Low-budget town parade draws blockbuster nominee

INDEPENDENCE Day with one president; one potential president in unapologetic cowboy country; and as much yee-haw as you can shake a hotdog at.

It started with a parade dripping with everything from star spangled banners to baseball bats.

Yet all this week both the local and national press asked the same question — why did the Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama come to Butte, Montana, for the Fourth of July?

But arriving in a slick black bus to take their seats among supporters and secret service men the Obama family looked right at home.

Mr Obama was even supported in the crowd by actor Bill Pullman, who played the president in the blockbuster film Independence Day.

Could it have been scripted?

The July 4 parade in north-western city of Butte, however, was no blockbuster with the senior ladies line-dancing on trailers and junior baton twirlers giving it socks behind fire trucks.

Established by a Co Cavan pioneer, Marcus Daly, Butte was settled by thousands of Irish emigrants — predominantly miners from the Beara Peninsula in Cork.

Its population is 95% white and the Obama campaign bus arrived against a backdrop of a polluted open-cast mine and a giant statue of Our Lady of the Rockies.

This was as far from his comfort zone as the city-raised Illinois senator could hope to celebrate both Independence Day and his daughter Malia’s 10th birthday.

But even though this was the only city in Montana to back Hillary Clinton in last month’s primary, Butte did its best to make him feel welcome.

They sang happy birthday to his daughter and chanted his slogan when the Republican Party for Families float chugged past.

Butte is blue-collar mining town with 10% below the poverty line, but grandson of a Donegal woman, Bill Clark, said there is a desire to change the habit of a century and switch from Republican to Democrat.

“This has been heavily Republican for decades and both Al Gore and John Kerry got scorched in Montana. But I think this could be different.

“Gun control rights and religion are important to people up here, but with the economy crashing and the war in Iraq becoming like Vietnam people are looking beyond emotion. And Obama is like Bill Clinton because he is a Democrat who can speak to people up here and not challenge their values,” said Mr Clark.

And this was the message Obama delivered to answer the question on why he came to Butte. And with microphone in hand he made it clear he would be attacking all Republican strongholds in his campaign.

“The core values that built this country of hard work and community are values that still fly out right across America,” he said.

Then, before he left for a community picnic, he apologised for deciding not to walk in the parade.

“If I would have walked, the secret service men would had to made everybody watch the parade with their hands up,” he said.

Later at the picnic, flanked by the Rockies, he told Butte there was no more American a place to celebrate independence and on the day... he was right.