I think these areas would automatically support whoever the nominee is but in order to get a good enough turnout outside of (needed) indies/centrists, he would need to show how his policies can help the urban areas. I.e., it's not that he couldn't do it but he needs to target some things like housing, education, and of course jobs, etc.

"Live Free or Die" might play in rural areas but in the urban areas, the reality is "Nothing is Free So Die".

large as Billings Montana. New Hampshire, Delaware, Maine all spring to mind.

I highly doubt he would use it in any other state. Right now he's just playing to the early states, it would seem.

but is a decent and honest man. He actually filled in on Denver's progressive radio station for the morning host a while back. Direct and to the point..

Why do the Democrats keep pushing the Overton Window further and further toward CloudCuckooLand?

No more Blue Dogs. Period.

I remember my horror when Reagan was elected, by a landslide no less, and twice! Thirty years of liberal bashing ensued.. I'm surprised there are any of us left and we've had to compromise again and again.
But compromise is ok and long as we keep moving ahead, slowly but surely, and we are.

Maybe Kucinich could give up his Fox News gig?

He supports gun rights, but so do a lot of rural Democrats.

He also supports Canadian style single payer health care.

He's has more of a Libertarian impulse than a Conservative one.

but I honestly think he'd have an easier time than Clinton. He's just a very likable person and I think the party is starving for someone who would take no shit from Republicans and would do it publicly.

I already don't support Clinton in the primary. I could support Schweitzer if he overcomes his distaste of Washington to run.

them both as people, Brian can really give a speech and he's not a retread of the alternating Presidencies Fandango. Also he's from the West and does not deny that like some do. He's been a good governor. He can work a room. He's not related to a former President. These are good things.

but does he really have any kind of chance as Presidential nominee?

I like Schweitzer and I like the idea of having a Westerner on the ticket.

and even the conservative Republicans there have historically been more pragmatic and less ideological than Republicans in the midwest and south.

A good example is Alan Simpson who I know fairly well from my childhood days. I disagreed with him on many, if not most policy issues, but he was pragmatic.

As someone from the inter-mountain west I think Schweitzer would be a slightly center-right President with a libertarian slant.

Given other choices I could consider supporting him.

I like him.

Clintons can raise in an hour what will take him a whole year to raise.

But then that was what they said about Obama.

If so, even though I like him personally.

I heard him speak at our Governor's Day brunch in Illinois a few years ago. He has great credentials, he is smart, and honest.

He spoke about how health insurance came into existence in Canada.

He had to overcome a teabagger legislature in his state, and he came out ahead. He would be great on a ticket with Hillary. I would support him for President, too!

..if Hillary wants it..no one will stop her this time. Brian would be a break the mold candidate for Dems..that is nothing like the candidates we have had before. He is less comfortable in a suit than in working person garb--but has a respectable resume. It would be fun....

I am an early O'Malley backer, but Brian!

I don't know much about him, but he'd be an interesting candidate. It's way too early for me to back anyone. I'd say maybe a year and a half or so and I might start considering who's I like.

Now let me ask ya something: If Brian Schweitzer is elected president, will Jag (Schweitzer's border collie) take up residence in the Oval Office like he did in Schweitzer's governor's office, and how many teabaggers will Jag be deemed smarter than?

Where are you guys coming up with this? He supports single payer health care, is strongly against Citizens United, supports organized labor, and has similar views to Warren on financial reform and regulation.


What issues other than gun rights makes him a conservative?

Is he a conservative because he's from a Western state and wears a bolo tie?

Doesn't matter for some people. If the candidate doesn't meet some standard of liberal purity...

he would be one of the most progressive candidates whose name has been seriously tossed around - He is after all a rural populist with a strong left-wing streak

I am sick of fakes.

or health issues that force Hillary to drop out. Otherwise, as others have said, this could help get him the VP slot.

About 95 percent of Hillary's baggage is in fact manufactured by the Republican Party, but it's still there.

A few things that really need to be considered:

1. His last elected office was as governor, which has long been considered a good stepping stone to the presidency. Many of our best presidents were governors...okay, the two worst presidents we ever had were also governors, but Clinton, Carter and both the Roosevelts were governors.

2. He left Montana in better fiscal shape than he found it. Republicans like that.

3. He's from "Real America," whatever the hell that is. Republicans like that too.

4. He signed something called the "Montana Firearms Freedom Act." This says that "The law declares that firearms manufactured in the state of Montana after October 1, 2009, and which remain in the state, are exempt from United States federal firearms regulations, provided that these items are clearly stamped "Made in Montana" on a central metallic part.
"It applies to all firearms other than fully automatic weapons, firearms that cannot be carried and used by one person, and firearms with a bore diameter greater than 1½ inch which use smokeless powder. It also applies to ammunition (except exploding projectiles), and accessories such as suppressors." The law is pretty much useless to teabaggers because there are three gun manufacturers in the whole state of Montana and none are making the kind of guns teabaggers like (they make expensive bolt-action rifles for long-range hunting, not assault rifles), but imagine the wailing at FreedumbWorks..."oh my god, how can we get this man to convert to Republicanism before the election? He's everything we want except for being a fuckin' liberal."

And most importantly:

5. The assholes on the other side of the political spectrum have been hatin' Hillary for decades; they've already got their scripts, anti-Hillary turf organizations, and attack ads built. They don't know Schweitzer.

As I type, a third of the country thinks Hillary Clinton's got horns and a tail. The same third would accept the Democrat Schweitzer for the same reason they'd accept a nonwhite Republican: "the boy's all right for one'a them people."

The biggest reason we need Schweitzer? He's you. The Republicans have long relied on antipathy toward the urban professionals we run for high office - that damn Demoncrat don't know what I go through, he don't hunt, he don't fish, he don't know what it is to do an honest day's work. (Because, you know, the only "honest day's work" there could possibly be is manual labor outside.) Schweitzer's different: He ranches cattle in Montana. Schweitzer's biggest advantage is the ability to go to the Typical Republican Voter and tell him, "I know everything there is to know about pitching hay, digging ditches, meeting a payroll and castrating calves. I also know everything there is to know about how the Republicans are screwing you and me at every turn; let's talk about that for a while, okay?"

Bring it. And if E. Warren doesn't want to run, grab her for VP.