President George Bush and Senator Conrad Burns rally support in Billings, Montana. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Another state Senate race that we here at Newsblog are watching closely is that in Montana between three-term Republican incumbent Conrad Burns and Democrat Jon Tester. In most years, Senator Burns would have a clear advantage, but his race is frequently characterised as an uphill battle against his Democratic challenger.
Senator Burns is fighting for his political life because he was the top recipient of campaign contributions from disgraced and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Montana is a tight race, and it really depends on what poll you watch. Like we've said in other posts, if you live in Montana, let us know how the race is going. What are the issues? Who has your support and why?
Congressional Quarterly and University of Virginia's Larry Sabato, who always has a great race-by-race breakdown in his Crystal Ball, give the slight edge to Jon Tester, an organic farmer and president of the Montana state Senate.
Senator Burns has tried to go after Tester as being soft on the war and terror and opposing the Patriot Act, the anti-terror legislation passed by Congress in the wake of the September 11 2001 attacks. Brenan Richards, the Crystal Ball's Pacific region correspondent quotes Tester as responding:
"Let me be clear. I don't want to weaken the Patriot Act. I want to repeal it."
Tester was quick to criticise John Kerry's latest foot-in-mouth exercise.
So, that's the good news for Democrats. Now the potential problems. Burns has done his level best to portray Tester as left of most Montana voters, and George Bush did beat John Kerry by 20 points in 2004, not that this means that much in 2006 with President Bush's approval levels somewhere in the 30s.
And even Larry Sabato has been quoted as saying that Republicans usually win tight races, and this race is still considered tight, with some polls showing Tester with only a one-point advantage.
You'll hear a lot more about the 72-hour Project, the Republicans' last-minute, get out and vote campaign. As Congressional Quarterly says:
"Spearheaded by Ken Mehlman, the Rove protégé who now chairs the
Republican National Committee (RNC), the mobilization centers on a
database containing the names and personal preferences, gleaned from
publicly available data sources, of millions of Republican voters.
Between now and Election Day they will be subjected to repeated
entreaties to get out and vote. The effort will culminate with the
latest iteration of the Rove-Mehlman brainchild, the 72-Hour Project, a
turnout blitz over the final three days of the campaign."
If potential Republican voters don't want to hear from the party, they better put their phones off the hook now.
Ok, and now for something completely different. Believe it or not, there are more than two parties in the US. It's just that most times, apart from Independent Socialist Bernie Sanders in Vermont, so-called third-party candidates don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning a national office - some would say much to the detriment of American democracy.
All that said, Team Wonkette reminds me, there is another choice in Montana. Stan Jones is running as a Libertarian candidate. Like any good 21st-century candidate, he has all of his position papers online. Of all of Stan's positions, Wonkette chose a couple to highlight:
"Airlines lose money whenever there is an accident and lives are lost.They face lawsuits from victims or their families and loss of business from frightened customers. Airlines have great incentive to avoid safety problems. They have a great deal to lose by killing their customers."
"Smoking does not increase government's expense of providing healthcare (it actually decreases it because smokers die much earlier)."
Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Or not.
