Longish but worthwhile Esquire piece by Eli Sanders about the challenges Jon Tester and the Democractic party are facing:
… Rove’s anti-Tester ad, delivered to Montana in July courtesy of his Crossroads group, was part of a $1.6-million, Citizens United-enabled national buy designed to hit five Democratic Senators, at least a few of whom will need to be pushed aside if Republicans are to re-take the chamber. But the buy in Montana was just a fraction of what’s expected, over the next year, to become an over $20 million, everyone-off-the-sidelines brawl over Tester’s seat.
__
Cecil, the national senate-campaign director, said his group is going “all in” to help Tester fend off the coming assault. “We are 100 percent committed to this race,” he added, lest there be any confusion. “We will not allow Jon Tester to be outspent.”
__
Tester is doing pretty well himself, pulling in more than $1 million in each of the last three fundraising quarters (including $1.2 million to Rehberg’s $700,000 in the quarter that ended September 30). As a result, Tester’s at-the-ready cash pile sits at $3 million, far ahead of Rehberg’s $1.8 million cash on hand. Montana State University political science professor David Parker, who’s writing a book on this campaign, says whatever the final draw, each candidate will probably spend around 70 percent of it on advertising…
__
“Probably 135,000 people out of about 630,000 registered voters are going to decide this race,” Iverson, of the Rehberg campaign, told me. Those people are mainly Montana independents, who make up around a third of the electorate and are famous for ticket-splitting (in 2008, the same year Obama got close to winning Montana, Rehberg won re-election with 64 percent of the vote).
__
These independents don’t take kindly to sell-outs, turncoats, or guys who don’t exude a “real” Montana disposition, which tends to be suspicious of federally-controlled anything and hugely disdainful of the idea that someone’s unbalanced books deserve government assistance. (Never mind that Montana itself gets about $2.50 for every dollar it sends to D.C. in taxes. “We’re going to take your money but leave us the hell alone,” is how Parker describes it.) Tester, whose disposition includes a Senate schedule built around his farm’s harvesting and planting season, a loaded .22 he keeps in the barn for shooing away troublesome pigeons, a boisterous opposition to the PATRIOT Act, and the fact that he was the only Democratic Senator to vote against the Wall Street bailout, says that if he’s been taking money from Wall Street for his campaign (which he has been), it’s just because “We’ve got to have money to get our message out.”…
Much more at the link. Teahadist challenger Denny Rehberg sounds like your archetypical Rethug piece of work , but appealing to “the common clay of the New West… you know, morons” is a proven tactic among those proudly narrow-minded xenophobes who are pleased to call themselves “independents”. And while, as a self-selected denizen of the People’s Republic of Taxachusetts, I can understand the seccesionary impulse to cut the welfare ranchers, welfare miners, and welfare politicos of Heartland America(tm) free from our oppressive intolerant nanny-state funding, this ain’t the EU; we’re stuck working to get the most progressive possible candidates elected in Montana, for fear of what the conservative alternative will do.
PeakVT
I’d like for Tester to win, but I don’t see how running away from Obama is going to be any more successful this cycle than it was during the last.
RalfW
It’s absurd to go all-out spending to defend Testers seat, unless there is sufficient Democratic money to properly fund all the other Senate seats that are up.
This is the “save granny even though she’s 103 and suffering, but cut all pre-natal care” mentality.
Dropping $10 million to defend the conservative $10M buys you a chance to save one mediocre-to-bad Democrat. What would $1 million extra in 10 states do for a range of Democrats who have a better shot?
Loneoak
@RalfW:
By definition, most seats are safe seats. Incumbency carries a huge advantage in most cases. So $10M on Tester might be more worthwhile than adding $1M to a bunch of candidates whose seats are statistically safer.
Anyway, in the long run it is necessary to maintain party infrastructure nationwide even if in some places we end up electing Blue Dogs with it.
Davis X. Machina
@PeakVT et al:
Tester, like 90 of any 100 sitting Senators, looks in the mirror and says “Good Morning, Mr. President” 365 times a year. In some cases, it’s “Madame President”.
