Wiki-wipe -- Or... remember when it wasn't acceptable to do politics using the state's equipment?

Remember when $50 worth of phone calls related to fundraising for a 527 group made by staffers from Gov. Martz's office was enough to cause a major upheaval that administration?

Well, then, you perhaps remember when the Montana press cared deeply about keeping the political operation separate from the governing side of the governor's office. And rightly so.

Montana Headlines quite agrees with Electric City that "outrage, OUTRAGE!" over relatively minor stuff is off-putting, so we won't express any.

But we also do agree with Electric City that it is at least worth taking note of the Wiki-wipe operation apparently being carried out on state-owned computers to keep any information about the governor's (joking?) boasts of election-day shenanigans off the Governor Brian Schweitzer Wikipedia entry.

A "high crime?" Hardly.

Part of a pattern of an operation that can't or won't acknowledge the difference between what belongs to the state and what should be done by political campaigns using their own time, money and equipment? It would seem reasonable to at least explore the concept.

Given that it was newsworthy when someone back in 2006 used a Senate computer to edit out a report of something embarrassing that Conrad Burns had said -- will it now be newsworthy to learn that someone in state government is using state-owned computers and servers to wipe Wikipedia of references to the governor saying that he used his power as governor to "turn some dials" to make Sen. Jon Tester's election happen?

Just curious -- we'll wait and see.

More reaction on the governor breaking the law

What Western Word said.

LITW comments on the above "crowing" post. (Did Jay read the same post that everyone else did? Or do crows sound different in Missoula than they do in Billings?) A point that should be clarified is that Jay read the MH post to mean that we believe the governor knew in advance that he was breaking the law. That would be a serious charge, and it is not at all what was meant.

A review of MH coverage of this imbroglio will reveal that our position from the beginning was that this was probably an oversight on the part of the governor, and not intentional:

...it seems as though this is probably the result of carelessness on the governor’s part, or on the part of one of his state employees. It probably didn’t even cross anyone’s mind that the governor couldn’t just do what he wanted to — which is a problem in and of itself.

Jay also comments on the very real phenomenon of "weird and obsessive hate" on the part of some Republican stalwarts vis a vis the governor. He seems to realize that it has something to do with the governor's talent for sticking his finger in the collective eye of the Republican Party -- but hey, this is politics, so there is no need to get bent out of shape over that sort of thing.

Anyway, we would note that in our next post on this matter, we specifically criticized the tendency to overblown rhetoric and over-reaction when it comes to the GOP talking about the governor. When the Montana GOP accused the governor of "arrogant, heavy-handed tactics" and implied an intentional breaking of the law, we had this to say:

There is a difference between intentionally arrogant actions in which one knowingly flouts the law and the kind of passive arrogance that is shown by not bothering to think about the fact that there might be rules to be followed. Montanans will understand the difference, and if it is clear that the governor was just being careless, then overstating the case isn't going to help the overall GOP message about the governor and the unsuitability of his style of governance.

Jay still would likely think that this was too harsh, but the point is that while MH still takes a dim view of carelessness or, at worst, "passive arrogance" in the apparent failure of the governor's office in neglecting to notice that maybe Dem. Sen. Joe Tropila's law might just apply to the governor, at no point did we take the view that the governor intentionally set out to break the law.

After it had been drawn to the governor's attention, however, it should have been a no-brainer, upon even the briefest reflection, for the governor and his staff to know they had broken the intent of the law as Sen. Tropila drafted it, even if it was broken unintentionally. What MH criticizes -- unapologetically -- is the inexplicable unwillingness on the part of the governor, after having time to think about it and to review the discussion that surrounded Tropila's legislation, to say "I made a mistake, you're right, my bad, won't happen again."

While the LITW commentary is reasonably thoughtful, the Lamnidae commentary was simply silly, implying that the dastardly Erik Iverson's intent in bringing this complaint forward was to bring Montana economic development grinding to a halt. It couldn't have had anything whatsoever to do with the governor using public employees and state-owned equipment to put out an ad that contained his re-election campaign slogan? Naw...

Seriously, we Republicans should be flattered that Lamnidae credits us with thinking on such a big-picture scale: "Hm, without the governor's PSA's, Montana's economy will come to a standstill, people's bank accounts will empty, they'll blame the governor, Roy Brown will be elected!" (Cue evil, haunting laughter.)

Following Lamnidae's argumentation, such as it is, it is apparently OK to break state law whenever it seems like it would be a good idea to do so. (Or is it only that Democrats can break the law if Democrats think it is a good idea -- it is easy to get confused.) If Lamnidae has a problem with the existence of this law, the complaint should be taken to the guy who drafted it (a Democrat,) the legislature that passed it (controlled by Democrats,) and the guy who signed it into law (also a Democrat.)

And that law can be overturned by any future legislature. But until then, good idea or bad, it is the law that everyone has to adhere to.

Sec. State Brad Johnson's office has done plenty of PSA's, but hasn't used his name, voice or face. If Johnson is bright enough to figure out how to get his job done within the law, surely the governor -- widely acclaimed by his fans to be one of the most brilliant politicians in Montana history -- should be able to manage to figure out how to promote Montana in spite of being hamstrung by what must seem like an eternity of an 8 month blackout on taxpayer funded ads.

It's official -- the governor broke the law

It shouldn't have taken the skills of a law professor, months of dragging things out, hours of testimony, and thousands in legal fees to know that the governor broke a law that he himself signed into law when he had state-funded employees using state-owned equipment make public service announcements that included his re-election campaign slogan of "Montana is on the Move."

But, even if the wheels of justice turn slowly, one hopes that they grind exceedingly fine, as the saying goes. And indeed the final judgment was against the governor and a fine was levied. He got off lucky, since he could have been fined $1000 per occurrence, and the ads were sent to multiple radio stations and presumably aired more than once.

The point was whether the governor was wrong -- and the official judgment is that he was. He of course knew he was, and yet he first attempted to bluster his way out of it, and then it appears that he tried some back-door communication with the Political Practices office to mitigate the disaster he saw coming. If so, those efforts may have been successful, since the final judgment was for a symbolic amount of money that will appear to many to be a mere slap on the wrist -- and since the final judgment includes language that refers to ambiguity in the law (although in the final analysis, the legislative intent was not found to be ambiguous.)

