Posted on 07/05/2007 8:59:27 PM PDT by Montana Headlines
WASHINGTON - Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg will not challenge Montana Sen. Max Baucus in 2008, the state Republican party announced Thursday.
In a statement issued by the GOP, Rehberg said he will not be a candidate for Senate or governor next year.
"Speculation to the contrary only serves as a distraction from the strong candidates that Montana Republicans will field for each of these important races," Rehberg said. "I remain completely focused on my job as Montana's congressman."
(Excerpt) Read more at missoulian.com ...
Rehberg was the Republican with the most potential of defeating Baucus, so unless a cowboy comes riding over the horizon (which has been known to happen in Montana,) this means that Baucus will have another easy re-election.
This is without a doubt the right decision for Rehberg and for the Montana state GOP, but it is still disappointing, since he had a real shot at winning.
If Al Franken can move to Minnesota, maybe Bruce Willis can move to Havre or Cut Bank.
Wonder what the Klinton’s know and when they knew it. This has Rahm Emmanuel and the DCCC written all over it.
Headline judgement only!
Lange announces challenge for Baucus’ Senate seat
http://www.havredailynews.com/articles/2007/07/02/local_headlines/state.txt
Have known Denny for several years, too bad we can’t clone him. Still though, if they can take down a GOOD man like Conrad Burns, we SURELY can take down that liberal Max, he’s been there too long as it is. Do you remember the dirty tricks they played on his opponent in the last election?
I live in Montana and the Pubs have no chance anymore unless they are willing to stand up...the ranchers are selling out to the Californians because who nowadays has a child willing to ranch? Get a few million for the ranch and live happily ever after somewhere else. Ranches are going like hotcakes and they are not selling out to like minded folks.
Reality, folks....Montana is a Dem stronghold now.
Why not former Congressman Rick Hill ? Somebody has to step up and take out this Watergate baby trash. 34 years in DC is long enough.
Sadly Rick is all but blind. We DO have some fine up and coming republicans in Montana though, stay tuned.
I had heard differing accounts that his eyesight had been restored. In any event, I think that would make him an EXCELLENT candidate for the office. Overcoming adversity and triumphing. If Baucus tried to roll out his usual hate machine (like that disgusting gay-baiting sideshow farce (remember the “gay hairdresser” schtick ?) he employed on State Sen. Mike Taylor in ‘02), it would blow up spectacularly in his face.
BTW, do you happen to have an address to write Mr. Hill ? I’d like to write him a note of encouragement.
“Montana is a Dem stronghold now.”
Enough with the negativity.
Tester had a huge windfall of scandal and a Dem wave on his side, and only won by a few thousand votes.
The Democrats have proven themselves in 6 months to be incompetent, taxhiking land-grabbing enemies of normal Americans.
If South Dakota could take out Daschle in 2004, if a Washington district could take out Foley in 1994, then surely a lesser politician like Baucus could be taken out by voters in 2008!
Stand up and fight for Montana. Get a good candidate (whatever happened to marc Racicot, anyway?) If you do, you can and you WILL win.
No I don’t have Rick’s address, I think he still lives in helena. He should be easy enough to find thru the MT GOP, they e-send me political MT news about once a week. Rick did real yeoman’s work in cleaning up the workman’s comp mess that the dems made. That’s what brought him to widespread popularity in MT, esp republican businessmen like my father. Incidentally, my father was one of the actual ELECTORS that voted for Reagan in 1980.
Rick has been out of the loop for quite awhile now. Have no doubt that baucus and his hate machine will hammer Rick’s age and eyesight problems. I did meet a fine young fellow from polson at one of Conrad’s campaign appearances : Bruggeman. He’s but one of many great young republicans that can take on baucus and WIN.
As for madmax, he stressed that he’d be the senior senator on the finance committee when the dems re-took the majority(in the 2002 election in which he trashed Mike Taylor). Well now they have the majority and MT hasn’t seen SQUAT from madmax yet. Talk, yes. Actual RESULTS, NO! Typical liberal.
The election is still 16 months away and even if Rick doesn’t run(or get the GOP nomination)I’m sure he’ll get out there and cheer on our nominee. A lot of old timers still remember Rick and the GOOD he did for MONTANA.
