Posted on 07/06/2007 9:21:38 PM PDT by Montana Headlines
HELENA - Gov. Brian Schweitzer has raised slightly more than $600,000 for his 2008 re-election campaign and reported having about a record $500,000 left in the bank on June 30, a report filed Thursday showed....
As of June 30, Schweitzer's campaign showed an ending fund balance of $506,505, which his campaign claimed to be a record amount of cash on hand for a candidate for governor at this stage.
(Excerpt) Read more at billingsgazette.net ...
For a governor who is expected to win in a walk -- especially by his own party -- the governor is raising a lot of money.
The skeptical believe that a part of this is that he simply enjoys going on fundraising junkets around the country more than he enjoys working at being governor in Montana.
He has his eyes on bigger things -- perhaps a cabinet position in the next Democratic administration or even a shot at the VP slot.
Those plans were dealt a bit of a blow when he proved himself unable to make good on his promises to work across party lines during the past legislative session -- and when he failed to deliver the Montana legislature in the 2006 election as he had reportedly promised the national party.
Look for Schweitzer and Sen. Baucus to continue to raise money at a record pace, and pour it into general Democratic party efforts in Montana.
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And here I thought most in Montana were intelligent?
Montana is a state with about a third hard-core Republicans, a third hard-core Democrats, and a third independents.
Montana independents are a lot like Montana Republicans in having a pretty conservative lifestyle, and in being more interested in how the Stillwater is fishing this week or in how they did in the draw for moose or goat tags this year than in how the the 2008 elections are coming along.
When the Montana GOP puts up good candidates and run non-stupid election campaigns, it tends to win.
Unfortunately, the Montana GOP has gotten lazy because of too many easy wins during the 80’s and 90’s, while the Dems are hungry and vicious.
Thanks for the education.
Like your tagline, BTW.
Right now their are no credible Republican candidates to take on either Schweitzer or Baucus. With the credibility of Republicans having taken a hit both nationally and in the state, 2008 could be very grim.
That doesn't erase the need for good, hard-working candidates to take on both men.
We have to make them work for it.
I like what Rick Jore did to shake up the complacency up there.
Absent the Senate race, your ‘08 may be similar to what happened in my state in TN. Our rodent Governor (who used illicit means by flagrantly violating campaign financing laws to narrowly win election in ‘02) attracted a 2nd tier State Senator challenger (though despite hailing from a wealthy district, had very little money), and ended up winning in a landslide 69-30% margin. Out of 95 counties, the Republican failed to carry ANY (!), including losing his own county by 58-42%, shockingly embarrassing.
But that was the bad news.
We also had the open Senate seat of Frist’s to defend. The rodents already had coalesced around Black Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., a Memphis liberal. Ford ran a very smart campaign, and ran like he was the REPUBLICAN candidate. We had a bad situation brewing on the GOP side, as the candidate the Conservative grassroots preferred, former Congressman and House Impeachment Manager Ed Bryant (Bryant had prosecuted Ford’s daddy as a US Attorney in the early ‘90s, so such a showdown between Bryant and Junior would’ve been delicious). The candidate for the liberal RINO Establishment was outgoing Chattanooga Mayor Bob “Chattanooga Chafee” Corker. Corker had been so well-regarded by the Democrats that they tried to entice him to run for office back to the ‘90s, and with good reason. He was a squish on everything, and he was simply near-impossible for Conservatives of conscience to swallow. I couldn’t defend him.
In any event, the very wealthy Corker against the modest Bryant was going to be difficult going, but not impossible in a one-on-one match... and then came the giant turd in the punchbowl. Ex-Congressman Van Hilleary, Gov. Bredesen’s ‘02 Gubernatorial opponent all of a sudden “decided” he wanted into the Senate race. Nobody wanted him, especially Conservatives, as he would split the vote (and in our state, there IS no runoff. If you win 12% (or even 1% + 1 vote) in a primary, no matter how nutty you are, you get the nomination). We were screaming at Hilleary to get the hell out of the race and he simply refused. Even in the last weeks leading up to the election with Corker blanketing the airwaves pretending to be a Conservative, the roar was deafening. Bryant was picking up steam, but Hilleary stayed put, and by the time the primary day came, Corker won a plurality, with Conservatives (making up the majority of the vote) getting screwed out of their rightful nominee. I suspected that Hilleary had some sort of link to the Corker campaign, designed to keep Bryant from the nomination, and was being paid off or some other sort of offer.