The governor gets some ammunition with which to blow more smoke screens to obfuscate the fact that he broke the law. As we have stated before, this could all have gone away with a little humility on the part of the governor and his staff, but they decided to go for broke -- which was a mistake. The worst part of this for the governor was not that he made the ads, it was rather that he attempted, in essence to cover it up by claiming that he really hadn't broken the law, even though the plain and obvious language of the law as interpreted by an ordinary non-lawyer was, well, plain and obvious.

This is the first time that the governor has not been able to skate smoothly around a controversy. This was never going to be a scandal that would break the governor's political fortunes, but it has put a little tarnish on his gleaming armor which had seemed so untouchable. Political death by a thousand cuts starts with a single nick...

The governor: "Take responsibility when you're wrong..."

The governor's new ad is out, and it is a pretty good one. It is straight from the current Democratic playbook -- the governor on the back of a horse, bawling calves in the background, etc.

The ad is all about symbolism, which is a big part of what an effective television ad is about. Just ask Barack Obama, who has been schooled by the McCain camp on that front recently with an effective, hilarious, mocking viral ad campaign that conveys the sense that Obama is an empty suit with nothing much behind the high-flown messianic rhetoric and worshipful fan-base.

But one should be careful, when massaging the symbolism, not to say inconvenient things that can bite you with sharp-toothed facts, and the governor did just that, when he said that he had "learned as a rancher" a list of good American, apple-pie things that included "taking responsibility when you're wrong."

The irony is that in at least one high-profile example to be found in the real world, the governor continues to refuse to take responsibility for breaking the law by doing Public Service Announcements (PSA's) -- using public funds to produce and distribute them -- while a declared candidate for public office.

There isn't much debate over whether the governor broke both the spirit and the letter of the law that he himself signed. The Democratic legislator who wrote the bill has confirmed that the Republican interpretation (i.e. the plain as the nose on your face interpretation) is what he intended. In other words, the law was intended to prevent public officials from doing exactly what the governor did with his "Ag Month" PSA's -- in this case, the governor even had the chutzpah to include his "Montana is on the Move" official campaign slogan in the "public service" announcement.

Ongoing coverage is on YouTube for those who want to listen to all the details of the special hearings now ongoing. One thing is clear -- the governor is refusing to accept responsibility for something he and his employees did that was wrong. As we have noted before, it would have been simple for the governor to say -- oops, we goofed and weren't watching the calendar closely enough. The matter would have blown over in days. It is precisely the governor's intransigence in admitting a relatively minor mistake that has turned this into much bigger matter of whether the governor considers himself to be accountable before the law or not.

We again note that the governor has made no more such PSA's -- if he were so certain that the intent of the legislation was not to ban the activity, why isn't he continuing to "serve the people of Montana" by making lots more PSA's?

We would also note that as Sec. State Brad Johnson told us in his Montana Headlines interview, it is perfectly possible for a government department to put out PSA's without using the name, face, or voice of the person in the department who is running for office.

The governor could have had the head of the Dept. of Agriculture or a volunteer announcer do the ads, could have left out the governor's campaign slogan "Montana is on the Move," and everyone would have been happy and unquestionably within the law.

If Sec. State Brad Johnson has no problems understanding and following the law -- and still manages to do the part of his job that requires putting out necessary PSA's -- why is is so difficult for the governor to do so?

The joke goes that one of the most dangerous places to be standing in Montana is between this governor and a television camera. Now, we have to add a radio microphone to the list of danger spots, it would appear.

More on the governor's public service announcements

As we noted before elsewhere, it would have been a simple thing for the administration to say that the governor's public service announcements (PSA's) that appeared after the primary were the result of some sort of careless clerical error over dates. Looking at the timing of it, that would have been a plausible defense, and upon which we would hope that the response of the Montana GOP would have been to say "shame on you," and then drop it.

It would have been painful to drop it, since the PSA's were pretty blatant (they prominently featured the governor's voice saying that "Montana's on the move" -- which is his campaign slogan.) But it would have been right to drop it and just tuck it away as one more example of carelessness, born perhaps of overconfidence.

But instead, the governor's office and campaign has continued to try to insist that nothing was done wrong, since the state didn't pay for the radio air time (does the state commonly pay for public service announcements anyway?)

Leaving aside the fact that state employee time and equipment were used to make the ads, we wonder -- if the PSA's were so legal and everything, why hasn't the governor continued to do more of them? Will we continue to see them through the campaign season? But of course, Democrats know that the whole point to the law that the governor himself signed was precisely to keep elected officials running for re-election or for another office from using PSA's to raise their name recognition and favorable image during election season. And the governor is an elected official running for re-election who appeared in a public service announcement during campaign season.

Often, Montana Headlines is in the position of saying that the GOP state party office has over-reacted to this or that misdeed by the Democratic party or Democratic candidates. We believe that a disproportionate response can become a sort of "crying wolf" that makes the public less likely to listen to us in the future when we have more serious assertions to make.

The Montana GOP is right not to let go of this one, though -- precisely because the administration has not been forthcoming about what should have been a pretty straightforward response from the governor of "my bad -- won't happen again." Again, it is the obfuscating response that is far more disturbing than are the ads themselves.

__________________________

Update: Read the MT GOP's brief here. The governor has made a "motion to dismiss or for summary judgment," or put differently, a "please make this go away without my having to admit I did anything wrong" request. The MT GOP is correctly making a strong case that this would be the wrong thing for the commissioner of political practices to do.

The brief does have its amusing moments (such as when it refers to the governor's "maniacal insistence" that the case be dismissed summarily without the usual due processes of discovery and presenting evidence. And what exactly is "diaphanous conduct?" That one is a head-scratcher, unless it is legalese of some sort. But this is a typical Montana Headlines digression into wordsmithing.