You can’t tell anything to someone like that . The ears don’t work and the logic unit is turned off.
Villago Delenda Est
While tossing bags of money at a blue dog is distasteful, the teatard asswipe who’d take his place would be even worse.
mike
hmmm – tweedledee? or tweedledum? can’t decide. The democrats should spend this money elsewhere. Guys like Tester just destroy the brand and ultimately benefit the republicans more than if there was someone who actually admitted to being a republican in the position.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
This is going to be one of those fun elections. We’ll see the right throwing money at everything, because CU opened it up to have a few rich corporations spend more than 100million people. And the left will be deciding whether or not to have a purity contest this year, or whether it would be better to get as many people calling themselves Democrats (whether they should be called that or not).
If we start collecting the kinds of money necessary to compete against CU backed republicans, it would be wise to spend most of it on get out the vote operations.
arguingwithsignposts
Tester would do better just writing a check to all of them. Or his Citizens Untied (sic) chosen charity.
ETA: All the money I had is gone – cool song.
Hill Dweller
TPM has video of Rehberg waving around a picture of the President depicted as Qadaffi. When asked about it by TPM, Rehberg says he doesn’t agree with the picture…
WereBear
Classic Freudian stuff.
They HATE thinking about how dependent they are on Fed Money… so let’s just not talk about Fed Money.
WereBear
Also, too:
The main reason to elect Democrats is COMMITTEES. And other perks of being the Majority.
I didn’t create the system. But I do understand how it works.
piratedan
agreed, this is more blue dog idiocy…. Tester should be taking notice of the prevailing trends, bankster anger and lack of jobs and who is responsible for those events. Who is trying to make a difference and who is BUYING seats.
Mike in NC
Apologies to Mel Brooks and company.
Yutsano
A couple of factors I haven’t seen mentioned yet:
1) Tester won an election in Montana once before, so it’s fair to say he knows how to pull that off again. We know the rules have changed but money only gets you so far.
2) Tester has one big gun in his back pocket: a popular Democratic governor. Schweitzer is going to come out swinging for Tester hard no doubt in my mind.
Davis X. Machina
@piratedan: I would love to see all that anger translated into votes. The problem is, I have zero confidence re votes for whom.
In the last UK general election, the party who up front promised to do things known in advance to make the life of the average voter worse, not better, and who had done those same things within the political life of the average voter, and made the life of the average voter worse not better in the process, came within an eyelash of a majority in Commons.
The average voter flunked the hedonic calculus.
Baud
If we kicked out everyone who someone thought destroyed the brand, there wouldn’t be anyone left in the party.
piratedan
@Davis X. Machina: true… i think a lot actually rides on how capable Ms. Wasserman-Schultz is with the national groundgame…. here’s to hopin she can’t be any worse than Mr. Kaine was.
Lojasmo
Far from destroying the brand, Tester enhances the democratic brand. Do I like all his votes? No. Hell, I don’t like all Franken’s votes.
arguingwithsignposts
@Lojasmo:
I’m curious about this, ‘splain?
@Yutsano: I thought gitmo was pre-franken.
Yutsano
@arguingwithsignposts: Did Franken vote to keep Gitmo open? I forgot who the no votes were.
Tim in SF
I contributed to John Tester last time around. He turned out to be a blue dog, voting against many of the things I dearly wanted to see passed.
Fuck that guy. I don’t care if he loses- I won’t be sending him one thin dime this time around. I’d rather have an enemy in that seat than a “friend” who makes nice, takes my money and then stabs me in the back.
xian
I hope Tester wins and I’m sure Rehberg would be worse, but I also like it when battle lines are clear and you aren’t being stabbed by people inside your own tent when it advantages them personally.
PurpleGirl
@arguingwithsignposts: Cool group, nice folkie vibe.
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©
Sigh…Time to pony up and elect the lesser evil already?
