Big Sky Cairn

The balance of the United States Senate majority hung on 3,562 votes right here in Montana. For some reason - probably because national media decided to focus on the 8,805 margin of victory in Virginia which is closer to Washington, DC and easier to cover - this story hasn’t been told.

On November 7, by a margin of 3,562 votes, Montana replaced Republican Conrad Burns with Democrat Jon Tester and in doing so gave Democrats the one seat they needed to put them over the 50-50 mark and into the majority.

So when the question is posed, can Obama win in Montana? Yes, he can. Or more accurately, McCain can lose like Burns did. In the waning months of the 2006 election, I did some volunteer work for the Burns campaign that included some unpleasant phone calls. I lost track of the number of people I talked to who considered themselves conservative Republicans, were proudly voting for Rehberg but were not going to vote for Burns. Statewide, this sentiment was enough to cost Burns the election.

I hear a lot of the same comments from Montana conservatives about McCain - they will never vote for him, they’d rather not vote. This is a serious problem for McCain, just like it was for Burns. I’m not saying that voters did anything wrong here - the truth is, it was Burns’ fault that he lost these voters and he should have been more careful.

At the same time, the stubborn refusal to vote for the more conservative candidate had real consequences. 3,562 of them gave Harry Reid the Senate Majority. The consequences for the Presidency over the next four years are going to be even more profound.

The questions therefore, are whether McCain can win back support from the conservative base or, barring that, whether he can pick up enough votes from the independent center as he loses from the right.

I’ve commented on this before - the inacurate portrayal of voting records by Montana Democrats in an attempt to tie Congressman Denny Rehberg to President George W. Bush.

The Gazette has made this point (again).

U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., is getting political flak this election year over his voting record, criticized by Democrats as a yes man for President Bush and Republican policies in general.

A look at 16 key U.S. House votes in 2007 shows Rehberg siding with the president and fellow Republicans on two-thirds of those votes - and generally against them on the other third.

And this…

Rehberg said criticizing him as a Bush yes man appears to be a national “cookie-cutter campaign” drawn up by Democratic strategists in Washington, D.C., and recommended to Democratic challengers nationwide.

“He’s trying to fool Montana voters, and they’re not going to be fooled,” Rehberg said of Hunt. “These kind of charges just don’t work.”

Read the whole article.

I commented on this story before. There’s a lot of good stuff there. I mean a lot. Go read it. Even if you already read it. It’s sort of like Moby Dick - a new meaning at every reading. Inspiring.

Anyway, it’s also interesting because the part of the story that makes it fair journalism - the entire section dedicated to Montana Democrat’s spinmeistering. From it, we can catch a glimpse at what The Democrat Machine has in store for 2008 (and beyond?).

Rehberg’s biggest vulnerability, Democrats say, is his pro-war, pro-Bush record and lack of legislative initiative. He’s voted in lock step with the Bush Administration and fellow Republicans 92 percent of the time, according to the Washington Post, including votes on major issues like the federal budget, tax cuts, and the Iraq War.

This meme is likely to manifest itself quite a bit because if the man is popular you just have tie him to someone that’s not popular. That’s the politics of personal destruction that the Montana Democrats perfected with Burns in 2006, and they’re polishing up their picks to take out another bull.

Trouble is, the varas aren’t sticking, and the bull as strong as it ever was as their neophyte mariachi enters the arena.

Read the rest of this entry »

Via Matt Singer, Tester has decided to forgo the normal policy of not taking sides in his own party’s primary and instead endorse Jim Hunt (who isn’t expected to beat Rehberg until 2010).

I love how Tester waxes eloquent about being an underdog. If memory serves, he was also a pretty significant underdog in his own primary against John Morrison. Lucky for him, his party didn’t jump on the front-runner’s bandwagon in the first two weeks and he was able to win the nomination and eventually the seat. I guess Tester probably realizes that 7th choice is better than 8th or 9th… although if you do the math the difference is pretty small.

As the mistakes keep mounting, Tester has one-and-out written all over him.

Erik Iverson and the Montana GOP took a lot of flack for their February 5 presidential caucus. Most of that came from Montana Democrats expressing their outrage at the “elitist” approach of the caucus. But the chickens are coming home to roost - although the Media is sort of missing the boat on this one.

Roy Brown credits the caucus with increasing interest and participation in the Republican Party at all levels.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Roy Brown said the state party’s Feb. 5 presidential caucus helped spur more interest early in politics, which he said will help statewide GOP candidates like him.

We’ve personally heard similar stories of interest among Republicans here in Missoula. Republicans who didn’t vote in the caucus, but who felt that they had a role to play - and continue to play in the process. Participation in a democracy is about more than the simple act of voting and oversimplifying civic duty to casting a ballot is patronizing.

Remember, participation in the caucus didn’t require any money or official title. That’s an important distinction because the Montana Democrats have been touting their party’s primary plebiscite as less elitist than the Montana Republican caucus. Let’s look at the Democrat’s version of inclusion:

Meet the Presidential Candidates in Butte (if you were lucky enough to be one of the few that could afford to buy tickets and have a computer and have an internet connection and not have a job that prevented you from logging on at 9 am exactly or a well connected friend to give you tickets).

