Big Sky Cairn

The paragraph reads:

He supports a huge, New Deal-type government work program to reduce poverty, backs nationalizing U.S. oil and gas industries and favors government-run, socialized medicine. He is highly critical of President Bush.

Not a flattering portrayal of liberal ideologies. Do you think this paragraph (with linguistic gold like “huge government program” and “government run” and “socialized medicine”) would ever show up if the candidate it was describing wasn’t on the Republican ticket?

If this ‘graph was describing a candidate with the same views running as a Democrat, it would read more like this:

He supports expanded work programs to reduce poverty, government-regulated interventions to reduce the cost of energy for consumers and believes that no American should be without health care. He is also critical of President Bush, whose approval ratings are at record lows in Montana.

Sadly, there are very few reporters in Montana who actually do any real reporting. When they try to write a story, the readers get stuff like the quote in your post.
Most reporters in Montana are either new to the profession and want to move up the food chain and not tick anyone off, or they are old, established in their neighborhoods, and may frequently meet the person (or that person’s friends) they are writing about at a local ball game or at their children’s or grandchildren’s school event and don’t want to cause a problem.

Yeah. Great analysis. You should be on CNN. Oh wait, I mean Fox.