Not me. I donated money I couldn’t afford to BIG TIME in 2006 and 2008, and all I got was this lousy Wall Street owned Democratic party that promptly squandered all its advantages while sucking up to the healthcare industry.
If Democrats want to win elections, maybe they should try offering an alternative to the Republican party, rather than merely being a corporate placeholder for when the Republicans over-reach every few years.
~
bobbyp
Over-representation by rural/conservative states is baked into the cake. The Dem party in those states has to “trim to the center” to get excrement like Tester elected so he can, in turn, stab urban promoted and more liberal legislation in the back. As long as creeps like him have the swing vote power in Congress, they will use it. As long as you send them money, they will continue to do the same thing, and expecting anything else borders on dementia.
RSA
This part, largely a red state phenomenon, always gets on my nerves. Especially with Republicans now pushing austerity. What do conservatives in those states think? Are they aware of how much they benefit from the federal government? Are they saying, “We deserve that money”? Or “We’re gonna stick it to the government by taking that money instead of other people”? Or maybe they just don’t care, and they like Republican candidates for their social positions.
bobbyp
RSA–it’s not about the benefits. It’s all about being deserving or picking the appropriate skin color prior to birth.
JPL
@ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©: Then give what you can to candidates you support if they are in tight races. I plan on donating to Warren even though I don’t live in MA. I’ll also donate to the President.
Three-nineteen
Tim in SF: Right now the important thing is to keep majorities in the House and Senate. The majority party decides who chairs the committees, what things those committees investigate, and what bills the two Houses try to bring to a vote. Tester helps the Democrats do this. Everyone needs to keep this in mind.
burnspbesq
@RalfW:
“What would $1 million extra in 10 states do for a range of Democrats who have a better shot?”
Like who? Names, please, and detailed business cases. Otherwise you’re wasting everyone’s time.
JPL
@Three-nineteen: Good point. I’d love to win back the house and get rid of Boehner and gang. What a nightmare.
Yutsano
@Three-nineteen: Yesbut…they’re not REAL Democrats! Why should I have to vote for anything less than my definition of a true progressive?
(See how this works? They want purity, not the ability to affect real change. Because whinging is easier than governance.)
burnspbesq
@Tim in SF:
“I contributed to John Tester last time around. He turned out to be a blue dog, voting against many of the things I dearly wanted to see passed.”
If that surprised you, you weren’t paying attention.
Fucking purity trolls.
Tim in SF
Hey @Yutsano, go fuck yourself.
It’s my money, I can spend it or not spend it however I want.
This year, Warren gets my money, not backstabbing bastards like Tester.
Tim in SF
@burnspbesq: Regretting financial support for a lieberdem makes me a purity troll?
I see zero reason to support Tester when he doesn’t support my issues, especially when someone like Warren is on the scene who does. She’ll be getting my money this year.
Yutsano
@Tim in SF: Good. You can’t vote for either. Just don’t whine when Warren doesn’t vote to satisfy your pure soul.
arguingwithsignposts
this should be fun
Tim in SF
@Yutsano: “You can’t vote for either. ”
Wow. You’re dense. This will be the forth time in this thread I’ve mentioned I’m talking about financial support and not a vote.
Amir Khalid
@Hill Dweller:
So he was just waving it around because … ?
Yutsano
@Tim in SF: Then why are you whining about people whom you have, at best, a minor chance of influencing? You are not a constituent of Tester’s nor will you be one of Warren’s. Why the fuck did you think you had any right to have some say over their vote and then express disappointment in it?
FlipYrWhig
Yeah, fuck that Jon Tester. I’m sure there are plenty of die-hard lefties with ironclad credentials that could take his place and win handily! Montana and leftism are practically synonymous, after all.
ETA: Tester isn’t particularly progressive, no, although he was an ally of The Left in opposing the Patriot Act and in calling into question the power of the financial sector. But there are _lots_ of Democrats who aren’t particularly progressive, especially in places like the Sun Belt and the Mountain West. IMHO Tester is frustrating, as is Webb, but he hasn’t been nearly as egregious as Nelson or Lieberman. A party that balances Testers with Warrens isn’t going to satisfy the progressive wishlist, but it’d be a damn sight better than the alternative.
