http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/05/27/howie-kleins-blue-america-montana/Well today I want to focus on a race at least as important, for progressives, for Democrats and for America. And it’s in Montana. Montana? Isn’t that a red state with no people in it? No. Montana’s the 4th largest state in the union and there are almost a million people living there. The Republican Party has been in a serious state of decline and the Big Sky State boasts a populist, progressive Democratic governor, Brian Schweitzer, as well as Democrats in all but one statewide office, as well as a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate.
The Senior U.S. Senator, Max Baucus, is also a Democrat. That, and the fact that Montana is the most pro-labor union state in the Rockies, makes it sound pretty blue to me. And it is about to get a lot bluer, courtesy of Jack Abramoff. Well, courtesy of Jack Abramoff’s extremely close relationship with Montana’s junior U.S. Senator, ethically-challenged Conrad Burns, the U.S. Senator who took the most money from Abramoff– and did him the most favors in return– of anyone in the upper chamber. He has to face the voters in November– and is he not popular! (The newest polling shows that 56% of the citizens of Montana think he’s doing an unsatisfactory job, a rating surpassed by exactly one other much-hated senator, Rick Santorum, who has managed to alienate 57% of Pennsylvania’s citizens.)
It looks to me like the Democrats are going to take the House in November– or, rather, that the Republicans’ greed and over-reaching and bankrupt policies are going to lose it. The Senate is a tougher nut to crack, just because only a third of the seats are up for re-election. The Democrats need 6 seats for a bare majority. Montana is a must-win. Without Montana there is no shot whatsoever. But we’re looking at Montana today for more than just little old that. I mean, Democrats need to hold on to Ben Nelson’s seat in Nebraska and Bill Nelson’s seat in Florida too but we’re not looking at those seats (both of which are pretty much in the bag). As bad as the music the Nelsons used to make, the voting records of the Nelsons in the Senate are even worse. Democrats, yes… but… the worst. In the June 6th primary we have a chance to chose between a really stellar candidate and a mediocre one to face off against the doomed Burns.
The really stellar one is Jon Tester. (The Democratic political hack– way better than a Republican political hack (way, way, way better), but a hack nonetheless, a DLC one at that, is Montana State Auditor John Morrison.) Tester is more than just better than the other guy. He’s a transformational politician, the kind of inspiring public servant who we will be able to look to for a genuine effort to actually make our nation a better place, the way candidates like Ned Lamont in Connecticut or Rick Penberthy and Jan Schneider in Florida, or Jerry McNerney, Francine Busby and Marcy Winograd in California can be expected to do the same. Not run-of-the-mill garden variety Democrats, but men and women who have the ability, the capacity and the intention of doing far more than just going along with the political whores who rule the roost Inside the Beltway.
I want to tell you a little about Jon. But first I want to ask you to read what someone else has to say about him. John Rodwick is a guy in Montana who stumbled across Down With Tyranny a few months ago. He was cynical about the sorry state of politics-as-usual and I asked him to look into Jon’s campaign and to go meet him. Last week he did and his report is here. The word that comes up in John’s report– and in any report of first-hand experience with Tester– is "straight shooter." When I was running Reprise Records I sometimes would get so excited about an album that an artist delivered– more often than not, something from Green Day, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Wilco, Depeche Mode, Joni Mitchell– that I’d fantasize about going door to door with an iPod and asking people to just listen. I’m positive that if Jon Tester could just meet every one of Montana’s voters…
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