The document is commendable for its clarity, restraint, and measured tone. The bottom line is that the governor put a campaign slogan into a PSA, and that the ad violates both the spirit and the letter of a law that the governor himself signed into law. We'll see what happens, but this round goes to the state GOP as far as we're concerned around MH.

The governor's campaign's silly lies about Roy Brown -- (why no fact-checking?)

You'd think that if you were going to lie about something, you'd make sure that it was a good one -- one worth getting busted over.

So why lie about whether Roy Brown went to school in Montana? (Cf. our recent post.)

Let's review the statements by the governor's campaign manager, Harper Lawson (our emphasis):

"Governor Schweitzer does not need a lecture on the needs of rural Montana from a retired oil executive who grew up in Wyoming."

"What does Roy Brown know about Class AA schools in Montana, anyhow? Governor Schweitzer went to a Class C school here in Montana while Roy Brown was growing up in Wyoming."

Whether the better man running for Montana governor grew up in Wyoming didn't bother us, but neither did these statements ring quite true. So how about a little fact-checking?

Roy Brown was indeed born in Wyoming, and did grow up there... until he was about 6 months old or so. His family moved to Montana when he was the ripe old age of 4 -- in 1955, which was the year, incidentally, when the governor was born.

So, for the statement to be true about the governor going to a Class C school in Montana while Roy Brown was "growing up in Wyoming," well, the governor would have had to have started high school quite early -- several years before he was born, actually. Oops.

Again, all we can say is, "wow." Brown is really, really busted by the governor's campaign -- he didn't make it to Montana until he was 4 years old, carpet-bag in hand, no doubt!

How does the governor's campaign come up with such damming information about Sen. Brown?

If spending part of infancy there means that Brown "grew up in Wyoming," then that is a pretty innovative definition of the term "growing up." But then, Montanans are familiar with the liberties the administration occasionally takes with facts -- and shouldn't be surprised at this creative license.

And how about this one: all of Brown's grade-school and high-school were done in Billings, and he worked his way through college in Butte.

And since the governor's campaign brought up the issue, we would note the following: The governor, it seems, went to a private Catholic boarding school in Colorado for high-school, stayed in Colorado for college, and only returned to Montana for graduate school. It is pretty amusing for Lawson to wax eloquent about the governor going to a class C high-school when he apparently only did so for all of a year, before leaving the state.

Little white lies by the governor's campaign? Sure.

Who on earth cares about who went to high school where and when? Nobody with any sense.

Silly stuff? Yup, that's how we'll label this post.

But when the governor's spokesman lies when there is no reason to lie, that should raise some eyebrows. Is lying (or at the least a casual disregard for the truth) just a habit or reflex for the governor's campaign?

The original point to a Brown campaign spokesman making a reference to the governor only wanting to do debates in Montana cities where there are AA schools was to illustrate the point that the governor apparently doesn't want to be bothered with debating Brown in front of audiences in smaller Montana communities. The governor's spokesman tried to divert attention from that question by making up stuff about Brown that he thought no-one would fact-check. He thought that Montanans would see red at the horror of a purported out-of-stater running for governor. (How "old Montana" is that, anyway?) Well, the facts have been checked and found wanting.

And the question is still out there -- why won't the governor debate Brown in places like Miles City and Sidney?

One can understand why Chuck Johnson wouldn't think to fact-check something as basic as Lawson's comments -- but this episode should let Mr. Johnson know that he might, in the future, want to consider fact-checking every statement that comes out of the mouths of the governor's spokesmen before commiting them to print.

Operation Chaos -- an alternative view

Most of what follows was originally written as a response to the Hammond Report post advocating a Montana "Operation Chaos" -- a response that was shelved for the time being (but saved, never knowing when a slow day might make it worth writing about.) Then, Chuck Johnson made the topic briefly famous today, and nothing else is on the burner right now, so here goes:

....................

Rush Limbaugh is wrong on this one for a number of reasons. He's certainly not thinking about what is best for Montana's Republican candidates or the specific political situation here in Montana.

First, Sen. Clinton is hardly the more defeatable candidate -- in fact, there's a strong case to be made that she's the more formidable of the two, so why help make that case to the Democratic superdelegates?

Second, isn't anyone else around here old-fashioned? Whatever happened to the idea (around which the Montana GOP caucus was designed) that each party has the right to choose its own candidate? There is something a bit dishonorable to an old traditionalist about intentionally meddling in another party's nomination process. The fact that it has been done before, by both parties, doesn't change that.

Third, does chaos (even if successfully produced -- a doubtful proposition) really work in our favor? Obama continues to lead, and the buzz of an active campaign continues to bring lots of money into his coffers. Democrats are registering in droves to vote in this contest that is dragging out. Are we supposed to be wild about that, and interested in perpetuating this endless Democratic voter registration drive? Whoever registers now is just more likely to vote for Democrats again in the fall.

Fourth, if Montana were to follow the trend from every other state in the region, Obama should by all rights win the primary here. Since Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee, helping Sen. Clinton win Montana would only give Montana Democrats cover in the fall if Obama turns out to be as unpopular in Montana as the Montana Democrats already running from him seem to believe. They can just say, "don't blame us, we wanted the more moderate candidate!"

Finally, we have some important primaries ourselves. While Republicans are busy voting for Clinton, do we want Ron Paul to embarrass McCain in our own primary? Does it matter who we have facing off against Baucus and what kind of a campaign that Republican runs, even in the face of defeat? And don't we want Republicans to vote Republican even in uncontested primaries so those candidates will have that extra name recognition and "brand loyalty" when it comes to the fall ballot?

There seems to be a lot not to like about Operation Chaos -- even if one ignores the ethical sphere.

But then, Rush is the brilliant one. And Rush is interested in the big national race and the attention it gets him -- whereas the parochial Montana Headlines focus is on how best to get Montanans invested in our own statewide candidates, legislative candidates, and local candidates.

Ask any Republican running for office in Montana (including those in uncontested primaries) whether or not they want Republicans to go to the polls in June and fill in the circle next to their name. It would be surprising if any of them actually thought it would do them more good to have Republicans turn out in droves to vote for the Presidential candidate favored by the governor and his brother.

