Tony Montana
By THOMAS GOLTZ
The Wall Street Journal
April 7, 2005; Page A15
HELENA, Montana -- Tribal flags billowed next to the Stars and Stripes, the smell of burning sweetgrass hung in the air, and the drumbeat from a half-dozen tom-toms was a tad insistent. Scores of Native American tribal members dressed in full war bonnets and chest-length braids intoned powwow tunes while modern-day cowboys and cowgirls, decked out in rented tuxedos and full-length gowns, bounced like pogo sticks in a traditional Native American victory dance. A loopy "re-enactment" of the past by some society of weird history buffs? Plausible, but incorrect. It was, in fact, freshman governor Brian Schweitzer's inaugural ball, on Feb. 12. Even while Democrats across the country were licking their wounds from November's crushing presidential defeat, there was celebration in Montana.
Not only had the citizens of the nation's fourth largest state elected a Democratic candidate as governor for the first time in 20 years, they'd also rolled back GOP dominance to a 50-50 split in the state House, taken a 27-23 majority in the Senate, filled virtually every position of real authority in the state's higher offices with Democrats, and defeated referendums on re-allowing cyanide leaching in mining (despite millions of dollars of industry lobbying money promoting the idea) while approving of the medical use of marijuana.
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Adding fuel to the partisan fire is Mr. Schweitzer's request to recall some of the Montana National Guard and its water-bomb helicopters from Iraq in order to cope with the anticipated Summer-from-Hell fire season due to an eight-year drought in the state. This has been cast by the GOP as an expression of anti-war sentiment. How all this sorts itself out over the short term is anybody's guess, but Mount St. Schweitzer is certainly stirring things up -- from driving himself around the state with his pet dog, Jag, to flying the tribal flags of the seven Native American Indian reservations in Montana in rotation above the rotunda in the capital, a unique symbol of the governor's maverick streak.
That streak came to the fore at the annual state governors' meeting at the White House, where Mr. Schweitzer upbraided both President Bush and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt. He likened the president to a bad cattle auctioneer and Mr. Leavitt to a cowpoke "riding for the brand." National Democrats swooned at the audacity of the freshman governor from the Mountain West. And some even started to whisper a number: 2008.
Tribal flags at the White House? There's always a first time.
Mr. Goltz is a Montana-based writer.
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