On political bullying

Last month, on the interstate highway between Gold Creek and Drummond, transporting a fellow Montanan to Seattle to attend to her daughter’s dying, I changed a flat right-front tire on my car. The new Michelin had a quarter-inch slit in its sidewall.

I kidded with a passing trucker, friendly enough to stop, even after he said he’d not have taken the trouble had he seen the Obama 2008 bumper-sticker I got with the car, which I bought used two years ago.

But when we stopped to buy a replacement tire in Missoula, another customer kept staring over my shoulder at the bumper sticker saying, “You can’t be serious.” He aggressively stuck his face into mine as I walked past into the tire store.

I’m not a bumper sticker kind of person, so maybe this happens all the time, but I don’t like it. I’ve resisted bullying in school, on the job and in the military. Bullying creates the atmospherics for a small clique to do any outrageous thing they please to or about someone, without being challenged by the cowed.

Obama lost in Montana after fielding 80 paid staffers. There’s now one, and our folksy Gov. Brian Schweitzer tells us our president has no chance in his state. Obama stickers are hard to get; there’s none at Montana’s State Democratic Headquarters. Who says bullying doesn’t work? Yet, I’m pushing back, with a double-stickered O’Bamobile.

John Driscoll

Helena