I’m not sure how much you know about the political complexion of Montana, it pretty much follows the national picture : big city dems, suburban/rural reps. To wit, missoula(liberal snake pit)butte, helena and great falls. Billings(biggest city)is also tending dem. Plus the indian reservations of course. Rehberg though is FROM billings(third generation)and so he’ll always carry it.
An anecdote : In the 2000 election for governor, Judy Martz(Marc Roscoe’s VG)was having her election eve party at the warbonnet inn in butte(her hometown). So, took mom down to it for a fun evening. Remember well the seesaw battle over FL. Anyway, in the early going we were running behind in the raw vote totals. Judy and I happened to be walking past each other and I asked her : are we going to lose this one Judy? Oh no she said, that’s just the early MISSOULA returns, the good precincts are still to come. She won by the usual 53% of course...same % as Rick Hill.
The real tragedy of her 4 years was losing Paul Sliter in a DUI accident(her own young advisor was the drunk driver). Paul was a natural shoo-in for governor, one of the nicest guys I ever met. His mother and I were in HS together. He would have TROUNCED BS for governor. We had what amounted to a state funeral here in kalispell for him. A truly great loss for Montana...almost as bad as tester slithering in with 1729 votes out of 250,000 cast; over Conrad. Still grieve over that...
The only thing I could locate online was 33 S Last Chance Gulch St, Helena, MT 59601. But it appears that was his old Congressional office. I don't know whether he still has a business addy or personal one. I try to use the former when writing folks (unless they're totally retired). I wanted to get his autograph, anyhow (I have a nice glossy photo of him from his days in Congress, but it was accidentally sent out to me unsigned).
"Rick did real yeoman’s work in cleaning up the workman’s comp mess that the dems made. That’s what brought him to widespread popularity in MT, esp republican businessmen like my father. Incidentally, my father was one of the actual ELECTORS that voted for Reagan in 1980."
Hey, that's not bad. 1 of only 4 lucky folks in MT (back when it still had its East and West districts !). BTW, your dad's bio is eligible to be listed on this website: http://politicalgraveyard.com/ Although I don't operate it, I have been contributing to it for over 8 1/2 years. It's a bipartisan website whose goal is a complete listing of those involved in running for or holding elective office at the citywide, state, and federal levels (you might check to see if your dad's name is listed on it already).
"Rick has been out of the loop for quite awhile now. Have no doubt that baucus and his hate machine will hammer Rick’s age and eyesight problems."
It would be beyond tasteless and disgusting to exploit his sight problems. The Senate has elected blind people before, including Thomas Gore, one of the first 2 Senators from Oklahoma (a distant cousin of Al's), who served 20 years. As for age, Baucus is 5 years older than Mr. Hill. In fact, as of January 2009, when Baucus is 67, he will have served more years in DC (34) than he was old (32) when he was elected in November 1974 to his old House seat.
"I did meet a fine young fellow from polson at one of Conrad’s campaign appearances : Bruggeman. He’s but one of many great young republicans that can take on baucus and WIN."
My concern is that we really need a name and someone with deep pockets to take out Baucus. Perhaps former Senate GOP leader Bob Keenan. I know the House Majority Leader Lange is going to take the plunge, but he's only been in his job for 6 months. Same for newbie Speaker Scott Sales and Senate GOP leader Corey Stapleton. Perhaps party Chmn Karl Ohs, fmr Sec of State Bob Brown or current SoS Brad Johnson. I leave out Marc Racicot for obvious reasons.
"As for madmax, he stressed that he’d be the senior senator on the finance committee when the dems re-took the majority(in the 2002 election in which he trashed Mike Taylor). Well now they have the majority and MT hasn’t seen SQUAT from madmax yet. Talk, yes. Actual RESULTS, NO! Typical liberal."
No surprise, there.
"I’m not sure how much you know about the political complexion of Montana,"
I've never set foot in your lovely state, but I've studied up enough on it that I'm fairly well-versed.
