Counting the hours until we’re cleansed of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and Tim Sheehy and Jon Tester and Ryan Zinke and Monica Tranel slinging copious mud for months on end into every television screen and mailbox in Montana.
I don’t know about you but I’m spent.
Obviously the candidates weren’t told in advance that the tone of political campaigns makes a difference with voters.
Take Al Gore, if you remember him. Had the former vice president been more “upbeat” when facing George W. Bush in 2000 he supposedly would have won the White House (it was one of the closest presidential elections in American history).
Positive campaigning, at the same time, has been shown to motivate people to cast ballots, whereas negative stumping suppresses voter turnout. Of course the latter outcome could well be the objective of a candidate and party in this unprecedented (read weird) day and age.
Fortunately low voter turnout in this all-important 2024 election isn’t on the radar in the Flathead, where absentee voting is well underway ahead of Election Day, Nov. 5. And that’s a good thing.
Don’t believe any politician who implies that absentee balloting is some newfangled voting trend that’s not to be trusted. It so happens that Continental Army soldiers in 1775 successfully cast their budding republic’s first-ever absentee ballots (a local election, obviously) and by 1924 — exactly 100 years ago — early voting in one form or another was allowed in 45 of the 48 states.
Flathead County Election Supervisor Christina Glatz tells me a whopping 48,982 absentee ballots were mailed this month to those voters who requested them. And fingers crossed the majority get filled out and counted.
“We really don’t know, but we’re preparing for the best,” the supervisor says of the high voter turnout potential for the county.
Kalispell’s election headquarters, if it’s any indication, is “quite a bit busier” when compared to this spring’s primary election, Glatz adds, including early voting for residents who can’t be here on Election Day but “want to make sure their vote counts.”
Otherwise I will leave you with some much-needed political levity as we endure the final days of the most prolonged and expensive election in Montana’s history.
Digging deep into the nation’s data-driven voter rolls — a computerized compendium of 212 million voters — the Washington Post has revealed the most Republican and Democratic names in the nation.
Yes, a person’s first and/or last name can actually dictate his or her political allegiance.
Take the 15,000-plus Americans named “Stoltzfus,” who are all but guaranteed to vote Republican (the surname is popular among Amish, an overwhelmingly conservative bunch).
But taking it a step further, the newspaper determined that “Ben Stoltzfus” and “Benuel Stoltzfus” are two “Republican-only” names. Meaning that every single man with that first and last name is in the Republican camp.
While most people named Stoltzfus reside in Pennsylvania’s Amish country, wouldn’t you know that I discovered one Benuel Stoltzfus, age 50, residing in Great Falls.
And there’s also a Ben Stoltzfus in the Electric City who is the founder of the Montana Shed Center. His office website notes that Ben was born and raised on an Amish farm in Pennsylvania.
Benuel and Ben, I’m told, are popular “given” names within the Amish community, as opposed to nicknames for Benjamin.
I also found Mark Stoltzfus in Stevensville, whose company specializes in post frame and steel sided buildings. His business portfolio traces his expertise “back to his Amish upbringing, a group well known for their work ethic and expert craftsmanship.”
None of the aforementioned cared to confirm their political stripes when I reached their offices and homes, but given their names, family histories, and of course electoral records, I will assume they’re Republicans.
Montana, not surprisingly, is also home to a number of successful Stoltzfus women, including Cass, a silversmith in Missoula who incorporates “porcupine quills and elk ivory” into her designs; while Jaime operates the Cowgirl Meat Company out of her ranch near Big Timber.
The same voter rolls, rather fittingly, reveal that 75 percent of “Kamalas” and 61 percent of “Donalds” in the United States are registered Democrats and Republicans respectively.
As for the “bluest” given names, practically guaranteed to vote Democrat, there’s Jermaine and Darnell for men and Latoya and Tamika for women.
And if those names are unfamiliar, the “reddest names” literally scream Big Sky Country: Brayden, Colton and Tanner for men and Darla, Dixie and Misty for women.
Tamika or Tanner, Darnell or Darla, it makes no difference at this pivotal juncture. As somebody once observed, every election is determined by the people who show up.
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author.