Barack Obama is black. Science has confirmed this.
Butte, Montana, on the other hand, is white. Lawn-art-and-RVs white.
Extraordinarily white, absurdly white, 96 percent white! I was born and
grew up in Butte, so I should know. Before age 14, I had never laid
eyes on a bona fide black person who wasn’t a Cosby.
So how did it come to pass that, in the blistering July sun, I
enjoyed Butte’s annual July 4 Independence Day Parade sitting less than
three feet from Barack frickin’ Obama—The Man Who Just Might Save
The World!—and his entire miscegenetic brood? And also Mama Obama
whose name is Michelle, their two young daughters, Malia and Sasha,
Obama’s half-sister, Maya, her Chinese-Canadian husband, Konrad, and
their little girl, Suhaila? Why did Barack Obama—in the mad heat
of a presidential campaign—drag his entire family to celebrate
America’s most American of holidays in a conservative backwoods with
only three sad little electoral votes and almost no appreciable sway in
the course of presidential doings?
When the Obama campaign announced that its candidate—our
candidate!—would be spending/enduring Friday, July 4, in Butte,
pundits and politicos fussed and clamored and posited many theories on
why, most of them crap. Only The Stranger was brave enough to
send me home to unravel the mystery of it all.
1. The Journey.
I’m smashed up against the window, praying for my life, hoping
beyond hope that the prehistoric, itsy-bitsy, two-engine,
dual-propellered puke bucket I’m sitting in won’t crack open and drop
me screaming into the sky. The only plane that Alaska/Horizon Air feels
fit to spare for a trip to Butte is the size of a Toyota. I’m trying
not to barf. Falling asleep is clearly my best option for survival, but
my seatmate, damn it, is a Chatty Cathy.
“Whatcha doing in Butte?” he asks.
“I’m following Barack Obama—he’s marching in Butte’s Fourth of
July Parade,” responds I.
“Obama? Really? Wow. That’s awesome,” he says. “Yeah.” Pause. Beat.
“I really like Hillary.”
“Me, too.”
Now everyone knows that I was originally Hillary’s boy. It’s not
that I didn’t appreciate Obama (I love almost everyone Oprah has
invented, barring Dr. fucking Phil), I simply felt that what this
country needs is a nice pair of boobs in the Oval Office, not more
balls—of whatever color.
Of course, I say none of this to my seatmate. I close my eyes (the
universal gesture of “Leave me the fuck alone!”) and, despite the
plane’s wretched heavings, I gently drift off to sleep and have a
really strange dream about Jesus.
Three hours later, I touch down in Butte and begin my hunt for Our
First Black President.
2. Butte, um, “America.”
Butte is a tough town.
A rough town, a poor town. But it hasn’t always been the whitest
place in the universe: It was once a hopping hotbed of ethnicities of
all sorts—mostly the Irish, who drank, fought, and worked the
copper mines; and the Chinese, who did laundry, made noodles, and ran a
thriving underground trade in opium.
The influx of miners gave Butte a reputation as a fabulous den of
sin where any vice could be had. And so it was. The city’s saloon and
red-light district were infamous, and the last whorehouse didn’t close
until the late 1980s. The town has been literally and metaphorically
depressed ever since.
Butte takes its holidays most seriously. St. Patrick’s Day, weirdly,
is the biggest. Every March 17, the entire city shuts down, turns
green, and gets shitty drunk—drunken grade-schoolers, drunken
grandmas, drunken houseplants. The Fourth of July is Butte’s
second-most-important holiday. Front yards fill up with inflatable
Uncle Sams, backyards sprout barbecues, American flags pop up like
mushrooms, and acres of red, white, and blue bunting are unleashed
without pity. The parade and fireworks show are worthy of a much
grander place.
Butte has a habit of calling itself “Butte, America.” Who is to
blame for this impudence? One “President” Reagan, if you’ll pardon the
expression, who christened Butte the “All-American City” sometime in
the mid 1980s. At the time, Butte was depressed, polluted, and had a
gigantic, mile-deep hole at its center that was rapidly filling with
toxic sludge. So perhaps by Reagan’s twisted yardstick, Butte was the
All-American City. Butte still is.
Reagan, of course, is not. Not anymore.
3. The Man, Some Myths.
According to early intelligence, Obama is going to lead Butte’s
Fourth of July parade. I plan to follow him along the parade route,
hidden in the crowd. I will observe the reactions of the locals, and
take notes.
