I guess I got the Montana seats mixed up. Sorry about that. Why is Montana trending left? Is it liberals fleeing their own mess in California, only to try and recreate it in Montana? And Nevada, and Colorado, etc.
I know Clinton did very well there compared to Gore and Kerry, so hopefully history won't repeat itself for his wife.
Part of it is the fact that the GOP leadership is incompetent. A lot of it is due to the fact that the high-profile Republicans who have won in recent years (Racicot, Burns, Rehberg) concentrate only on their own elections, and not on building the party from the ground up.
Keep in mind that in the old bad old days when Anaconda Copper, Montana Power, and the labor unions ran the state, the Democrat party dominated. Unlike in SD, Democrats in Montana have a corporate memory of when they used to run things, and are willing to do what it takes to get elected. The trial lawyers pony up very big bucks for this, and they finally found a guy to bankroll (Schweitzer) who could figure out how to win the governor's race. Burns is just lucky that he's up this year and not in 2008, or the Schweitzer would run against him and win.
The GOP, by contrast, put up a milque-toast party regular against Schweitzer, and he got justifiably creamed. Rehburg is not in Schweitzer's league either, which means that if Baucus gives up his seat in 2008, Schweitzer will win it. Things don't look good in Montana.
The real failure was Marc Racicot's. He could have made the GOP into a permanent majority in that state, and he didn't have the character and will to make it happen. He really didn't even try. The national GOP needs to pay attention to states like these, as they did with the Daschle race in SD. Not so much money as shaking up the whole attitude toward grooming candidates and running campaigns.
Regarding ND, if Hoeven makes a run, he will lose, but will put a dent in the system there, and that needs to happen. The problem with the GOP in ND is that they have a history of not even trying.
SD's GOP was the same when it came to Daschle until 2004, when they realized that they were really going to look like schmucks to the national GOP if they didn't get their act together. You know, Daschle ran in a lot of races over his 30 years. Hreally only had 3 races in which the GOP put up a fight: his very first House race, his race for the at-large House seat when SD went from two Reps to one, and this very last Senate race. Every other race, including the one where he defeated a sitting GOP sitting US Senator (!) the GOP really didn't even have a strategy to beat him -- let alone try to implement it.