Idaho is Conservative While Montana is the New California

What’s the favorite whine of liberal Californians?  I want to go to Montana!  Idaho is more conservative than Montana and California is the difference.  A couple of weeks ago, our general manager walked into my office and explained that he had concluded southern Idaho was much more conservative than Billings, Montana.  The man is an Idaho native, but until a year and a half ago, had been working for Townsquare Media in Billings.  Then he fled that colony of liberal California.

That’s my working theory.  Liberals relocate to Montana and then proceed to foul their new nest in the same way they messed in their old playpen.  The conservatives come to Idaho.

The two states have a lot in common geographically and in a shared rural culture.  The difference is the growing urban centers in both states.  And Montana still has residue of the old Wobblies from its mining history.  There was considerably less leftist labor impact here.

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Another difference is marketing.  Idaho promotes itself as a bastion of liberty, however.  Wyoming is probably better at keeping that promise.  The trouble with marketing is that it can be successful, or you call it the trouble if you’re from Idaho’s old political guard.  They profit economically from growth and new housing development.  They lose because the newcomers are far more conservative than establishment Republicans.

Montana attracts the granola gobblers.  Different marketing.  The libs show up expecting one large ski slope flanked by the Dutton Ranch.  They share the morals of the Dutton family, which looks a lot like Silicon Valley values.  Maybe we need to add much of Montana to Greater Idaho.  Just to save the traditional folks.