"it pretty much follows the national picture : big city dems, suburban/rural reps. To wit, missoula(liberal snake pit)"
Missoula strikes me as the Berkeley (or Boulder) of MT. It seemed to jump the shark about the time Dick Shoup (I'm presuming one of, if not the, last GOP Mayor of Missoula prior to entering Congress in '71) lost his House seat to Baucus back in '74 (unusual at the time that year was that the usually GOP East had a rodent Rep. with John Melcher and the Union Rodent Mountain West had GOP'er Shoup).
"butte, helena and great falls. Billings(biggest city)is also tending dem. Plus the indian reservations of course. Rehberg though is FROM billings(third generation)and so he’ll always carry it."
I've written a bit (somewhere in the FR archives) on the unusual dynamics of MT politics. It should be (key word: should) be federally GOP, but they've had chronic problems for years, especially with Senate races. Many people are often shocked to find out that only 2 Republicans have ever won Senate seats since popular elections were instituted in the 1910s, one being Zales Ecton in the 1946 GOP landslide (and that only because of the internecine battle on the Dem side that saw them dump the legendary Burton Wheeler), and he still couldn't hold onto the seat even with Ike at the top of the ticket in '52 (Ecton lost to a certain fella named Mike Mansfield, then a House member).
Not until 42 years later with Conrad Burns shocking John Melcher did we get another. Baucus's seat has NEVER elected a Republican popularly since the legislature did the picking (and that was Joseph Dixon in 1907). The GOP should well point out that a century of one party control of the seat is inexcusable. We've had umpteen heartbreaks in between, with the GOP getting within a single point or two of winning the seats over the years. Ironically, we've had far greater success with the Governorship, controlling it for 44 of the last 86 years (though none of the GOP Govs, except for Joseph Dixon, who had previously served in that Senate seat, have ever successfully made the jump to federal office). It's also been fun explaining to folks about how the rodents were able to audaciously steal the legislature for the '05 session through gerrymandering all because of a byzantine manner with which a special rodent-majority board gets to decide how the lines are drawn. And despite that, we busted the gerrymander, taking back the House last November. Of course, you know all this. ;-)
"An anecdote : In the 2000 election for governor, Judy Martz(Marc Roscoe’s VG)was having her election eve party at the warbonnet inn in butte(her hometown). So, took mom down to it for a fun evening. Remember well the seesaw battle over FL. Anyway, in the early going we were running behind in the raw vote totals. Judy and I happened to be walking past each other and I asked her : are we going to lose this one Judy? Oh no she said, that’s just the early MISSOULA returns, the good precincts are still to come. She won by the usual 53% of course...same % as Rick Hill."
I think you meant Denny Rehberg as Hill retired in 2000. Actually, it was closer than that, both Martz and Rehberg got 51% to O'Keefe-Williams (I didn't know until recently that that termite Pat Williams' wife was such a legislative heavy-hitter... of course, her dad was a former Butte Mayor, all gov't in their blood) and Rehberg's opponent, Schools Chief Nancy Keenan. That was a bit of an uncomfortable nailbiter. Being down here in Nashville, this was where Gore was running his campaign from, so all the freakazoids were downtown on an emotional roller coaster, defiantly screaming he won, then weeping uncontrollably when the media called it for Dubya. I remember the night well, because we had bad thunderstorms rumbling through, drenching the kooks (unusual, since it WAS November).
"The real tragedy of her 4 years was losing Paul Sliter in a DUI accident(her own young advisor was the drunk driver). Paul was a natural shoo-in for governor, one of the nicest guys I ever met. His mother and I were in HS together. He would have TROUNCED BS for governor. We had what amounted to a state funeral here in kalispell for him. A truly great loss for Montana...almost as bad as tester slithering in with 1729 votes out of 250,000 cast; over Conrad. Still grieve over that..."
I always felt badly for Gov. Martz. She seemed like a decent lady and trying to be motherly during that horrible incident, but it just blew up spectacularly in her face and she never recovered from it (and leaving it to the ghastly phony populist twit Schweitzer). I hope you guys are able to dump that jackass next year. As for Sen. Burns, most of us wish he had deferred to Bob Keenan. I can understand it was a personal point of honor for him to defeat the folks slandering his character, but he couldn't have picked a worse year to do it. And Tester is going to be there until (at least) January 2013. And if he ends up like most of his rodent predecessors, he could be there until 2019, 2025, 2031, or 2037, if he ties Baucus's 30 years, when he'd be 81. Ugh. No doubt Schweitzer hopes Baucus bows out before long so he can take his seat.
