Jackson Hole Underground

Change begins from the ground up.

Yes, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has inspired millions of young people to get involved and vote, but we will never change much unless we start at the grassroots.

Locally, we can see the effect of Obama’s empowering movement in the candidacy of two 20-somethings: Claire Fuller and Tommy Wood (and, to some extent, Greg Miles and Matt Lee, two other progressive candidates young in outlook if not in years).

Fuller, 24, is running for Teton County commissioner as a Democrat, following in the footsteps of her Huidekoper forbears. Wood, 29, has mounted an aggressive campaign for Jackson Town Council after moving to town just two years ago.

Both have appealed to a demographic traditionally underrepresented in Teton County: their peers.

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We’ll be posting a few thoughts and photos from yesterday’s Jackson Hole Music Festival — and what a scorching good time it was — but first let’s put the message of the music into action.

Tuesday is a primary election that will shape the Jackson Town Council and decide several community initiatives — a completed path segment (yay!) and $53 million jail (nay!) among them.

Anyone who lives in Teton County may vote. YOU NEED TO HAVE LIVED HERE ONLY A MINUTE to cast a ballot, and can register at the polls. Bring a driver’s license or some proof of identification.

Those who may have to work long hours tomorrow can fill out an absentee ballot at the county clerk’s office, at the corner of Willow and Simpson streets, until 5 p.m. today.

A list of polling places is posted here.

We’ll be following up with some last-minute information on a couple of candidates, for those looking to get informed. Rando Steve and Rando Kitty over at TetonAT already have compiled a backcountry skiers’ voting guide.

Ben Harper and Robert Randolph came to Jackson Hole and sang of revolution and positive change. Voting in local elections is an important, and easy, first step.

We can change the world, with our own two hands.

David Sirota will sign his new book, The Uprising, this evening at Valley Books starting at 7. Sirota is a leading voice among upcoming independent American political thinkers.

Sirota has been a critical player in the recent political enlightenment of the West, helping elect Montana governor Brian Schweitzer by educating voters on how the modern pro-corporate, anti-worker GOP undermines the West’s libertarian values.

Since his Schweitzer victory, Sirota has concentrated on a story that corporate-owned media cannot be expected to cover: Normal people have had their fill of robber-baron greed, corrupt politicians and the lazy, overpaid national press that keeps them in power. The Uprising includes the hefty subtitle “An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington.”

Sirota’s weekly column appears Mondays in the Jackson Hole Daily.

When the filing period for the 2008 election closed last month, I was surprised to find no one challenging Mayor Mark Barron.

Fawning profiles in the local media nonwithstanding, there has been a lot of grumbling about Barron on barstools and coffee counters, owing mostly to the new parking garage and the rapidly changing face of downtown.

Another lawmaker ripe for a challenge is state Rep. Keith Gingery, a Republican who owes his election in 2004 to GOP gerrymandering. Gingery has rankled his constituency in Jackson by sponsoring abortion bills and his flip-flop on a secrecy bill that made correspondence between lawmakers and lobbyists off-limits to the public.

I wasn’t surprised to find him running unopposed because the Wyoming Legislature is an unpaid job that requires a lot of travel around the state and spending several weeks in Cheyenne each winter.

Should either of these pols be coasting to another term?

We who feel the issues merit more rigorous debate than a fill-in-the-blanks questionnaire from the local papers have another option: a write-in campaign.

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For the second time in less than two years, Montana has played a pivotal role in a national election, putting Barack Obama over the top for the Democratic nomination for president. You might recall that in 2006, the election of flat-topped rancher Jon Tester swung the balance of power in the U.S. Senate to the Democrats.

Throughout Obama’s campaign, starting with his victory in the Iowa caucus, I’ve been struck by just how many times he has to say “Thank you” to quiet the crowd.

Well, last night in St. Paul, Minnesota, before a crowd of 17,000 (with another 15,000 standing outside), Obama set a new record, I think, with 27 thank-you’s before the din died down. This tally only includes the general thanks, not the people he named individually. Is there a more effective way to get people to stop cheering?

Seriously, as great a night as it was, the real work is yet to come. As Obama said, “Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another.”

I’ve had a hard time finding a YouTube video that isn’t hiccuping this morning, owing likely to the heavy traffic. Here’s a good-quality clip of the first part. The full speech can be viewed on Obama’s site here.

Contrast the energy of this speech with the sad, stilted address by John McCain last night in New Orleans, in which he looks like a ventriloquist’s dummy, and it’s easy to see who ought to be the next president of the United States.