Big Sky Cairn

Before I begin my argument, I thought I might offer you a bit of background on myself. I’m a gun owner, a member of the Butte Gun Club and an NRA member. So, needless to say, I count a candidate’s position on second amendment rights among my top five electoral considerations.

Earlier this week, Erik Iverson penned a guest column for the Missoulian about Barack Obama’s stance on gun rights. This editorial prompted a scathing critique by Pete Talbot at 4&20 Blackbirds, who argued that there was very little evidence to suggest that gun owners should be concerned about an Obama Administration.

Talbot states, “Obama has already stated that he’s a defender of the Second Amendment.” But saying that you’re a defender of Second Amendment rights and proving it are two very different things. After all, there must be a reason why the National Rifle Association gave Obama an F rating three times in six years.

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Recently, Jim Hunt attacked Rep. Rehberg for his decision to let Chief of Staff Erik Iverson live in Missoula instead of in Washington D.C.  But keeping a Chief of Staff in Montana is hardly a new idea. Between 2000 and 2005, Senator Baucus maintained Jim Foley as his “State Chief of Staff.”

But far from being chided for his inability to get things done in Washington, Baucus was lauded for his efforts to keep in touch with Montanans.  And Foley’s experience earned him a spot as one of the leading candidates to run against Rehberg in 2008, long before seventh stringer Jim Hunt came along.

So, I guess I’m confused: Why is it good a good thing for Max Baucus to have a CoS who lives in state but a bad thing for Rehberg? After all, Rehberg is basically running a Senate district (same area, same number of constituents) with a much smaller staff.  So, it just makes good sense that he would have his Chief of Staff in state and his Legislative Director/Deputy Chief of Staff supervising the D.C. operation.

Besides, as WC pointed out earlier, doesn’t having one of his key aides living in our community signify his commitment to staying in touch with his constituents? And with all these new fangled inventions like telephones, fax machines, e-mail, C-Span and airplanes it can’t be that hard to keep on top of things that are happening in DC.

As for myself, I like that Rehberg’s Chief of Staff lives in Montana.  Just like I appreciate the fact that the Representative comes home every weekend and recess.  And if Hunt is planning to spend all of his time in D.C. and keep the majority of his staff sequestered inside the Beltway, then he’s going to have a very hard time staying connected to the people that matter, Montanans.

This year Patriots Day means Monday at work, but for those in Massachusetts, today is one of the great civic holidays in the country.

Sure for most Bostonians it means drinking outside watching runners needlessly punish themselves. Plus the Sox are home for a matinee at Fenway. But the true meaning of Patriots Day is in celebrating the spark that led to our nation’s independence. So if you get the chance today, crack open a Sam’s and cheers to our founding fathers.

Acquaintances say that young Tyler Cannon was never quite the same. There was just something about his strut that had the confidence of Curly secure in the knowledge: “I crap bigger than you.”

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When you follow politics, you get used to hearing a lot of speculation. Politicians, pundits and political day-trippers love to spend time ruminating. But while guessing can be a lot of fun, most of our conjectures turn out to be wrong.

On Wednesday, Matt Singer at Left in the West, announced to the world that it is highly likely that Rep. Denny Rehberg will give up his house seat to run for Senate in 2012. Singer’s justifications for this guess revolve mostly around Rehberg’s alleged desire for revenge against Tester for beating fellow Republican Conrad Burns in 2006.

He also argues that such a race would be motivated by a need to vindicate Rehberg’s mentor Ron Marelenee, who lost to Democrat Pat Williams in 1978. Because don’t you know that an alleged 20-year grudge would be the most likely reason why Montana’s incredibly popular Congressman would run for Senate.

But this isn’t the first time that Singer has decided to postulate on Rep. Rehberg’s political future.

In 2006, Singer postulated that Rehberg would give up his house seat in 2008 to run for Senate against Max Baucus. Singer even published polling data showing that such a race would be a hard fought one. But Singer turned out to be wrong and Rehberg is running for re-election in the House.