Judy was an olympic skater, quite an athlete, very tall too; a gracious lady as well. Did you know she drove a garbage truck most of her life? She and her husband/family have long been in that business in butte. From driving a garbage truck to running Montana’s government, what’s the difference? Marc shied away from Bush’s Interior Secretary appointment because one of his daughters-in-law had a bastard child, the driveby media would have KILLED him over it. (family values INDEED, you hypocrite)
But I did shake his hand once as our next Interior Secretary, he said...Aw Shucks or something like that. Still though he did yeoman’s work for GWB in FL and served the RNC well as chairman. A truly nice guy. Someone said that if we montanans could elect a KING, Marc would be Roscoe the First.
I’ll try to locate Rick for you. I sort of think he’ll decline for health reasons though. Being a senator is HARD WORK. Of all the times I’ve met with Conrad he’s constantly on the GOGOGO, his handlers/schedulers hardly gave him a moments peace. So could Rick Hill withstand the PHYSICAL punishment of being a senator for the next 7.5 years? Good question.
Incidently, Conrad’s personal secretary was Myron Nordquist, my HS drinking buddy. We both went out for navy ROTC(full ride scholarship), I was in the Natl Guard and thus not a “virgin”, he BSed his way in. Eventually becoming chief legal council for sec of navy as well as sec of AF. Best BSer I’ve ever known. But it wasn’t quite enough to overcome the abramoff scandal. Remember that general that bitched out clinton and HAD to be fired? “My” was the one who actually signed the papers firing him.
Anyway, Montana has some 935,000 people now, and everybody knows who their pols are. Denny has the largest constituency of anyone in the house. I’ve met his dad, Jack, and son AJ, and mom. Jack Rehberg is Mr MASON in Montana, hardly a post he hasn’t held in Montana Masonry. Did you know it was MASONS that hung sheriff Henry Plumber and his gang in Virginia City? And the 3-7-77 the highway patrol uses as a “code” refers to that event.
My dad passed away in 1995 but was a rock ribbed Rush Limbaugh fan all the way. My first hero was Barry Goldwater, over which I tangled ********, fighting the liberals in missoula. Shaving cream on my goldwater stickers, dumped barrels of water on my cloths...typical liberal behavior.
Anyway, I’ll try to locate Rick for you. I once told him something that sort of shocked him : THANK YOU for all the good work you do for us Montanans, just that : THANKS. He probably hadn’t heard that but 5 times in his life. Too bad we don’t think to say that to our GOOD people in government : Thanks, just that, THANKS.
Forget Bob Brown running for any “charisma” office. He’s a technocrat and just about the most boring speaker you’ll ever hear. He lost to BS just because of that : zero charisma. What REALLY ticked me off was BS cutting Judy off when she was saying goodbye to all the staff/state employees. There was NO CALL for such a rude act like that. If there is a god in heaven and his GOLDEN RULE, BS will get the bum’s rush just as he did to our beloved JUDY.
COAL is big news in MT. BS has tried to horn in on it by making deals with out-of-state/foreign companies, but syn-crude is OLDE technology, and coal people have NOT forgotten that it was another dem governor, Ted Swindon, that laid a 30% severance tax on coal going out of state; thinking that he could solve all his tax problems w/it.
Instead it drove the coal companies out of MT and into WY, the MT coal industry DIED on the vine. So here you have another dem governor...and they know full well that once they are committed he’ll WHACK them with higher taxes/regulations. Why have no new oil refineries been built in the last 30 years? Hmmm?
But there’s another way : MHD(MagnetoHydroDynamics). It is from 60% to 90% as efficient vs a standard coal fired plant at 45%. The PROBLEM is that coal slag/crud builds up on the chamber walls, quickly gumming up the process. This MHD process has long been studied in butte.
So sitting on waikiki beach 5 years ago I thought of a solution(one can take only so much prancing female flesh) : 4 film-belts that slide thru on the walls(endless loops), suggested by the japanese with their cameras, beach sand, suntan lotion. The film surface takes the radiation/heat abuse/coal crud as it slides thru(doesn’t affect the EM fields)and is then sand blasted off/recoated outside in a continuous process.