With Corker out of the chute and having gotten the nod, he STOPPED advertising and sat on his hands. Meanwhile, Junior Ford surged ahead in the polls statewide (and this was shocking, because the Ford family is synonomous with big city political corruption and hackery). My worst suspicion about Corker was that he was doing for the general election what Hilleary did for him, run interference for the bad guy, and WANTED Ford to win. With some prodding, Corker finally started to campaign and he went on the offense against Junior. Fred Thompson entered the fray (as ostensibly the most revered pol this state has had in recent times) and started cutting ads and helping out Corker (which helped considerably, and pulled them close to even in the polls).
What finally sank Junior was a key event he tried to orchestrate. Corker was holding a private event and Junior tried to crash it. Now, what he and his people (filming the event) wanted was for the Black Ford to be grabbed by some thuggish White bodyguards and dragged out kicking and screaming. That’s not what happened. Instead, Corker walked out, straight up to Junior, smiled, looked him straight in the eye and shook his hand, and told him what’s what (probably the only time Corker REALLY looked good) about how wrong he was to crash a private event, and with that, pretty much handed Junior his ass. Junior never quite recovered from the event, and lost by a narrow margin (Corker becoming the only new Republican to win a Senate seat in the disastrous ‘06 elections).
Back to Bredesen for a moment, and our state legislature. Also, just like MT, our legislature has been gerrymandered by the Democrats, despite the fact that they are a voting minority (they haven’t received a majority of the legislative vote, especially on the House side, since about 1992), and even with Bredesen’s near-70% landslide, his victory was a mile wide and an inch deep. Aside from picking up one seat in the State Senate (from a Senator who had switched to the GOP months beforehand), the Dems failed to capture a single other seat elsewhere. Finally, in January, we got to organize the State Senate for the first time in nearly 140 years (that is NOT a typo), despite the fact we had had a majority in the body since the previous session. Because of a complicated situation involving the Speaker of that body who had held the job for 36 years (longest serving leader of a legislative body in any state in US history), we finally deposed him and elected a GOP Senate Speaker (also called the Lieutenant Governor in our state).
To my knowledge, only TN, with our Senate Speaker, and MT’s House, with Scott Sales, were the sole legislative bodies that flipped to GOP control after the past election. Anyway, my point is that, even with the horrid Schweitzer, he could end up with a situation like we had, a wide reelection %, but failing to change the legislative situation.
It looks like the republicans are settling on Fred Thompson with Duncan Hunter as a back-up if anything happens to Fred. Guiliani and Romney are fading, as I knew they would, McCain and the others are basically gone as well. I had hoped that Haley Barbour would have gotten into the race but he declined. The super job he did for MS compared to LA/New Orleans was day vs night. Anyway, with FT as the candidate from TN, that should pull up all republicans in TN at the very least.
Speaking of New Orleans, some 6 years ago now, after the Des Moines flood, I thought of a solution : a flood road : buoyant road panels, hinged on the landward side to a buried concrete wall and dead man anchors on the sea or river side. Along comes your storm surge/river flood and they float NATURALLY up into a 20’ high seawall. Flood goes away and they float back down into a roadway again as if nothing had happened.
A year and a half ago(dec)I built a table top model, tested it out in a local swimming pool, took photos; sent it off to 22 coastal states governors. Roy Romer of AL was only one to answer, he forwarded it to his FEMA guy who wished me luck in building it for him for FREE. eeeYEAH...FREE.