Since 2006, I have heard a number of Butte Democrats argue that Rehberg didn’t run against Baucus because it would be too hard for him to win that election. Even though there is no evidence to suggest that Rehberg considered running for Senate in 2008. But I suppose that speculating further about why a predicted event didn’t happen is easier than simply admitting that you guessed wrong.

Political speculation usually proves to be wrong. And I would hope that when it comes to predicting Rep. Rehberg’s next move that someone who has incorrectly called the ball in the past wouldn’t start speculating on Rehberg’s 2012 ambitions before the 2008 election is even over.

Jack over at Western Word has already touched on the governor’s public service announcement problem, giving a nice summary of the complaint that the Montana GOP has filed with the Commissioner of Political Practices.

It is useful to recall some of the background on why the law against political candidates making public service announcements (PSA’s) came to be in the first place. The bill was carried by Sen. Joe Tropila, D-Great Falls, who had this to say at the time:

In nearly 20 years of door-to-door campaigning for office, Sen. Joe Tropila, D-Great Falls, said the biggest complaint he hears from voters is “Why are these people running for public office running public service announcements with our money?”

His Senate Bill 16 would prohibit a state official who has filed for office from spending any state money for advertisements and public service announcements in newspapers and on radio and television that contain the candidate’s name, photograph or voice. The exception would be in the case of a national or state emergency, but then only if the announcement is “reasonably necessary to the candidate’s official functions.”

So, the questions are as follows:

1. Was public money spent in any way in making these radio ads featuring the governor’s voice? The GOP brief makes the case that public money was spent, on a number of levels.

2. And as a corollary, if no state money was spent as the governor claims, then whose money was spent making and distributing the ads? Someone had to pay for them. The radio stations presumably donated the airtime — if they weren’t public service announcements, then what exactly were they?

3. Were these announcements the result of a state emergency, thus falling under the exception clause? Maybe the governor’s internal polling isn’t looking as good as it had been – that’s an emergency, from his perspective, perhaps.

Seriously, though, it seems as though this is probably the result of carelessness on the governor’s part, or on the part of one of his state employees. It probably didn’t even cross anyone’s mind that the governor couldn’t just do what he wanted to — which is a problem in and of itself. In an election year, especially given that this is a Democratic Party that now claims to be more ethical and transparent than everyone else, one would hope that elected officials would be looking at their every action, scrutinizing them to see if they could be perceived as following the rules strictly.

And that makes it concerning because the governor could have just said, “you know, you’re right, we weren’t thinking — we were just trying to help out with promoting Ag Month.” He could have paid the fine, if any, and gone on. Instead, we are told that no public money was spent on the ads. This doesn’t make sense, since either the governor was acting in his capacity as governor, or he was acting in his capacity as a candidate. If the former, he is breaking the law — if the latter, he broke the law by not identifying it as a campaign ad.

A final note — it needs to be said that what brought this issue to a head in 2004 was the fact that Pat Davison accused then Sec. State Bob Brown of abusing PSA’s during their primary campaign. (The irony of Davison, now in federal prison on massive fraud charges, accusing Brown of unethical behavior is not lost on us.) So while a Democrat carried the bill and a Democratic governor signed it, it was also a Republican issue, and the bill passed pretty much unanimously.

All the more reason that the governor, of all people, should be paying strict attention to this law — until now, it could be said that this was a “Bob Brown issue” from the last campaign. Now, the governor has implicated himself in the practice — and unlike it was when Brown was doing PSA’s, it is now illegal.

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Addendum:  More discussion here at Montana Headlines. 

After long negotiations between our respective teams of lawyers and high-priced consultants (who, taking the governor’s advice, were drinking whiskey and eating inch-thick steaks on our dime,) Montana Headlines has been acquired as a guest contributor by Big Sky Cairn as part of an undisclosed agreement. A bottle of Absolut Vodka will not be part of the final settlement.

