Very interesting article about Former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer, Well worth he 4-5 minutes to read in it's entirety. Here a few excerpts. I hope he runs!
The Rise And Fall Of Brian Schweitzer - BuzzFeed News
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The sun was setting on Memorial Day when Brian Schweitzer called.
From his three-acre ranch — 2,000 miles away from New York, 25 miles northwest of Anaconda, Mt., and one mile up the dirt road that leads to his house on Georgetown Lake — Schweitzer returned an interview request sent earlier that week to one of his old staffers. The call came from his personal cell phone. This isn’t normal politician behavior. But for Schweitzer it was standard.
He always got back to reporters himself. And he had plenty calling. Most asked to come see the ranch. They wanted “to see me in my natural habitat,” he said.
“I make for an interesting read apparently.”
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Brian Schweitzer likes an audience about as much as he likes to talk.
Late last year, the 58-year-old former governor of Montana made himself known as a Person to Interview. After finishing his second term as governor, Schweitzer emerged as one of the only prominent Democrats willing to speak critically about Hillary Clinton. The status earned him bookings on just about every cable news show. He went on Crossfire, on Hardball, on Up With Steve Kornacki and NOW With Alex Wagner. He wore his bolo tie on Morning Joe.
Reporters listened as he talked about running for president, about visiting all 99 counties in Iowa, about the way Clinton doesn’t represent “the future.” Schweitzer did make for an interesting read. And he knew how to work the press.
By February, he signed on as a paid contributor with MSNBC. The network sent five technicians to Schweitzer’s ranch to build a studio off his wine cellar. Installation took three days. The set is powered by cell towers, brand-new technology from Israel. Schweitzer will be happy to tell you about it.
By May, a Wall Street Journal profile cemented Schweitzer as the anti-Hillary Democrat. The article captures a pensive Schweitzer, gazing out his window at the Rockies, contemplating the ways in which a 2016 bid might tear him from “his currently comfortable life.” The piece ran on the front page under the headline “Ex-Governor Auditions as Populist Clinton Challenger.”
Schweitzer was on the rise. Not in poll numbers. In cable hits. In tip sheets and in stories and on Twitter. Reporters kept calling. Everyone wanted their tour of the ranch for an article about a Democrat who wasn’t named Clinton.
But in the end, Schweitzer’s rise amounted to the thing people in Washington call a media narrative. And his burned hot and fast and then just went away.
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By the fall of 2000, his name ID was up and he’d earned a three-minute slot at the Democratic National Convention. Schweitzer lost the race — by only 4 percentage points — but when he ran for governor three years later, he won handily and helped Democrats take control of the state legislature for the first time in 12 years. People called it the “Montana Miracle.” To Washington Democrats, he looked like new hope — a way to turn voters in the interior West. Schweitzer appealed to conservatives and progressives. He opposed gun control. He advocated for a coal-to-fuel energy model. The Democratic Governors Association identified him as a star. “We’re highlighting him wherever we can,” the chair of the group, Gov. Bill Richardson, said in 2006.
Democrats started talking about him for president. Schweitzer called the idea “silly” and “kooky.”
“I’m just a rancher who ended up governor of Montana,” he’d say.
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Schweitzer told the reporter that Eric Cantor, the Republican House majority leader who lost his primary election that month, set off his “gaydar.”
“If you were just a regular person, you turned on the TV, and you saw Eric Cantor talking, I would say — and I’m fine with gay people, that’s all right — but my gaydar is 60-70 percent,” Schweitzer says in the story. “But he’s not, I think, so I don’t know. Again, I couldn’t care less. I’m accepting.”
The next morning, MSNBC was talking about it. Everyone was talking about it. Pundits said his 2016 prospects were dead, if he ever had them to begin with.
Two days later, Schweitzer posted a status update on Facebook: “I recently made a number of stupid and insensitive remarks to a reporter from the National Journal. I am deeply sorry and sincerely apologize for my carelessness and disregard.”
Another day later, Hillary Clinton was quoted in a newspaper saying she and her husband are not among the “truly well off,” and the political world rushed to wonder aloud how she could have ever said such a thing. Washington moved on. Schweitzer was suddenly laughable to the people who propped him up most — he had no place to show his skunk hide; no makeup artists to charm; no use, not at the moment, for the HD uplink, cell tower-powered, Israel-innovated, one-of-its-kind live-hit in-home studio at the end of his dirt road. No reporters would be calling to ask for a visit at his ranch in Montana. No reporters would be riding horses or bulldozing snow banks or doing anything involving cattle.
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FULL ARTICLE AT LINK ABOVE
So he made one comment that was perceived as "anti-gay" and he's done?
