Timothy Egan, a Seattle-based writer best known for his work on The New York Times, was in town today to speak to a packed house at the City Club of Boise. Here are a few tidbits from his talk, which was jointly sponsored by the Idaho Environmental Forum. You can read more at Boise Weekly and hear the whole program on BSU Radio (airtimes here).
On the increasingly Democratic interior West: Eight of 11 Western states now have Democratic governors, and Egan said it's because guys like Brian Schweitzer of Montana and Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming (and Cecil Andrus before them) figured out a way to take the Republicans' "three G's" (guns, gays, and God) off the table. Egan recounted the advice Schweitzer had for Clinton and Obama before their recent visits to his state: "In Montana, we like our guns. We like big guns. We like little guns. We
like shotguns. We like pistols. Most of us own two or three guns. Gun
control is hitting what you shoot at. So, I’d be a little careful about
blowing smoke up our skirts.”
Egan noted that in the early years of the Clinton administration, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt predicted that the West would soon go Democratic, yet Democrats were nearly an endangered species after the 1994 elections. But Babbitt has more recently been proven correct that people want to live in the West's vibrant cities and have easy access to nearby public lands - and they also favor Democrats' approach on bread-and-butter issues like health care, conservation, and good jobs.
On the presidential race: Calling it the "greatest presidential campaign in my lifetime," Egan said he can't get enough of the Democratic contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, especially since so much of it is playing out in the usually neglected West. He predicted that Obama will get the nomination (probably by mid-May) and that he'll probably also win a general election that most Americans will see as a referendum on old versus new. He cited research indicating that Americans are far more willing to vote for a black person or a woman than for someone over 72 (which John McCain will be by Election Day). But he did say that if McCain prevailed, he would be a departure from George W. Bush due to his stand on global warming and Teddy Roosevelt-style conservation ethic.
On the Dust Bowl: Egan's book The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl won the National Book Award in 2006. He noted that next to California, the Northwest had the greatest in-migration from Dust Bowl refugees, and that they soon helped power the region's economy (and win World War II) by their work on the Grand Coulee Dam and the aerospace industry. The Dust Bowl is a neglected part of our history, he added, though his book is now being filmed for HBO by the same team that made the cable network's recent John Adams miniseries. Egan's next book will be on the greatest forest fire in U.S. history, which burned up much of Northern Idaho and western Montana in 1910. Immigration will be a backdrop to the tale, he added, since there were far more foreign-born people in the United States 100 years ago than there are today.
On old and new media: Newspaper readership is up, Egan said, but mostly on the Internet where newspapers have yet to figure out how to make money. He added that blogs are derivative, with most lacking much real reporting - which is why newspapers will continue to play an important role.
On his favorite place in Idaho: He wouldn't go there. ("What happens at 5,000 feet really does stay at 5,000 feet," he quipped.) He does plan to climb Borah Peak this summer.