Meet the Hillary in Missoula (if you can afford the $250 minimum donation).

Every vote counts the same to decide how Montana’s 16 delegates vote (unless you’re one of 8 Superdelagate from Montana whose votes will count for roughly 100,000 times more than the average Montana vote).

It’s 3 am. I’m not sure “elitism” is a grenade the Montana Democrats want to be throwing…

It’s kind of fun to watch all of the wealthy Democrats with their opulent personal computers and expensive internet connections whine and complain that they couldn’t spend some of their discretionary money to attend a fancy dinner featuring their favorite “for the little guy” politicians.

It’s good to know that they can appreciate - indeed share in - the suffering of the down-trodden that they claim to represent.

In 1997, current Montana Democratic Party Executive Director Art Noonan wrote a short opinion piece for PBS extolling his belief that money had an acidic effect on democracy. In the piece he wrote:

Democrats should be doubly shameful because we joined in the “politics of price” to balance the playing field and instead we achieved the loss of the moral high ground.

And…

I will never be a millionaire and so I feel very strongly that the money changers have more directly undermined the importance in my vote more than any constitutional amendment ever could.

Now whether the Democrats were ever keepers of the moral high ground is certainly debatable, but the article got me thinking: How does a man who believes that money is the root of all political evil campaign for a sitting U.S. Senator who receives millions of dollars from donors *PACs* outside the state of Montana?

According to Open Secrets, Max Baucus raised a little over $6.7 million dollars for his 2002 campaign. Of that amount, only 17.4% was raised in the Treasure State. In fact, of the five zip codes who gave the most money to Baucus only two are in Montana. So how does Noonan, a man raised in a town built on the backs of Union labor support a man who raises more money in the 90210 than he does in zip code 59701?

If Noonan is right and the people who give the money are the people who shape policy, than the citizens of Big Sky Country only own one-fifth of Max Baucus.

Here are six reasons not to trust or support the sixth most powerful Senator. Feel free to add more, be creative about it.

6. On one hand, we lost a seat on appropriations. But the good news is our senior Senator will continue to lobby the crook Senate Majority leader for more empty promises.

5. Where is the outrage?

4. Time to look out the window.

3. Don’t worry, if you lose your job Max will employ you in one of his 8 campaign offices.

2. Good thing one member of delegation knows how to write a bill or we couldn’t go to the sun.

1. Malmstrom Runway, its a done deal…or not.

I stumbled across a rather uninteresting piece from the Missoula Independent the other day about Erik Iverson’s dual role as the top staffer for Rep. Denny Rehberg and the Montana GOP party.

However, the one interesting tidbit to come out of this story was the aloof ignorance of Representative Art Noonan (D-Butte), wait sorry he is playing the role of Executive Director of the Montana Democrats in this story.

“His volunteering as chair—that’s not unusual,” Noonan says. What concerns him, he says, is “the intermingling of the political business of the party with government work done for the taxpayers.”

A fair question ED Noonan, does Rep. Noonan care to respond?

Since being elected to office in 2003, Art has proven himself to be a fighter for Montana’s working families and our veterans. During this spring’s contentious legislative session, Art was a steady hand and a calming force as the House Democratic Floor Leader. Some of his legislative accomplishments include authoring legislation to give life insurance to the state’s National Guard members serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, pushing through a bill to help clean up and protect Montana’s natural resources, and spearheading efforts to increase cooperation between new aerospace businesses, state government, and Montana’s colleges and universities.

As Art has said, his politics are “practical, compassionate, and fair.” And I believe those are key qualities for someone who will help guide the Democratic Party forward though next year’s election – and beyond.

Wait that is ED Noonan again talking about Rep. Noonan on why he is qualified to be ED Noonan. I get confused when political business and the business of Montana taxpayers get intermingled. Yoda this man is not.

ED Noonan may have a fair point since he decided not to seek re-election by taking the high road and anointing his nephew Pat to HD-73

What else you got ED Noonan?

“Who pays for his phone calls about party business when he’s at work in D.C.?” asks Noonan, “How much time does he spend in the state? Where does he actually live? Where is the documentation that he’s not using senate staff, office resources, travel budget, or phone lines for his state party work?”

To answer questions 1,2, and 3, a quick search on the googles shows that Erik Iverson works out of Missoula.

This is like the old Bugs Bunny striking out the side with one pitch.

Continuing on with ED Noonan’s questions, hopefully for my own partisan leanings this will come as a surprise to the fearless leader of the Montana Dems that Denny Rehberg serves in the House of Representatives, not the U.S. Senate.  Maybe Art can use the three years he is giving Jim Hunt to study up.

Given his past, a little ignorance or selective memory goes a long way. I leave you with Ex-Hill staffer Noonan on campaign finance, unfortunately ED Noonan could not be reached for comment on $9 Million Max.

“I personally am reaching a place where I may not be able to vote for anyone who does not promise campaign finance reform, day one. I will never be a millionaire and so I feel very strongly that the money changers have more directly undermined the importance in my vote more than any constitutional amendment ever could.”