The Rise And Fall Of Brian Schweitzer - BuzzFeed News
----
The sun was setting on Memorial Day when Brian Schweitzer called.
From his three-acre ranch — 2,000 miles away from New York, 25 miles northwest of Anaconda, Mt., and one mile up the dirt road that leads to his house on Georgetown Lake — Schweitzer returned an interview request sent earlier that week to one of his old staffers. The call came from his personal cell phone. This isn’t normal politician behavior. But for Schweitzer it was standard.
He always got back to reporters himself. And he had plenty calling. Most asked to come see the ranch. They wanted “to see me in my natural habitat,” he said.
“I make for an interesting read apparently.”
-----
Brian Schweitzer likes an audience about as much as he likes to talk.
Late last year, the 58-year-old former governor of Montana made himself known as a Person to Interview. After finishing his second term as governor, Schweitzer emerged as one of the only prominent Democrats willing to speak critically about Hillary Clinton. The status earned him bookings on just about every cable news show. He went on Crossfire, on Hardball, on Up With Steve Kornacki and NOW With Alex Wagner. He wore his bolo tie on Morning Joe.
Reporters listened as he talked about running for president, about visiting all 99 counties in Iowa, about the way Clinton doesn’t represent “the future.” Schweitzer did make for an interesting read. And he knew how to work the press.
By February, he signed on as a paid contributor with MSNBC. The network sent five technicians to Schweitzer’s ranch to build a studio off his wine cellar. Installation took three days. The set is powered by cell towers, brand-new technology from Israel. Schweitzer will be happy to tell you about it.
By May, a Wall Street Journal profile cemented Schweitzer as the anti-Hillary Democrat. The article captures a pensive Schweitzer, gazing out his window at the Rockies, contemplating the ways in which a 2016 bid might tear him from “his currently comfortable life.” The piece ran on the front page under the headline “Ex-Governor Auditions as Populist Clinton Challenger.”
Schweitzer was on the rise. Not in poll numbers. In cable hits. In tip sheets and in stories and on Twitter. Reporters kept calling. Everyone wanted their tour of the ranch for an article about a Democrat who wasn’t named Clinton.
But in the end, Schweitzer’s rise amounted to the thing people in Washington call a media narrative. And his burned hot and fast and then just went away.
-----
By the fall of 2000, his name ID was up and he’d earned a three-minute slot at the Democratic National Convention. Schweitzer lost the race — by only 4 percentage points — but when he ran for governor three years later, he won handily and helped Democrats take control of the state legislature for the first time in 12 years. People called it the “Montana Miracle.” To Washington Democrats, he looked like new hope — a way to turn voters in the interior West. Schweitzer appealed to conservatives and progressives. He opposed gun control. He advocated for a coal-to-fuel energy model. The Democratic Governors Association identified him as a star. “We’re highlighting him wherever we can,” the chair of the group, Gov. Bill Richardson, said in 2006.
Democrats started talking about him for president. Schweitzer called the idea “silly” and “kooky.”
“I’m just a rancher who ended up governor of Montana,” he’d say.
------
Schweitzer told the reporter that Eric Cantor, the Republican House majority leader who lost his primary election that month, set off his “gaydar.”
“If you were just a regular person, you turned on the TV, and you saw Eric Cantor talking, I would say — and I’m fine with gay people, that’s all right — but my gaydar is 60-70 percent,” Schweitzer says in the story. “But he’s not, I think, so I don’t know. Again, I couldn’t care less. I’m accepting.”
The next morning, MSNBC was talking about it. Everyone was talking about it. Pundits said his 2016 prospects were dead, if he ever had them to begin with.
Two days later, Schweitzer posted a status update on Facebook: “I recently made a number of stupid and insensitive remarks to a reporter from the National Journal. I am deeply sorry and sincerely apologize for my carelessness and disregard.”
Another day later, Hillary Clinton was quoted in a newspaper saying she and her husband are not among the “truly well off,” and the political world rushed to wonder aloud how she could have ever said such a thing. Washington moved on. Schweitzer was suddenly laughable to the people who propped him up most — he had no place to show his skunk hide; no makeup artists to charm; no use, not at the moment, for the HD uplink, cell tower-powered, Israel-innovated, one-of-its-kind live-hit in-home studio at the end of his dirt road. No reporters would be calling to ask for a visit at his ranch in Montana. No reporters would be riding horses or bulldozing snow banks or doing anything involving cattle.
-----
FULL ARTICLE AT LINK ABOVE
So he made one comment that was perceived as "anti-gay" and he's done?