The governor did wrong -- but ratchet the rhetoric down a notch next time

Over at Big Sky Cairn, we posted on the governor's recent alleged breaking of campaign laws by doing public service announcements after he had officially filed for re-election. See also Western Word for more background on the imbroglio.

It is a valid and seemingly well-substantiated charge on the part of the Republicans, and as we have pointed out before, this sort of thing is absolutely necessary in order to keep the other party honest. But as we also pointed out in that post (dealing with the governor's fundraising trip to Kentucky Derby,) the GOP doesn't do itself any favors when it overdoes the rhetoric. Follow the preceding link for our full diatribe, but the heart of the critique was this:

It's just fine to file a complaint against the Dems when they appear to have broken a campaign law. In fact, it's necessary.

But at the same time, we should treat it like taking out a stinking bag of trash -- it's gotta be done, there's no pleasure in it, and we would prefer that the trash wasn't stinking in the first place.

The Montana GOP, rather than treat this like a big deal... should just matter-of-factly file a complaint when the Dems get caught...

...if the Dems want to claim to be the party of the squeaky clean, we'll hold them to it.

So the Montana Headlines reaction was less than enthusiastic upon reading things like this in the GOP press release:

...violating a key campaign finance law -- Well, maybe. Will Montanans agree that this is a "key" law that is a linchpin of democracy, or will they see it as a good law that makes sense (does any Montanan want public officials to use their positions to get what amounts to free campaign ads?) We think the latter.


...he's going to pay dearly for his illegal activity... -- Well, maybe. But as the Dems proved in their having to pony up money in FEC fines for violations in the Tester campaign, they tend to look at the paying of fines for breaking political practice laws as part of the cost of doing business. They probably have a line-item for it in the governor's campaign budget. With as much money as the governor has in his war-chest, he'd hardly feel the impact of the fines, even if they were in the tens of thousands of dollars.

And in addition, we don't yet know that he is even going to have to pay, so it shouldn't be stated with such certainty that "he's going to pay dearly." Stating that someone is guilty before they've even been officially charged by authorities, let alone convicted, is a practice that we would think Republicans would rather leave to Democrats.

After all, it was the governor himself (demonstrating the fact that he either doesn't understand the principle of "innocent until proven guilty," or doesn't care) who boasted during the Tester campaign that Sen. Conrad Burns was definitely going to jail and that Burns and Abramoff were going to share a cell with bunk-beds.

The fact that Governor Schweitzer signed this measure into law, and then turned around and broke that very same law, is the sort of arrogant, heavy-handed tactics Montanans have come to expect from him.
-- Maybe. It would be in character, if the stories are to be believed. But it might also just be a careless mistake, as we noted in our Big Sky Cairn post.

There is a difference between intentionally arrogant actions in which one knowingly flouts the law and the kind of passive arrogance that is shown by not bothering to think about the fact that there might be rules to be followed. Montanans will understand the difference, and if it is clear that the governor was just being careless, then overstating the case isn't going to help the overall GOP message about the governor and the unsuitability of his style of governance. Some people might just think he's being picked on, and feel sorry for him.

There are more examples in the GOP complaint itself of what seems to be overstated language (keeping in mind that in a formal complaint, specific language sometimes has to be used to match the language in the law being appealed to,) but regular MH readers will get the idea.

Measured rhetoric is generally more effective than overwrought rhetoric. Republicans do better when we act like responsible adults and methodically expose Democratic misdeeds using carefully chosen, even understated, words that we don't later have to retract or revise. There is room for humorous hyperbole in a blog-post or a stump-speech, but press releases and formal complaints should be, if anything, understated, when making charges against Democrats.

The governor probably did wrong on this one. The Commissioner of Political Practices has made the initial statement that this should have been filed as an ethics complaint, and thus not made public, but the details will be examined and we'll find out the facts.

Based on the Gazette article, there seems to be a definite problem -- since on the one hand a spokesman for the governor claims that "no state funds were used," and yet the Agriculture Department official says he spent 10-12 hours preparing the ad, then used a government e-mail account to send it out to radio stations. That sounds like state funds were used -- so why say they weren't? And the ads were played free of charge as public service announcements -- precisely the kind of thing the law intended to prohibit. So why try to claim that they somehow weren't covered by the law? As Electric City pointed out, the thing to watch is how the governor responds.

And on that score, our chief executive gets an obvious failing score. The failure to own up to the truth on this is potentially much more serious than the transgression itself.

But the making of these ads, while probably against the law, doesn't rise to the level of an Abscam scandal -- it's rather just one more relatively small and tedious example of why we need someone with a serious and professional attitude as our new governor. Like, say, Roy Brown. And that, we believe, is something that the people of Montana are going to be able to understand quite well by the time this campaign is over.

Sen. Tester and earmarks

The ever-vigilant Western Word has told the story that amazingly enough (note: sarcasm alert) didn't get told in the Billings Gazette today.

The Gazette notes that Sen. Tester, like Sen. Baucus, voted against a moratorium on earmarks. Earmarks are a common way that pork-barrel projects get put through without debating the merits of the project.

There is a case to be made for earmarks, so the vote is not necessarily bad for Montana. The point, as Western Word notes, is that during the campaign, Tester used earmarks as a baseball bat to beat then Sen. Conrad Burns over the head.

Tester's spokespeople are now trying to say that he never opposed earmarks, unfortunately for them, Western Word has done the research:

That reply is not true. Not even partly true. During an October 9, 2006, PBS debate in Bozeman, Tester said, “I don’t support earmarks, period.” A few seconds later, he added, “I’m not for earmarks.”

A link is provided to check out the video of the debate.

So why isn't the vigilant Montana press doing this kind of homework, and asking hard questions of Sen. Tester? Why doesn't the Gazette article mention Tester's constant beating of the drum against earmarks in his campaign challenge to Burns?

There are a few options that Tester could say and be truthful, but one of those options would not appear to be the lie that he has chosen to use: that he was "never against earmarks."

So what could he say and be truthful and believable?

"Look, I was just clueless, and didn't know what I was talking about back then. I was wrong. I didn't know that earmarks were good for Montana -- or that they would be good for my later political posturing.

