Retreat in Montana Senate Race? (Morrison losing Dem support?)

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http://www.newwest.net/index.php/topic/print/8893/C43/L37

With the primary election just 11 days away, things are looking up for Jon Tester and Conrad Burns.

For John Morrison, however, the scene just isn't as rosy.

First, while it seemed impossible at the outset, new finance reports show Tester outraised his democratic primary opponent in the last six months. But, as Chuck Johnson reports, that's still not enough to beat the coffers of the big guy: Burns.

Then, while Tester's rallies in both the Bitterroot and in Missoula reportedly drummed up some good additional support for the Big Sandy farmer this week, there is a movement afoot to drain support for Morrison from one of his perhaps best-bet constituencies. As Gwen Florio reports for the Great Falls Tribune today, four Democratic attorneys are asking their collegues to lend their votes and finances to Jon Tester. Two of the attorneys said they once were Morrison supporters but are now switching teams and encouraging others to do the same. Why? The scandal. Morrison's admitted affair with a woman who was engaged to a man the State Auditor's office later investigated is an achilles heel, they say. Morrison maintains the investigation into David Tacke was unaltered by the conflict.

"The affair, and the poor way (Morrison) handled the Tacke matter, I think render him impotent in the general election against Conrad Burns," Butte attorney Michael J. McKeon tells the Trib.

Then, the latest blow came. Morrison cancelled a long-scheduled hour-long interview on a popular segment on Yellowstone Public Radio, prompting criticism from constiuents, critics and bloggers and raising speculation about Morrison's reluctance to be questioned. The segment was at the last minute filled with call-ins about the race and Morrison. One, quoted in the Trib said, "As a former supporter of Morrison, why have you not dropped out of this race so we (Democrats) can have a chance?" (Florio does point out several people called in with support.) Morrison's camp says he cancelled to attend his daughter's band concert. But one commentor on the blog Left in the West says, "...It was a dodge, nothing else." Others hint at implosion.

. . .

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1. Firedoglake (Howie Klein) checks in for Tester (via Atrios)

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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