From the moment he entered the Montana governor’s office in 2005, Brian Schweitzer made it clear he was going to be a very different kind of politician. In place of a tailored suit and repp tie, he wore jeans and a bolo tie. One of his frequent companions in his inner sanctum was Jag, his border collie. When he vetoed bills sent to him by the Republican legislature, he used a branding iron. Whether it was his branding iron or his brand of Democratic politics—he’s a tax-cutting, pro-gun social liberal—Schweitzer was reelected in 2008 by a two-to-one landslide and remained one of the most polarizing governors in the nation throughout his eight years in office. That same year he all but tore the roof off the Democratic National Convention with a speech that had political experts asking, “Could this be where a Schweitzer presidential journey begins?” It was the most improbable of journeys for the descendant of German and Irish immigrants, whose parents never finished high school and who had worked as an agronomist, a soil scientist and a rancher before his first run for political office at the age of 45.

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