West of the Rest: Secession Now!

While this post will become dated shortly after the national election, the spirit of the message should linger with a portion of the nation for a long time afterward. Notice how the long-standing "red" and "blue" states have now been joined by "Purple" states? Scared pollsters, reluctant-to-commit electorate, and hourly-breaking wacky news items all combined to take some states that were thought of as 'understood' before [ = where their Electoral College votes were going] and now thrown them up in the air.

The configuration of the United States map starts to look more than a little schizophrenic especially since some of us west of the Rockies have never counted on Anybody's radar screen as being significant -- no matter our Latino votes, our Gay electorates, or our numbers perished in Iraq (all sub-themes of this election). We just haven't mattered in this election, once again.

Let me be clear -- NO jet fuel has been wasted on trekking to my state (or neighboring states) to win my vote by Anybody.

Since some of us are sick of being 'Beige States' -- transparent to the national agenda -- it bears asking that hard question that was raised in the years leading up to 1861. Shades of Jefferson Davis. . .

Right now, one state, CA, has relative bipartisan support for a governor who could probably win a western states Nation coalition as President. With a new Nation identity, we could start fresh with constitutional rules so that immigrants like Arnold -- who compose so much of our western population -- can assume western national leadership positions.

The old boys club of Yale and Princeton just don't cut it out here. We need people who represent us and count us on their radar screens.

See, it's different out here; it's not just about the time zone or the weather. Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada -- well, we'd have to figure where to draw the line -- are relatively sympathetic to economic, commerce, and social needs of OUR Region. We GET that the rest of the country enjoys Bashing us and to a large extent Excluding us from their mindshare.

If we can't be Red, Blue, or even Purple at a time like this, then it's time we wake up and ask why we're hanging onto an old scheme that served old railroad barons one hundred+ years ago.

I'm sick of being Beige in 2004 just like in 2000. Aren't you?