Big Sky Cairn

The good Governor Brian Schweitzer has been building quite a resume of ethically questionable activities.  It’s funny because while the press and on-the-record Democrats all say he’s such a nice, regular guy the story changes when the conversations go off the record.  People that have to actually work with the raving egomaniac that is our governor tell a much different tale of Schweitzer.  Just ask Mike McGrath or Mary McMahon.  Ask Mike Lange.  He’s not a character.  He’s not a good guy.  He’s a bully.

And now that the New York Times is on the story and the country starts looking into his record, well stuff like this is going to start coming out.   Like this oldie from the Washington Post.

In Montana, he continued, the best way to frame an issue is to get horses and guns into the picture. Schweitzer arrived at this epiphany, he said, after getting beaten in 2000 in a race against Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).

That was Schweitzer’s first go at elective politics and, in the wound-licking that followed, he found that men in Montana were 11 percent less likely to vote for him than were women. For his gubernatorial campaign, Schweitzer hired focus groups to find out why.

He learned that a significant percentage of Montana men are mule-headed, unwilling to change their minds on issues, even when presented with information showing that their views are not supported by facts.

“So, I started doing my ads while I was sitting on a horse or holding a gun,” Schweitzer said. “I spoke to men visually and showed them I am like them. Hell, I can be on a horse and talk about health care.

“Ninety percent of them don’t ride horses and many of them don’t shoot a gun, but my ads said visually that I understand Montana. My gender gap disappeared. I think I have just summed up why Democrats lose elections.”

He also says this - which might explain why he doesn’t seem to think telling the truth is important:

“In politics, it doesn’t matter what the facts are,” he said. “It matters what the perceptions are. It is the way you frame it.”

No, Governor, for some of us facts matter too.

And huge props to the crew over at Montana Pundit.  They are doing an outstanding job.