I just said what I needed to say to get elected."

Or...

"Look, I never thought there was anything wrong with earmarks, and I knew good and well that once I was Senator, I would earmark with the best of them in order to bring spending projects to Montana so I could get re-elected.

I just said what I need to say to get elected, and knew I would likely get a free ride from the press on the issue."

Montana Headlines has time and again pointed out that Tester has repeatedly failed to support real earmark reform -- and it's not because there haven't been any opportunities to sign on to meaningful legislation. There have been plenty. This is just one of many examples of where "squeaky clean" Sen. Tester campaigned one way and is playing the Washington game in quite another. Not that this should surprise anyone -- it certainly doesn't surprise us.

Too bad the Montana press, which rode to Sen. Tester's rescue in his campaign against Sen. Burns, isn't showing any signs of playing "watchdog" on any of these questions. That watchdog role doesn't seem nearly as important now that Gov. Martz and Sen. Burns have been dispensed with.

The suspense is over -- Sen. Baucus is running for re-election

So, our senior Senator is, after all, going to run for re-election. We were pretty certain that he was going to do so when he was aggressively shaking down all of those K-street lobbyists for big bucks with the help of Leo Giacometto. But you never know until the candidate actually pays the filing fee. So far, neither Republican candidate -- state Rep. Mike Lange or Kirk Bushman -- has formally filed, but they will certainly do so.

Here we are in a season of "change" and Montanans are having to decide whether to send Sen. Baucus back for his 6th term with the help of an unprecedented amount of out-of-state lobbyist money. Hm. I wonder how the Democratic Party in Montana is going to nuance their campaign theme: "Vote for change in Washington! Except when we say not to!"

Many will point to his senior position on the Senate Finance Committee as a reason to re-elect him. That's a good reason -- except that it's not. First of all, the Finance Committee doesn't decide on spending in Montana, as many mistakenly believe -- that's the Senate Appropriations Committee, and we lost our seat on that committee when we traded in Sen. Burns for Sen. Tester.

No, what the Finance Committee chair is really, really, really good for is raising lots of money from certain sectors -- namely, sectors that are regulated by decisions made by the Finance Committee. Why else did Baucus manage so easily and quickly to raise $9 million and counting, with nearly all of it from outside of Montana? Probably not because all of those corporate types are concerned about the needs of Montana. More likely because they expect to get something.

Actually, the fact that Sen. Baucus is a long-time Finance Committee member, and for years now his party's ranking member, is a pretty good reason not to re-elect him. After all, the Finance Committee is responsible for the solvency of things like Social Security and Medicare.

And is Social Security more secure today than it was when Sen. Baucus became the ranking Democrat on the committee? Hardly. It is more imperiled than it ever was, and it is hard to escape the notion that Sen. Baucus has been asleep at the wheel on the Senate Finance Committee -- fiddling while Rome burns (to mix metaphors.) In fact, America may thank Montana for voting out Baucus so someone else can head up that committee.

Sure, one can blame Republicans on that committee, too -- but what has Baucus done to boldly change course during his time as chairman? The only Senators who are willing to propose some bold ideas about entitlement reform right now are Republicans like Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint -- and unfortunately they are a minority even within their own party. But at least the Republicans have some people on the field -- Baucus hasn't even suited up yet when it comes to entitlement reform. Should we give him another 6 years on Finance? We're not convinced.

We realize that Sen. Baucus is the overwhelming favorite in this race, barring something really, really unexpected. Yes, he took money from Abramoff, he has Leo Giacometto helping him raise money from lobbyists, and he has been in Washington too long -- but we doubt that those slogans will be as persuasive to Montana Democrats in 2008 as they were when they used them against Burns in 2006. In fact, in the past we have gotten some indignant responses from Democrats when we have made these comparisons.

Well, hidden somewhere in Baucus's $9 million, doesn't there have to be at least an aggregate of a couple hundred thousand from people who are getting something pretty sweet from our senior Senator? Just taking a wild stab on the odds. And if Burns was there too long when running for his 4th term, then how much more so would that be true for a guy wanting to check in for a 6th? Just asking.

So what kind of really, really unexpected event would be necessary to make the race close? Oh, maybe something like lots of hard-hitting investigative journalism, going through that $9 million with a fine-tooth comb. Coming soon to a Montana newspaper near you.

Humor in the Gazette

It's nice to see that Mike Dennison has a sense of humor in his reporting. Dennison quotes former state Rep. Kevin Furey, D-Missoula, who protests that he didn't get his new state job because of knowing the right people:

Furey said he didn't get hired because of political connections and that he had applied for numerous other state jobs before getting this one. "This was the only one that I was even offered," he said.

In the very next sentence, the last of the article, Dennison does what a good reporter does -- just tells the facts:

Furey is married to Sarah Elliott, who is communications director for Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

We have part of the new Democratic guard, such as Sen. Jon Tester, claiming to take ethical standards to new heights in Montana. And then we have old-fashioned political back-scratching using government jobs.

Democrats across the state who want government jobs in Helena should be beating down the doors to run for the legislature -- its the new revolving door.

The sad part of it is that Furey's job is to be an "energy development officer." Missoula, as everyone knows, is a real hotbed of energy development.

Perhaps we're missing something here, but wouldn't a good energy development officer be someone with experience in energy development? Maybe Furey has such experience, but if so, it's a well-kept secret. We find it hard to believe that Furey is the most qualified person for such a task that the executive branch could find.

But then, given that virtually nothing has been done by this executive branch to promote energy development in Montana over the last 4 years, Furey will fit right in.

Oh, yes, a little wind energy development has happened (with interesting ownership connections, it seems,) and that's great. If only we could set up some thermo-sensitive turbines just outside of Helena to harness all the hot air being expended, talking about energy development -- now then we'd maybe be getting somewhere.

We will have to wait for a Gov. Roy Brown before Montana can start to realize some of our energy revenue potential that has the coffers of states like North Dakota and Wyoming over-flowing.

