THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN - BUT WHAT DID THEY SAY?

SUMMARY: Trust Montanans to be incorrigible mavericks who say what they
think - including in the voting booth.

Nationally, as is the American habit, we've already analyzed the election
to pieces. Pundits have explained the big reasons Americans did what they
did: We're scared - of terrorists, of losing our jobs, of not being able to
pay for our health care, of losing our children to the violence and abandon
of popular culture, of finding no Social Security check at the end of the
rainbow, of dying of influenza. George Bush apparently had appeal as the
candidate who'd keep us safest.

When we're scared, we circle the wagons and exclude everyone who is not
like us. Voters showed that in their choices.

We're in a war. There's no time in history when Americans have deposed a
president in the middle of a war. Think Abraham Lincoln in Civil War 1864,
Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 World War II, Richard Nixon in 1972 Vietnam.
That has held even when the war is an unpopular one.

People said in exit polls that moral values were at the tops of their lists
when they thought about candidates - for many, higher than the economy,
higher than terrorism, higher than the war in Iraq.

Americans also said on Tuesday, with record turnout, that they care. Apathy
lost. We're fervent.

Montanans were no doubt affected by the same factors. But trust us to be
mavericks who say what we think. The result we got was a snapshot showing
that who we are is anything but dull.

Conventional wisdom says we're a Republican state. We voted for Bush. Yet
we elected a Democrat as governor for the first time since 1984. Voters may
have been saying they wanted a change from the Republican administration of
Judy Martz, and Bob Brown was close to her. Or maybe they just liked
Schweitzer better, and that was more important than party lines.

For the first time in a decade, Montanans will send a majority of
Democrats, not Republicans, to the state Senate in January. Yet they voted
in a Republican secretary of state.

In Flathead County, voters elected a Democratic county commissioner. That
hadn't happened for more than 10 years. But Missoula Democrat Geoff
Badenoch couldn't win election to the Public Service Commission. Republican
Doug Mood will go to Helena for the job after winning with a 52-48 split.

Montanans' free thinking meant that one of every four voters who voted for
Democrat Brian Schweitzer for governor also voted for Republican Bush for
president. And we kept our Republican Congressman by a landslide.

Montanans also showed overwhelming approval for allowing the medical use of
marijuana. They showed overwhelming disapproval for same-sex marriage. Both
issues fall into the category of "moral values," but they seem to be
playing in different parts of the ballpark.

Across the state, Montanans have a high consciousness about jobs that pay
well. But voters weren't convinced that jobs in mining using cyanide were
worth it.

It looks from here as if Montanans followed the advice of the season and
voted their hopes, not their fears. The resulting mix of ideas should mean
an interesting public life to come.