Lojasmo
@arguingwithsignposts:
The recent free trade agreement with south Korea.
Not many, of course. Franken is pretty much a superstar. He probably knows more about the FTA than I do, also too.
John Weiss
@RSA: The Conservative party at this point in time are Utopians, idealists: the most dangerous people in the world.
Tim in SF
@Yutsano:”Why the fuck did you think you had any right to have some say over their vote and then express disappointment in it?”
Are you saying I can’t voice my opinion about how someone in congress votes? Are you serious? Your claim does not warrant a rebuttal. It’s prima facie stupid.
pluege
Testers been anti-progressive on a whole of things.
What we needed is to abolish the Senate. Its an anti-democratic institution serving no useful democratic purpose, while providing grossly outsized power to nearly vacant rethug crazy places like Montana.
Anya
@arguingwithsignposts:
You’re right, the GITMO vote was pre-Fanken. Only six Dem Senators voted against the amendment:
The Senators who stood with President Obama on closing Gitmo are: Reed, Durbin, Harkin, Leah, Levin, and Whitehouse. Senators Kennedy and Byrd were too sick to vote (I think).
pluege
correction:
Tester’s been anti-progressive on a whole host of things.
Hill Dweller
@Amir Khalid: Apparently he didn’t want to be rude.
Never mind the sheer stupidity of depicting the President as the dictator he just helped oust, wouldn’t that situation call for rudeness? At the very least Rehberg should have admonished the idiot for carrying around that stuff.
pluege
The Senators who stood with President Obama on closing Gitmo…
huh? obama didn’t stand with obama on closing Gitmo.
FlipYrWhig
@pluege:
Yeah, good luck with that. “We need” a lot of things we’ll never, ever secure enough support to accomplish.
Chris
@RSA:
I don’t think they think much about it. To be honest, I doubt if most of them even realize the point to which their lifestyle is subsidized by 1) the federal government and 2) their hated blue state compatriots. When you’ve been taking these things for granted every day of your life, you don’t even realize they’re there.
4tehlulz
@Anya: only a test vote, bully pulpit, etc.
Anya
@pluege: The President requested $80 million to close Guantanamo Bay and to transfer high level detainees to Federal Prisons and some others to their countries or a third country. Guess what, both the House and Senate prohibited him from doing that. The amendment I quoted above does exactly that. What did you want him to do? Finance the transfer of detainees from his own pocket?
cmorenc
It’s easy amid the extremely sparsely populated landscape of much of Montana (including just immediately outside the most populous towns thereof) for natives and even transplants to get the perspective that they live apart and mostly independent of the rest of America (other than unwanted interference therefrom) even though the facts of net cash flow, subsidization, and actual commercial dependence on outside areas say otherwise. By contrast, in densely populated areas along both coasts, it’s much more difficult to be fooled into such a false perspective, though always plenty of winger ideological fools can be found, e.g. South Carolina (much of which is still very rural/agrarian and relatively isolated from mainstream cultural influences).
Origuy
Irish comedian Dara O’Briain on how much he loves videogames.
Origuy
Sorry, that should have gone in the last thread.
Mnemosyne
@PeakVT:
That’s my worry in 2012 — in 2010, the Blue Dogs in the House ran against Obama and they got fucking decimated and handed control of the House over to the Republicans.
I’d like to think that Democrats running in 2012 have learned the folly of their ways and realize that running against a pretty popular president from their own party is a one-way ticket to the private sector, but I’m nervous that their knee-jerk oppositional reflex is just too ingrained to let them do the sensible thing.
(Edited to fix multiple stupid typos. Yeesh.)
Mark S.
Wrong Again Cole doesn’t post football threads unless Wrong Again Cole’s sorry ass team is playing.
$3,000, baby!
Mark S.