The Hardin prison -- still not out of the woods

We mentioned back in April that we were glad that the new Hardin detention facility was going to be open for business, helping the local economy in that part of the state -- a part of the state that needs a boost.

We noted at the time that rumors had been making the rounds about politics playing a role in jeopardizing the financial viability of the facility -- but that we were glad it seemed to be turning out OK in spite of it all.

Apparently we spoke too soon, since the facility is now trying to get permission to house out-of-state inmates ("post-conviction felons on a short-term basis of no more than two years") in order to make ends meet. Charles Johnson, in his piece, alludes to the political change of course that put the Hardin facility in unexpectedly dire straits:

Tom McKerlick of the Two Rivers Authority, Hardin's economic development arm that owns the facility, said officials believed the project had the support of former state Corrections Director Bill Slaughter. But he said it lacks the support of Director Mike Ferriter, who took over the state agency in July 2006.

In addition, U.S. Marshal Dwight MacKay of Montana had told them the U.S. Marshals Service was interested in space at the Hardin facility, but, as it turned out, the private prison in Shelby got the contract.

"Quite honestly, we were told by the Marshals Service and the state, you build it and we will come," (Hardin city attorney Rebecca)Convery said.

She said jail has lined up some short-term contracts from out of state, but the Corrections Department won't allow them.

Yes, that's right -- a private prison (owned by Corrections Corporation of America) in Shelby ended up getting the U.S. Marshals contract over a city-owned prison in Hardin, even though the latter had apparently been led to believe that it would get the contract. I guess this is the sort of thing one needs to get in writing from the feds.

And the supply of state prisoners directed Hardin's way apparently hasn't met the expectations that were raised when the facility was planned. This is part of the reason why the state GOP noted that Corrections Corporation of America executives are donors to a certain statewide campaign.

To the extent that any of this is connected, well, to the victors go the spoils, as the saying goes. Too bad the people of Hardin got caught in the middle of this one, but that's politics. The legislature can help that city in the coming session by clearly allowing the facility to go forward with its plan to house some out-of-state inmates.

One hopes that legislators of both parties, especially from Billings and eastern MT, can come to some agreement on this. Prisons aren't exactly most people's idea of the ideal growth industry for a state, but the facilities are needed, this one is built, and the state needs to help it be successful.

Sen. Jon Tester on days with "no public events" -- also, how to read between the lines on "Begin Travel..."

Montana Headlines recently had the honor of being linked to by a site we hadn't heard of -- Firedoglake -- which was celebrating our Sen. Jon Tester's PAC fundraiser at the home of progressive activist Rick Jacobs. (Check out the cool pic -- apparently Sen. Tester drinks beer when having a story done on him for the media, but drinks wine when cruising for checks in Beverly Hills.)

At least we assume that this was the location, since Mr. Jacobs lives in Beverly Hills -- perhaps Mr. Jacobs also has a home in the Virgin Islands for tax shelter purposes. (Yes, that was gratuitous, but it is simply too gratifying to talk about Democrats and their use of or defense of tax shelters for their super-wealthy -- hard not to find an excuse to work it in.)

Anyway, Firedoglake linked to the MH post commenting on the votes Sen. Baucus and Tester cast against the confirmation of Judge Leslie Southwick.

The blog uses the MH post as evidence for crediting Sen. Tester with being a "good influence" on Sen. Baucus. But of course as we have extensively documented and discussed, while on occasion Sen. Baucus casts a vote in the general vicinity of the center-right, he doesn't particularly need any liberal/progressive influences when it comes to voting against conservative judicial nominees.

But we digress.

Getting back to the Tester PAC fundraiser, we checked Sen. Tester's schedule for the day. It just says "No Public Events" for November 10. And for the prior day, it simply says "Begin travel" at the end of the day's schedule.

Attentive readers will note that the schedule is otherwise peppered with "Begin travel to Washington, D.C." or "Begin travel to (insert name of town), MT."

Of course, there's nothing on November 9 that says, "Begin travel to Beverly Hills."

Those who laud Sen. Tester for his transparency justify the adulation at least in part by pointing out that when we know who a public official is meeting with, we can know whether they're being unduly influenced by money and what-not.

So why wouldn't Sen. Tester put his fundraisers on the schedule -- letting us know where he is traveling to raise money and who he is meeting with? After all, don't we want to "follow the money" when it comes to transparency? Or are U.S. Senators only unduly influenced by meetings that happen in their official Senate offices?

Might other meetings happen that twist a Senator's arm to vote in a certain way if he wants to get certain campaign contributions? Ones that aren't on the official schedule? Seems as though we've had this discussion before here on MH.

From the Firedoglake post, it is pretty clear that while the folks at that soirée were still pleased with having a Montana Senator of their very own (it's the new status symbol,) they were hammering Sen. Tester pretty hard when they didn't think he was toeing the line adequately, or when he wasn't doing enough to influence the votes of wayward (from their perspective) Senate Democrats.

At one point, the reader is almost led to feel sorry for Sen. Tester after he gets grilled on Senate votes that could have indirectly forced troop withdrawals from Iraq. An observer who was present said afterwards that Tester "looked forlorn" following one exchange.

Yes, Sen. Tester, these out-of-state progressives who pumped money into your campaign (and to whom you are still holding out your hat) do indeed expect to get their money's worth. Get used to "looking forlorn" when you go asking for cash when you haven't voted properly.

Charles Johnson on internet schedules

Charles Johnson discusses some of the history behind Montana's elected officials making public their daily appointment schedules, to the press and now to the public.

While transparency is a worthy goal, one wonders whether Johnson actually believes that Gov. Schweitzer isn't having highly newsworthy but private meetings or conversations with people who want to keep their business with him out of the public eye -- people with whom he will later have "private" meetings in public.

Just because the governor allows reporters to attend any meeting in his office that they want to attend doesn't mean that they are getting the private contents that they as reporters crave.

In fact, the case could be made that this policy can lull reporters into a false sense that they know what is "really" going on.

Undermanned news departments in Helena are already highly dependent on "he said/she said" sources of information -- getting one politician's statement and another's reaction or countering viewpoint.

