Montana Activist, Single-Payer Advocate To Make House Run

She’s an author, a Native America activist, and wants to replace Obamacare. But Tea Partiers should not get too excited — she wants to replace it with a single payer system!

Melinda Gopher of Missoula said she is running for the U.S. House and called for a single-payer health care system and climate change legislation.

Gopher said she and her husband, Brock Conway, were talking Friday night about whether she should run for the House again. She placed third in a four-way Democratic primary in 2010, despite raising or spending little money.

“We were just kind of sitting on the fence,” she said. “You take a plunge and see what happens. It feels right on a lot of levels. When you’re navigating purposely and you just want to put something out there and go with it, sometimes your instincts are stronger than any game plan you could come up with.”

Her candidacy will ensure a Democratic primary for the U.S. House. Earlier this fall, John Lewis of Helena, a former top aide to U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, entered the race.

Gopher didn’t say much about Lewis.

“On my end, I’m going to keep it positive, but at the same time, we sort of need a shake-up,” she said. “I think he’ll be more of the same of what we’ve seen for a long time. We need a new set of eyes. I don’t necessarily subscribe to doing things the same way.”

Gopher criticized Baucus’ signature piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.”

“I don’t like it,” Gopher said. “I think we have to renew the idea of a single-payer (health care system), and I will fight for it. We’re not an impoverished nation like Haiti. We are a wealthy nation and we can afford health care for our citizens.”

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.