I’m hoping Fred at the top of the ticket will help us to finally get a GOP House (since Reconstruction 135 years ago, we only reached parity with the rodents once, all the way back in 1968, and elected a GOP House Speaker, but 2 years later, the rodents won narrow control and have used every despicable, GOP-disenfranchising method at their disposal to screw us and the emerging GOP majority). Unfortunately, aside from the RINO Lamar! running for reelection to the Senate (whom I’d like to see replaced by an actual Conservative), it’s unlikely the gerrymandered 5-4 Dem House majority will be changed (it should be 7-2 GOP, with only my Nashville 5th district and Black Memphis’s 9th having rodents).
Fred actually carried ‘Rat-leaning Nashville in his Senate run, as did Frist (who is a Nashvillian), though I’m not so sure he’ll carry Nashville because most of the Dems that would support Republicans have either died off or moved to the neighboring counties (which have become hyper-Republican).
Haley Barbour would’ve also had my support, but the media would’ve done its usual bigoted anti-Southern schtick it employs against Republicans (but is always excepted for slime like Clinton/Gore/Edwards, etc). He’s proven himself to be one of the best and most modern Governors in MS probably in a century, and the state is finally and rapidly moving towards the GOP at the downballot and legislative level (the State Senate is now GOP, something unimaginable just 20 or 30 years ago).
You mentioned about your model and sending pics to coastal Governors. Do you mean Bob Riley of Alabama ? Roy Romer is the former Governor of Colorado. It’s an interesting idea, but more problematic is the situation with housing. Simply put, there should be absolutely ZERO homes built along the coast that are situated below sea level (especially those most prone to hurricane damage or flooding). Now, if some schmuck wants to build there WITHOUT being insured, fine, but otherwise forget it. The 9th Ward in NOLA has no business being rebuilt, period.
Yeah, it was Bob Riley, I get these foreign governors mixed up. At least they should be FLOATING houses, leak-proof and WELL anchored, yes? The brushoff by the FEMA guy illustates the entire liberal problem(I want it for FREE). Everyone’s first experience in life is as an infant : free lunch, free diaper change, free love : baby quickly learns to scream and momma comes running. Now with school running all the way into the 20s, even 30s for some, the idea of FREE LUNCH becomes firmly entrenched by the university years.
Thus in the liberal fortress of the university system, no conservative thinking is allowed. So, since universities are funded by state legislators, turn this “fairness doctrine” around on THEM. Any conservatives that get dumped on in a publically funded university gets its funding yanked in proportion to the offense.
Of COURSE you’ll get screams of RAGE by these infants who’ve never held a real JOB in their lives. The more they SCREAM, the more you tighten the screws. It’s called SPANKING BABY. Finally BABY gets the message : there are no-nos in life, like the something for nothing philosophy of socialism.
France, the birthplace of socialism, just upchucked it with Sarko’s election; might we also do the same? All it takes is a GOP legislature with the BALLS to yank U system funding : either dump your liberal professors/students, or we YANK your funding. Just DO IT and these snake pit liberals will get the message REALFAST : shape up or ship out!
Interesting history. We certainly hope to make gains at the state legislature level in spite of probably solidly losing the Senate and Gov.
Haley Barbour would have been an ideal candidate, BTW — but indeed the Dems would have done their anti-Southern bigotry routine on him.
Just as W was the most conservative guy around that that Republicans could elect in 2000, Thompson appears to be about the most conservative electable candidate in this cycle. And it will be an uphill battle to elect him.
The election is 16 months away, a LOT will happen by then. The MT dems, true to their mouse-nature, gobbled up all the excess in the budget/pantry that the reps had saved up; paying off their education buddies. But if we hit a financial downturn nationally or statewide, these dem-mice will find themselves in mouse traps and dumped outside for the ants to feast on. Remember, MT is next to the bottom of 50 states as to annual wages. Going still LOWER on the pay scale w/a dem gov, state senate, split house, and 2 dem senators= HELL to pay in nov ‘08; this is a CERTAINTY.
Again, the election is 16 months away and a lot will happen between now and then. A tree is known by its fruit, and Montanans have learned and will continue to learn how barren the dem-tree is.
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