

One of the bandmembers looks familiar. Right. Billings Senior High. But unfortunately not as a classmate. One feels old. Really old.

The clouds are steadily clearing as the sun sets. A bright waxing half-moon hangs in the sky over the Yellowstone valley. Time for old folks to get some sleep. Walking away, back on stage the kids are still making that great music. The door closes on the truck, quiet settles in. Maybe we'll try granola for breakfast tomorrow.

The "EARTH FIRST!" hat goes back on.

A couple more interesting notes from the polls

Montana Headlines has noted before that Mitt Romney is staking everything on winning the first two contests of the season (Iowa and New Hampshire.) He is pouring tons of his ample supply of money into those states, hoping that wins there will give him the momentum to get him out of fourth place.

By contrast, Rudy Guiliani is riding his lead in the nation-wide polls, hoping to score solidly in those states, but then clean up in the rush of big early February primaries.

While the big news in the last round of Mason-Dixon polls was that Fred Thompson had taken the lead in South Carolina (third in the nation and first in the South,) a less-noticed item was that the last Mason-Dixon poll in Iowa had Fred Thompson move solidly into second place behind Romney (25% to 17%,) sliding ahead of Guiliani.

John McCain continues his slide in Iowa, falling behind (at 6%) even long-shot Mike Huckabee (at 7%,) and being tied with even longer-shot Sam Brownback.

Given that Iowa is a "retail politics" state where an organization is essential for the caucuses, and where the other candidates have practically lived for months, this is remarkable for Thompson. Whether he can get his supporters to the caucuses is another question.

_________________

The last post mentioned the latest Newsweek poll -- what wasn't mentioned in that post (since it really didn't fit in with the themes) was that it was yet another poll confirming Fred Thompson's solid second-place position.

Second place is actually a very good position for Thompson, since he won't attract the fire that a front-runner gets. Romney is drawing hard fire from the McCain camp, which understands that only one of the two of them will survive the early rounds. He is also drawing fire because of his front-runner status in Iowa and New Hampshire. Guiliani draws fire because of his nation-wide front-runner status.

As the minor candidates, who by and large are far more conservative than the front-runners, drop out of the race, their support is likely to go to the next most conservative candidate -- Thompson. He could easily find himself peaking in time for the early February primaries, on a roll from a likely win in South Carolina.

He will still need to convince voters that he can do as well against Clinton or the other Democrats as can Guiliani -- that is the big unknown.

Romney in Montana; Romney in the West; Some notes on the Newsweek head-to-head polls

Well, reports today are that Mitt Romney wowed 'em at the Montana GOP convention. Since he was the only GOP candidate to visit, he deserved gratitude for coming to rally the faithful, a warm welcome to the state, and lots of applause.

If Romney makes any wider use of the visit, it will be to demonstrate his popularity and support in the West -- the section of the country that the Dems are counting on to make the difference in the next Presidential campaign. The new strategy being promoted by many in the Democratic party is built on two ideas:

1. They assume that they will be able to win all of the states that John Kerry won. Probably a safe assumption.

2. They believe that it is best just to write off the Republican heartland of the "greater South" -- which extends from Texas and Oklahoma all the way to east coast, and which includes the northern tier of Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, etc..

3. They believe that even if the election gets close (and current signs are that it won't be) they can pick off enough "red" states outside the South to make the difference -- particularly in the intermountain west. This idea is built in no small part on recent Democratic wins in the West such as Sen. Jon Tester's victory in Montana in 2006.

This strategy flies in the face of the traditional DLC approach of running a southerner who can win some states in the borderlands of the South, while writing off the traditionally Republican swath of states reaching from Montana and North Dakota down through Arizona, NM, and Texas.

If Romney is truly a GOP powerhouse throughout the intermountain west -- and his supporters truly think he would be -- it would spoil a part of that Democratic strategy.

Leaving aside the issue of whether Romney could retain the GOP's current hold on the south (for instance, would he really be able to win Arkansas or Florida or West Virginia against Clinton or Edwards?) -- it does not seem at all a given that Romney would sweep the West. But it is too early to be getting state by state comparison polls, and that is still unknown.

Looking at the latest national poll (the Newsweek poll,) Romney loses more heavily to any Democratic contender than does any Republican contender. While nearly every head-to-head matchup has all Republicans solidly behind Democrats in that particular poll (which historically has been conducted in a way that underestimates GOP strength, it must be admitted,) and has Romney as the GOP candidate most significantly behind the Democratic candidates, it is interesting that the biggest "red-state" gap of all is the one between John Edwards and Romney. This would seem to point toward significant Romney weakness in the South, since Edwards is from North Carolina.

Another interesting tidbit from the Newsweek poll was that the only Democratic candidate who ran behind in the "red state" polling is Hillary Clinton. She is shown narrowly behind both Guiliani and McCain in the aggregate of those states. This points toward her weaknesss -- very high negatives in the heartland.

A Clinton general election campaign currently seems to be built on the idea that she could win every state that Kerry did -- plus win in Ohio.

A lot of this early horse-race stuff is just name recognition to be sure, especially when the poll is of registered voters rather than likely voters . But it's still enjoyable to watch horses race, even if they're barely out of the starting gate.