The New York Times - Week in Review - Democrats in Red States Just Regular Guys

As one of the poorest states in the country with a long tradition of scrappy unionism, Montana seems like it could be a Democratic stronghold. But it's not. Despite a populist roar, former Vice President Al Gore lost this state by nearly two to one in the last presidential election, and Republicans expect President Bush to win big again this year.

A big reason is the three G's in the Republican culture-wars deck - gays, guns and God - the issues that resonate in the heartland and overshadow economic issues that Democrats say should move poor and lower-middle-class voters here into their camp.

The liberal writer Thomas Frank makes such a case in his recent best-selling polemic, "What's the Matter With Kansas?" In return for voting Republican by a wide margin, people in the poorest counties in the Great Plains get nothing economically, he argues, because no matter what the Republicans promise, their fiscal policies favor the rich.

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