Copple’s journey began in Nampa, Idaho, where she’s a fourth-generation Idahoan…though that wasn’t good enough for politics there I guess. Nope, instead the carpetbag had to be employed, and Copple jumped to Montana and Missoula. First she got a B.A. at the University of Idaho and then in 2007 she got a M.A. in Journalism from the University of Montana.
It was in 2011 that Caitlin Copple decided to run for the Missoula City Council, and she won over incumbent and perennial crazy Lynn Hellegaard by 185 votes (Andrew Person beat Helleggard out in 2014 to get HD 96). She was just 27-years-old, and looked to have a bright political future ahead of her.
Then the lazy-bug crept in. Satisfied to sit on her laurels now that she had her cushy elected gig, one that required a few hours a week but gave a pay of $12,700 a year, Copple decided she didn’t really need to do anything. By the end of 2013, the Missoulian was reporting that Copple had the worst attendance record of anyone on the council, at just 76%. If you go by Woody Allen’s old adage that 70% of success if just showing up, Copple could barely do that.
Of course the reason for that shoddy performance was that Copple had chewed off more of a workload than she could manage, what with her zeal to see Missoula get back on a firm economic footing. That agenda? Training games and some attempts to get broadband in Missoula working better.
You see, for Caitlin Copple, elected office was just a stepping stone. For her, money is the ultimate goal, because she already complained how little she was making as a Councilwoman. Gosh, didn’t you know what the pay was before you got in? It’s not my fault if you have a lot of student loan debt from two useless degrees. Get in line behind everyone else of your generation!
I am so tired of the Democrats pandering to a miniscule minority of the electorate. Do gay people even make up 10% of the people in this state…5%?
Get real. According to a CDC report from July 2014, we get the following numbers:
- 96.6% of adults identify themselves as straight;
- 1.6% are gay or lesbian;
- 0.7% are bisexual;
- 1.1% are “something else.”
That’s fine, that’s fine that we have 3.4% of Americans identifying as LBGT or whatever. And if that number is still 3.4% in Montana, I’m fine with that too. In fact, I don’t really care. I don’t think those folks should be treated any differently as anyone else. But when we start spending more than 3.4% of our time and money and attention on that?
That bothers me, I will admit. And as I’ve said many, many times on this site before, I do not care about alienating gay people, because as a Democrat, I know they have nowhere else to go. I don’t pander to them, they pander to me. Do you know who I will pander to? The 15.2% of Montanans that were living in poverty from 2009 to 2013. I’m going to pander my ass off to them and ask what they want and then I’m going to promise it to them, and then deliver. Because I know that in an election, 15.2% means a helluva lot more than 3.4%.
But the Montana Democratic Party doesn’t, and that’s a huge problem.
But she’s got Hilltop, and they’ll make everything alright, both for Miss Copple and you. I mean, they did a helluva job with Walsh, didn’t they? And Keenan? I’m sorry if this offends some of you, but another tired Washington hack is not what Montana needs right now.
This used to be a state where what the people said meant something, where we listened to hardworking people and we sought solutions to their problems. It’s not anymore, and that saddens me. What saddens me more are individuals like Caitlin Copple, who turncoat and run when things get tough, as well as the disastrous PR firms that think this is a route to success.