Last year I gave the idea to Phyllis(Conrad’s wife)in the hope that it might help his campaign, his staffer sent it to the DOE where it got the one-soldier-at-attenion-finger-salute, as I knew it would. The inside the beltway crowd had been planning Conrad’s demise for many years = anything to hurt him.
So I asked Conrad about it at his october campaign stop here in kalispell. He said that instead they are shooting the plasma thru the throat at mach 2 to get around the coal crud problem. Ah well, it didn’t add up to 1729 votes anyway. Instead Montana got a senator with his lips permanently sewn to schmer’s ***.
And so it goes in the BIG SKY COUNTRY ...
Thanks for the interesting insights. Thanks, too, if you get Congressman Hill’s address.
RE: Your ideas. It’s remarkable this nation hasn’t collapsed from the seemingly immoveable force of the establishment (corrupt and or statist) that works against people with interesting and innovative ideas for all manner and sort of fields. Yet we still manage to succeed in spite of ourselves... the question is, for how long ?
Alas, I’m not so inclined to come up with anything that would make me a ton of money, as I only know about that most useless of sciences, political science. :-P
Totally agree — Baucus is more vulnerable than any Democrat wants to admit. The campaign commercials were written by the Democrats in 2006: “He’s been in Washington too long,” “He took money from Jack Abramoff...”
The 2002 election was indeed dirty — but the worst part about it was that Mike Taylor should have gone into it knowing that he wasn’t going to win. His goal should have been to lose with dignity and to make Baucus spend a lot of cash beating him.
That’s why we need a good candidate with a level head on his shoulders. Baucus will play dirty, and we can’t have anyone who will lose it.
I have to agree that it is a big overstatement to call Montana a Democratic stronghold.
What has happened is that Montana is no longer a state where Bozo the clown could run as a Republican and get elected.
We need good candidates who are adequately funded.
Jon Tester’s election was the result of a “perfect storm” — a scandal-plagued Conrad Burns with a penchant for shooting himself in the foot every time he opened his mouth, the worst national Republican electoral climate in at least 20 years, and a Montana Democratic party that had figured out how to run a farmer as a populist conservative.
And with all of that, he barely won — in fact, had the campaign gone on just a day or two more, Burns would probably have won. The tide was rapidly turning and Republicans were coming home to Conrad, who was and is a good man.
Excellent points ... now, who WILL the GOP run to win back Montana???
Rick Hill is a good man, but he won’t run. Whoever runs has to be ready for the smear machine of the Montana Democratic party. Even Democrats I know admit that they have even fewer scruples than the Montana Republican party, which isn’t perfect itself.
This has long been a battleground state, although the Reagan surge obscured that fact. And politics here is ugly.
Say a prayer for us.
OK, I probably overstated the “stronghold” part. I’ve only lived full time in Montana for 4+ years, having moved here from California myself. I have to tell you that I expected a Republican “stronghold” and have been constantly amazed at the way Montana has voted since I’ve been here. Do you know that cigarettes cost more here than in California? It’s for the children you know. That cigarette tax passed a couple of years ago with 70% of the vote. And now they are trying to add another $1.60 a pack.
I moved to a town that has about 5000 people, a large town for Montana, and the vehement hatred of GWB has taken me aback.
I see the ranchers here selling out for millions to people from elsewhere, mainly California and Washington and those people don’t have the same mindset as the old ranchers, believe me! The young people think Montana should have a sales tax too. The politicians copied California’s deregulation and put Montana Power out of business and now electricity is much more expensive. That was before my time, when Republicans were in charge. The water in this town comes from an underground aquafer, supposedly one of the largest in the world and does not have to be treated at all and is gravity fed, yet it is more expensive than other towns in Montana. There are 240 new houses being built for people who graduated from high school here, made money elsewhere and now want to return. Do you think they will retain their conservative bent?
I just see changes happening fast in what I thought would be a better place to live, politically. True, the cost of living is not bad, if you stay home. I could go on but I’m sure I’ve already said more than you want to hear.
BTW, did Conrad Burns come home to live?
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