How it will all work is still in progress, but there will probably be a mix of cross-posted material from Montana Headlines and some original material done just for Big Sky Cairn.

This is an exciting opportunity, since Montana Headlines and Big Sky Cairn share an emphasis on the state political scene, and on national politics as it specifically impacts Montana. Wiley Cody’s kind invitation is greatly appreciated — it is an honor to join him, Brad, and Kate above the tree line.

Last week, I posted some advice for the Democratic campaign staffers who visited my hometown last Saturday for the Clinton/Obama visit. This represented my attempt to make sure that my hometown did not make national news because some poor liberal soul from Massachusetts got his ass kicked for ordering a cosmopolitan at Pisser’s Palace. (Yes, that is a real bar. No, I’ve never been there.) But now that the speeches are over and the candidates have escaped back to the safety of Pennsylvania, I feel the need to post a bit of an addendum to the previous post.

I specifically need to address the use of the phrase “Tap ‘er light” by candidate Barack Obama at the end of his Mansfield-Metcalf dinner speech.

For those unfamiliar with the phrase, it is a term used almost exclusively by Butte miners. When miners want to dig new tunnels into the solid rock of The Richest Hill on Earth, they bore small holes into the rock face and then fill them with sticks of dynamite. They then tap the sticks into place using a long rod, hence the phrase “tap ‘er light”. In short, it means be careful that you don’t blow us all up.

Over the decades this phrase has become the unofficial farewell of the Butte population. So, instead of ‘have a good day,’ we say “tap ‘er light.” Now that we have the meaning cleared up, I need to make an addition to my 10 rules.

11) When visiting Butte, some of you (particularly those who grew up on the East Coast, attended a prep school, wear topsiders or “summer” at exotic locales) may find it difficult to fit in amongst the trash-talking, Carhartt clad locals. Thus, you may try to soften the learning curve by adopting some of our colloquialisms (ie: tap ‘er light) or discussing local hobbies (like fly-fishing, even though you probably think that fishing is done with a pole and a red Hasbro Bros can full of worms).

While we appreciate the time it took for you or your speech writer to research the local vernacular and report back to you in a memo, please spare us. Use of these phrases is tantamount to pronouncing Mexico and Meh-he-co when in Texas or spontaneously developing a Southern accent when traveling South of the Mason-Dixon. While such actions may draw a smile from those who appreciate the effort, the vast majority of us would prefer that you not give us cause to roll our eyes.

The phrase “tap ‘er light” is the soul possession of those who work in a mine, worked in a mine or whose immediate family worked in a mine. And in Butte, that’s almost everybody. (Except me, which is why you will never hear me say Tap ‘er light. It’s a respect thing.)

Other than that unfortunate slip up, it appears that Senator Obama observed the rest of my rules quite nicely. In fact, he took number three to heart and spent a good deal of time shaking hands at the M&M. But he did not imbibe in a shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey as is the custom when kowtowing to Butte voters. His abstinence from alcohol will also do nothing to silence those untrue Muslim rumors.

In response to a post here at Big Sky Cairn, Absolut vodka has issued an apology. Sort of. I think it’s safe to say their advertising agency has put them in an unenviable position between a rock and a hard shell taco. They can’t really apologize too much for fear of making Mexicans angry, you know but at the same time they’ve really ticked off the U.S..

More than a dozen calls to boycott Absolut were posted on [bigskycairn.com], a Web site operated by conservative columnist [Wiley Cody]. The ads sparked heated comment on a half-dozen other Internet sites and blogs. (content edited for spelling errors)

In other news, Jose Cuervo issued a release indicating that while he would would generally be excited to see this vodka foible in his back yard, but he suspects that Cuervo Black may be the result of a particularly wild night when he and Absolut might have hooked up - but who can remember?  Best to just lick, drink and bite.