Moments after I arrive, however, I learn that Obama has opted out at
the last minute; the man who won’t wear a flag pin on his lapel or put
his hand over his heart during the pledge of a grievance isn’t going to
march in Butte’s Fourth of July parade! His new plan is to sit safely
in a well-protected designated area and watch the damn thing go by. No
satisfying reason is given. There are rumors claiming that the amount
of death threats against Obama’s life has been greater than what could
normally be expected. But nothing is confirmable, and among the Secret
Service agents I quiz, the word is “mum.” Naturally.
I’m going to have to replan my attack.
4. Parade!
I wake up at the crack of dawn on the Fourth and begin calling
Obama’s press office—I have to get into that restricted area with
the man himself! And the woman herself! And the children themselves! I
have to crash the postparade picnic reception! I drop names! Pull
strings! Lie a little, maybe! And within the hour, I’m sitting in the
press area with the national press.
Obama’s schedule, we are told, is simple: The Obama family will
appear any second and stand atop a blue X painted on the street in
front of us. Obama will speechify for precisely five minutes, then
skitter off to the bleachers set up for him and his family nearby. (I’m
to follow them there and then observe.) Obama and family will sit and
watch the endless snake of floats, flatbed trucks, and vintage cars for
exactly 45 minutes, and then it is off to the picnic.
Suddenly, a great cheer goes up in the crowd, and Obama and family
appear. It is my first in-person look at the man.
“Hello, Butte, Montana!” he yells to the crowd. “I’m trying to think
if there’s a better place in America to celebrate the Fourth of
July!”
Obama then makes a grand, sweeping gesture toward the crowd, which,
of course, goes batshit.
When the roar finally dies down, Obama apologizes for not marching.
“This is the first parade where I haven’t walked,” he explains. “The
problem is, if we start walking then the Secret Service was going to
have everybody put their hands up the whole parade route.”
Is this a confirmation of the death-threat rumors? Is some psychotic
Butte-ician gunning for the man? If so, Mr. President-To-Be seems
totally unperturbed. He stands waving and smiling and ignoring the
sharpshooters—the ones on his side—who are perched on every
rooftop. And then he addresses the other great riddle of his visit: Why
Butte? Why the hell Butte?
“Today is my daughter Malia’s 10th birthday,” he says. “When we
visited in April, she fell in love with Butte and she insisted that we
celebrate her birthday here!”
This is his daughter’s fault?
The crowd goes insane again. And like the theories put forth by
pundits about the true motivation for Obama’s appearance in
Butte—he came to piss off McCain! Butte is politically important
somehow! he has brain damage!—it sounds like total crap. But the
crowd laughs and cheers, and then, as if it had been rehearsed (it
hadn’t), burst forth with a serenade of “Happy Birthday,” as Malia
blushes and waves and squiggles. It is disgustingly charming.
It bears noting that young Miss Obama’s birthday is the same day
that contemptible old bastard Jesse Helms finally (FINALLY!!!) dropped
dead and went to hell. I am not sure why it bears noting, but I’m
keeping my eye on this girl.
5. The Picnic, The Meeting.
After exactly 45 minutes of basic Fourth-of-July parading, the Obama
clan is swept off to the picnic reception. I follow.
The turnout at the picnic is astonishingly meager. This is blamed on
the last-minuteness of it all. Nobody even knew he was coming until
practically the night before, and then a false report went out that
tickets were sold out—a barefaced lie. By the time many people
make it through security, Obama’s speaking is over and he is on his way
out. Obama stands and gives the standard lines: “The fierce urgency of
now!” and “End the war in a thoughtful, careful manner!” and so forth.
But the power of seeing him repeat himself in person, close up, is
astonishing.
His charisma is bigger than both of us.
“The country is at a crossroad and people need to make a choice!” he
concludes. “And now, I’m going to have a hot dog.”
And so he did.
No private time is scheduled for the press, so I do what I have to
do: I slip off my press pass, shove it in my pocket, and disappear into
the small crowd. I stand in line. After 15 minutes, I’m shaking the
hand of Our Chocolate Kennedy, looking straight into those big gorgeous
eyes. I say the only thing I CAN say.
“Senator Obama? Any word on a running mate? How about me?”
He laughs. Really laughs! It is fucking adorable.
“I’ll consider it,” he says. I’m hypnotized. I think I actually
blush. And before I know it, our moment is over.
I don’t come down for two days.
6. Journey’s End.
On the return Seattle flight, I’m still smashed against the window
and worried for my life, but I am abuzz with post-Obama afterglow. The
chatty girl sitting next to me asks what I had been doing in Butte. I
tell her.
“Obama? Really?! Oh my God…” she says. Pause. Beat. “I love
him!”
“I know,” says I. “I know.”
“Me, too.” 
