For reasons I have detailed many times here, I am rabidly enthusiastic about the Western Primary. I’m hardly alone; this is a bipartisan issue that matters to everybody out in the West. KSL, from Utah, gives its stamp of approval:
The value of such an exercise is validated by reflecting on the last couple of presidential elections. How much attention did western issues receive? How many candidates came to the region in search of support? What influence, if any, did citizens in the West have with those who sought the nation’s highest office?
Exactly. Exactly. I will make the argument that even the conservative Republicans of the rural west would be happier with a Democratic President who survived the Western Primary than they are with the current administration. (That is to say, if you are a voter in Durango, your life would be better off under a Richardson Administration than it is under Bush or a hypothetical, say, Allen Administration.) I will elaborate on this argument later, but I absolutely know and believe it to be true, having spent my entire life growing up in the West amongst a great many Republicans and Democrats alike.