During the last legislative session, we learned a lot of what individual legislative leaders and executive branch figures said the meaning of a particular piece of legislation was, but the media spent entirely too little time doing the work of talking to people who might be affected by a given proposed law.

Johnson softened the blow by highly praising the governor's open-meeting policy first before mentioning that he is the only "top tier" state-wide official who doesn't publish his daily schedule on the web.

He interestingly praises the bloggers who pressured Baucus and Rehberg (actually, the leftward bloggers pretty much only directed their indignant bile at Rehberg, and while they may have said a gentle word here or there, they mostly gave Baucus a pass.)

And now that Brad Johnson -- whom the lefty bloggers despise with a passion -- is publishing his schedule, there hasn't yet been a whisper of praise that we have noted coming from those same bloggers, for whom Tester's publication of a schedule took on a sort of Holy Grail quality.

So it is interesting that Johnson would mention those bloggers when their failure to praise Johnson or criticize the governor amounts to a rather deafening silence.

Johnson, to be sure, is interested in openness in general, both because he believes in it and because access to information is the stuff of which his job is made. But for a political reporter to fail to discuss is the partisan gamesmanship that has surrounded this issue seems a curious omission.

Posting those schedules on the web

The Billings Gazette editors sort of criticized the governor for not posting his schedule on the web.

The editors were praising the Montana Congressional delegation for being the first full delegation to post schedules on the web, and they noted that Republican Secretary of State Brad Johnson is starting to do the same thing (and incidentally plans to retroactively post as much as he can.)

What was the governor's response? Basically that anyone, particularly the press, who wants to ask what he is doing can call and ask.

Funny thing, when Rep. Denny Rehberg gave a similar response when Sen. Tester began posting his schedule, he was lambasted for this by the left.

Maybe MH doesn't spend as much time on the liberal blogs as might be advisable, but there seems to be quite a bit of silence about this, compared to the days of the "where's Denny" campaigns.

Perhaps when a Democratic governor is the one who says "call my office and ask what I'm doing if you want to know," it's different than when a Republican Congressman says it.

But kudos to the Gazette editors for writing:

Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Attorney General Mike McGrath told the Associated Press that their schedules are available to those who ask. But that's not the same as posting them online.

And presumably, concerned Democrats will start calling the governor's office every day, asking for a schedule to see if one is produced, to see how detailed it is, and to see if it matches reality.

The MH opinion is unchanged that while some information on the schedules may be useful, most of it amounts to rather silly gamesmanship. Anyone who thinks that any meetings at which truly unethical things are done would be posted on the web in an undisguised way is, well, spinning a web of dreams.

To quote ourselves from the above link:

There is nothing wrong with Sen. Tester publishing a schedule, and in fact there are good things about it. Perhaps curious bloggers will start e-mailing or calling the Montanans listed on Tester's schedule as having met with him, and asking them what was said in that meeting. Perhaps the responses to those e-mails and phone enquiries will be posted on the internet, and we will all be enlightened.

Again, if that's been happening, we've not noticed it.

Thompson gets it right on federalism -- but will the GOP get it?

Fred Thompson has already taken hits from some conservatives in his own party because of his votes against federal tort reform measures when he was a Senator. While there are those who like to imply that Thompson's votes were more reflective of his having spent most of his working life as an attorney, there is no evidence that Thompson hasn't generally been an across-the-board federalist.

The Club for Growth's recent White Paper on Thompson notes that he did vote for pork in Tennessee, but that it wasn't ridiculous (cf. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska,) and that it would be hard to find someone who didn't vote for federal spending in his own district or state.

Thompson has decided to step firmly into another particular sticky (for Republicans) federalist argument -- the Terry Schiavo case. When asked about it, he understandably wasn't excited about dredging it up, but when he spoke, it was clear:

"Local matters, generally speaking, should be left to the locals," Thompson said Thursday in what seemed to be a gentle way of suggesting that Congress had overstepped its bounds. "I think Congress has got an awful lot to keep up with."

Thompson also made sure not to impugn the motives of any of the religious conservatives whose support he now needs for his presidential campaign. "I know that good people were doing what they thought was best," he said.

Just so -- on both counts. There were disturbing things about the Schiavo case -- most disturbing of which was that decisions about her care weren't being made by the family members who seem to have cared the most about her. So it was understandable that the case was an emotional one for some conservatives concerned about the erosion of respect for human life. But this was essentially a family dispute that normally would be resolved amicably with the help of responsible physicians -- and that would normally not get past local, let alone state, courts and government. The involvement of the U.S. Congress in the case was a unwarranted direct interjection of the federal government into what was already a difficult situation for all concerned.

If we really want state and local governments to handle their own affairs without interference from the feds, we conservatives need to be consistent -- even when we find that the right thing isn't being done at the state and local level. To do otherwise makes a mockery of our federalist principles, and goes a long ways towards proving that modern Republicans are just as interested in the exercise of naked power by the federal government as Democrats have been for many decades. And not just through drunken sailor spending.

Thompson is to be commended for his stance -- it will incidentally make the GOP a more attractive place for basically conservative but recently alienated suburban voters. One hopes that those social conservatives whose initial response is an angry "what?!" will thoughtfully reflect on what Thompson has said, and learn something about Constitutional separation of powers.

Rudy Giuliani is attractive to many of those suburban voters, but he would lead the GOP and the country in a less than ideal direction, both from a social perspective and an authoritarian perspective.

If Thompson can walk that line that shows that he is a strong conservative -- but that he will not jettison traditional conservative restraint to pursue pet agendas on the right through means usually associated with liberals -- he may be just what the doctor ordered for an ailing GOP.

Recent word is that Thompson is proving to be very good connecting one-on-one in talking with voters, but there are still questions about his effectiveness in speeches and interviews -- a must for a successful GOP campaign in 2008. Conservatives continue anxiously to watch the entire GOP field to see if the leader we need will emerge.

More on Tester and that money

Why not make it 4 days in a row? As long as we're being unhinged and wingnutty around here, let's go with it.

