Montana Dems select new Senate candidate

The Hill ^ | August 16, 2014 | Kristina Wong

[Clintonfatigued]

Montana Democrats have chosen a new candidate for the U.S. Senate race after Sen. John Walsh dropped out amid plagiarism allegations over his thesis at the U.S. Army War College, the Associated Press reported.

The new candidate is a little-known state lawmaker named Amanda Curtis, who is a first-term representative from Butte. She has less than three months to make her case to voters over her Republican opponent Rep. Steve Daines.

"If we win here in Montana, outspent and outgunned in a race where we were left for dead, it will send a message to Washington, D.C., that we want change," Butte said in a speech after a state convention. The vote was 82-46 for Curtis.

Curtis is a 34-year-old high school math teacher whose family has labor ties in the blue-collar town of Butte. She won her state House seat in 2012.

She has come out in support of "reasonable" gun control legislation that would expand background checks, and has criticized a 2011 medical marijuana law passed by the state Legislature as over restrictive, and pushed to increase hiring of Montanans for state public-works projects, according to the AP.

Montana is a prime target for Republicans looking to pick up six seats this November to take control of the Senate.

[Impy]

I don’t know why the rat SOS or Auditor wasn’t interested, neither would have had to risk their current job.

[cynwoody]

Strange.

She looks like Granny Curtis, commissar wannabe, even though she's only 34!

[cynwoody]

Curtis said during the rally that when she was 17, her brother killed himself with a gun at a party playing Russian roulette. She argued more can be done to prevent gun deaths, and told a few dozen gathered at the rally to stand up to fictitious counter arguments.

Sounds more like an ERA argument to me. Step up and spin that barrel, Amanda!