@Mark S.:
Did that nev-gu guy get banned? When I put his name in my comment, it wouldn’t post.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Welcome to DST. :)
As to your comment, I think that’s situational. A lot of the Democrats who lost just misread the national mood and thought they could co-opt the Tea Party line without considering there was already the alternative running. Tester I think will show how he is different from Rehberg enough so Montanans will have a clear enough choice. Plus Montana does have tiny blue pockets around Missoula and Bozeman. I think he’ll be okay in a Presidential election year.
jeffreyw
Thread needs bread.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: Please don’t tease me, I can only eat mushy semi solid food since my dental surgery on Thursday.
ETA: Me needs kitteh! how is your gang?
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: I will cut those crunchy, crispy crusts right off of your piece and slather it with butter for you!
Yutsano
@schrodinger’s cat: This might help some: Alton Brown has an oyster soup that is pureed. So you could slurp down sea slugs while you’re recovering!
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: It will still be too difficult to eat, thanks for the thought though!
cathyx
@schrodinger’s cat: If you put enough butter on it, it’ll soften up nicely.
schrodinger's cat
@Yutsano: I made a pureed chicken soup and some dal and rice yesterday. Also on the plus side the dentist said I can eat as much ice-cream as I want!
MTmofo
Keep in mind MT is a very very cheap media market. A little money goes a long way.
The MT-AL race is a horserace/clusterfuck combo.
For those with an on-going interest in 2012 MT politics, I commend these two leftie blogs to your bookmarks list.
http://mtcowgirl.com/
http://intelligentdiscontent.com/
MikeJ
@jeffreyw: I made bread last night too!
Yutsano
@MikeJ: You didn’t invite me AGAIN! You bastard! :)
jeffreyw
@MikeJ: And such a lovely crumb!
lol
With the exception of the DREAM Act (which would’ve failed w/o his vote) Tester backed Obama’s entire legislative agenda, and unlike other Blue Dogs (or Feingold), didn’t pull a primadonna act to withhold his vote. Progressive Punch has him more or less in the middle of the Dem caucus.
Is there a list of Tester’s specific sins or is it just taken for granted that’s he’s worse than Ben Nelson?
lol
And if he needs to *brand* himself as being against the President so that he can be re-elected and go back to DC and vote for the President’s agenda, then go right on ahead. Unlike the Professional Left, my feelings can take it.
MikeJ
Thanks! First time making that rustic loaf recipe. Seemed to slump a little and came out a tab on the flat side, but still tasted fine.
@Yutsano: When’s Gauguin? I’ll bring ya a loaf.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: Then. I may not want to wait that long. They have an exhibition right now that wifey will squee over.
James E. Powell
Maybe I missed them, but I am not recalling the times that Tester was an a-hole Blue Dog who was publicly slamming his own party or president. He’s not a Nelson or a Landrieu.
I disagree with Tester’s votes, but that is another way of saying I disagree with the policy choices of a majority of the people who live in Montana. What’s Tester supposed to do? Pretend he is a senator from New York?
xian
I think the worst thing Tester does is reinforce right-wing frames, an expedient Obama himself has indulged in.
FlipYrWhig
@xian: What’s an example of Tester doing that? I’m not saying it doesn’t happen; in fact I classified him as frustrating earlier based on an amorphous memory I couldn’t dredge back up. What was his worst offense in that regard?
ETA: IIRC he defended his lack of support for the new round of jobs bills by saying that he didn’t believe in a payroll tax cut because it would jeopardize the funding of Social Security. That’s not a right-wing frame. (Webb, OTOH, talked about the inappropriateness of raising taxes on income, full stop, which is more problematic.)
realbtl
Benny DeVoto nailed the “gimme the money and leave me alone” attitude of the West about 70 years ago in just those words.
The more things change, blah blah doodle de doo.
lol
@FlipYrWhig:
IIRC, the payroll holidays that have been passed before reimbursed the Social Security trust fund. So it’s a curious thing to complain about.
@xian:
So basically, lots of “Who gives a fuck?” than anything concrete?
The online left is far too concerned with framing and messaging and winning the morning than actual results.
drkrick
The only useful vote somebody like Tester, Landrieu or Nelson casts every session may be the leadership vote. It’s also the most important vote of every session. The blue dog may screw up the brand and force all kinds of foolish watering down of good policy, but the leadership vote is the difference between getting good ideas out of committee so they can be passed in even a watered down form or spending two years scrambling to prevent the passage of batshit crazy ones.
If there’s any chance of electing a better Dem (hint – not in Montana any time soon), primary him. If not and there’s any chance of holding the seat, it’s worth every penny it takes to help him to do it.
FlipYrWhig
My impression is that Tester and Baucus are two options for Democrats in inhospitable territory. Baucus is more “corporate” and Tester is more populist. Neither is particularly liberal. Same goes for Warner and Webb in Virginia. In the Arkansas senate race for 2010, Blanche Lincoln was in the Baucus spot and Bill Halter was in the Tester spot.
Tester really might be as progressive as it gets _for Montana_. Halter would have been the same way. I’m much less likely to fault Tester for how he handles being a Democrat from a mountain-west state than I am to fault Joe Lieberman for his antics, because it’s so much easier to imagine a more progressive person in Lieberman’s seat. Honestly I think we have to grade on a curve. Sometimes the choice of electable Democrats is corporate-moderate vs. populist-moderate, and there just is no progressive option.
And I’m much more annoyed that Democrats can’t get someone good elected in Maine, or pick off Grassley in Iowa, or hold Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. Tester is a clear case of value added, even if he’s not as liberal as a liberal would want, all else being equal.
Steeplejack
@schrodinger’s cat:
Sheer luxury! Try breaking your jaw and having your yap wired shut for eight weeks. That’s eight weeks of not even semi-solid food, just liquids. I sent my appetite to stay with relatives out of state and survived on protein shakes, cream of tomato soup and broth. That was five years ago, and I still hate the taste of cream of tomato soup.
/Four Yorkshiremen
gwangung
@FlipYrWhig:
Why is this anathema to so many people? Doesn’t context matter?
(Also, I’d prefer a few more details from folks who are cool on Tester, given how his votes have been pretty middle of the Dem pack–votes count a lot, don’t they?)
xian
I do prefer populist to corporate if that’s the choice.
I think Tester saying stuff like this isn’t all that great:
FlipYrWhig
@gwangung:
It depends on how you feel about the pack, I guess. IMHO the senate Dems are a conservative bunch, so being the middle of the Democratic pack isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. But I’ve been riding this hobbyhorse for years and I’ll say it again: probably only half of the Democratic party, at best, is liberal, so making the equation that liberals are The Base is being a glutton for punishment. If you want a Liberal Party, you’d better find a coalition partner, because you’re not going to have a majority anytime soon. And, lo and behold, the Democrats function as a coalition between liberals and “moderates” like Tester, Baucus, Webb, Warner, Casey, Feinstein, Reid, Begich, Pryor, Nelson, Nelson, Johnson, Conrad, Landrieu, McCaskill, Lieberman, and Manchin. If that was its own party, we probably wouldn’t be too eager to vote for their candidates. But a lot of people would. And that’s why the Democrats aren’t that liberal.
Quinne
This one pulled me out of lurking.
Look, I live in Montana. Rehberg is a teatard party boy who wants to turn the northern tier of the state over to homeland security. Glacier Park, anyone? He is a pro-corporate, Kochsucking wingnut’s wingnut. I think the only good thing I’d say of him is he’s eventually biodegradable.
FlipYrWhig has it right: Tester’s pretty damn progressive for Montana. The state is filled with xenophobes and bigots and rich Taxed Enough Already bastards. We’re just not going to elect a true Liberal. Ever. Get over it. It doesn’t help anyone to yank support from the next best thing.
For anyone interested in more information, http://mtcowgirl.com/ is a great liberal blog.