First off, Wulfgar is exactly right that we misread and thus misstated the website we linked to, pointing out some figures about the zipcodes where Tester money vs. Burns money came from. We had said that 5 of the top 10 zip codes for Tester were from New York City, and it was actually 4 of 10.

He is also correct that according to the website, zipcodes don't necessarily represent where the donor lives, since a business address could be listed. Presumably, though, if someone's business address is in New York City, they will generally live in the NYC metro area and are unlikely to be commuting from Montana.

As to the claim that on-line donations will register as being from the place the server is -- that's harder to imagine, since the information on opensecrets.org only includes donations larger than $2000, and anyone who has made donations larger than a mere $200 knows that the FEC requires donors to provide their name, mailing address, occupation, and employer. Doesn't matter if you're donating online, by mail, or with a fundraiser personally twisting your arm behind your back. Maybe someone from Tennessee donating $2000 online to Tester would list a NY zipcode, but it's hard to imagine why.

Nonetheless, the mention and link was mainly was meant as a tongue-in-cheek tweak in light of initial reports that the donors through whom Hsu may have funneled money to Tester were from New York. Spin? Oh, maybe just a little. Lying? Didn't mean to-- although that can't of course be proven.

The fact is that while Burns raised more money in Montana than did Tester, he also raised more out-of-state money than Tester did -- yielding a higher percentage of out-of-state money than Tester.

So while it's great fun poking at Jon Tester's New York connection (we also wouldn't want to forget that famous meet and greet in Manhattan that night when his on-line schedule said he was on the Senate floor,) it wouldn't be particularly productive to attempt to defend Burns by making a point about out-of-state hard money. (527s like MoveOn are a different matter, but we'll leave it at that.)

There is perhaps also a bit of misunderstanding about our posts commenting on the timing and relationship between Hillary Clinton's decision to return money raised by Hsu and Tester's decision to do the same.

First of all, if we can't have Bill Richardson (which it's becoming obvious that we can't,) the MH candidate of choice on the Democratic side would be Hillary Clinton. No secret here (see our note on "Hillary the underestimated.")

And not because she is the most easily defeated (we very much doubt this theory, if for no other reason than she is the least likely of the Democratic candidates to self-destruct.) Rather, it is because she would make a better President than Obama (let alone Edwards,) and because with her, we'd at least have a shot at some decent triangulation.

The point was not so much to tie Tester to Clinton as it was to point out that it was curious that a Senator who ran on ethical purity was beaten to the punch by a candidate about whom 90% of Americans have already made up their minds regarding her ethics or lack thereof. Frankly, whether Clinton announced a return of the money on day 1 or day 51, it probably wouldn't have affected people's inclination to vote for or against her.

Still, mention of the Hillary connection bought MH the compliment of "clever little weasel" from Wulfgar, so it was a point that ended up being worth having made, especially in light of the fact that this is apparently "sweeps week" for conservative Montana blogs over at Chicken is Not Pillage.

There was a more serious assertion on Wulfgar's part, however, and that is that multiple Senate votes by Conrad Burns were purchased for contributions that aggregated at less than $150,000, and that it is firmly established that votes were changed by Burns in return for these donations, and not as a result of him be persuaded that his earlier votes were wrong.

In a campaign that raised $9.3 million, it can't help but seem rather quaint, and even touchingly nostalgic, that a U.S. Senator could be purchased for so little in campaign contributions. But let us assume that it is nevertheless true. Montana and the country would be better off had Burns won the election, but there comes a point where it is time to bury Burns rather than praise him, and defending the votes alleged to be linked to the Abramoff contributions (as opposed to using the standards set by Democrats in that race to critique Tester) is just that point.

But holding onto that assumption, the tip of the iceberg right now is that Norman Hsu has channeled at least $1.8 million since 2004 into the campaigns of major Democratic candidates across the country. Are we to believe that Burns could be bought for relatively small sums by U.S. Senate race standards, while Hsu had no reason to expect the Democratic party to deliver him anything for what will probably exceed $2 million by the time the counting is done? Can't have it both ways.

The MH post yesterday actually made the point that there did not yet appear to be proof of illegality in the donations to Tester. Which raised the question of why (other than playing follow the leader) he was giving the money back.

Today, we learn that there is probably more to it. By now, everyone knows that a mailman, William Paw, and his family have managed to contribute more than $225,000 to Democratic candidates across the country -- and that it looks like the money actually came from Hsu (and that Hsu in turn got the money by bilking investors.) $3000 of those dollars went to Jon Tester's campaign, and thus at least that money is likely more than tainted, unless evidence emerges that this particular mailman was independently wealthy, and only lived in a "modest home" for show.

Tester is fortunate that this broke when it did. He certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with Hsu's schemes. But down the road he may have found himself being pressured to go along with voting for this or that amendment on behalf of the great Democratic benefactor Norman Hsu, who had incidentally raised a little money for him as well.

We won't know how it ever would have played out, but will assume the best. Given the increasingly enormous sums of money that go into every Senate campaign and the seemingly limitless number of special-interest bills and amendments on which Senators vote, this won't likely be our last opportunity to find out -- about Tester, or any other U.S. Senator.

So what did Sen. Tester discover about that money?

Last weekend, we touched on Sen. Tester's failure to give back, immediately, out-of-state campaign contributions raised by the Democratic felonious fundraiser Norman Hsu. We pointed out yesterday that even Hillary Clinton knew what to do.

Tester originally announced that he would give back the donations if found to be improper or illegal. Of course, what would anyone do with donations found to be illegal? Nothing special about Sen. Tester's ethical standards as far as anyone can tell on this point.

Today, we learn that Tester is now giving the contributions back. Was anything found to be improper or illegal? Doesn't sound like it.

Tester is echoing Clinton's announcement yesterday when his own spokesman said that Tester was going to "err on the side of caution and return the donations from Mr. Hsu's associates..."

Quite interesting that a few days ago, Tester's well-honed ethical sense told him he should "await a ruling" on the donations, as the Billings Gazette headline put it. (A ruling from whom? No-one said.)

So what stopped Tester from leading the way, and "erring on the side of caution" when the story first broke? Do we know anything more about the donations or their questionable source? Not really.

Apparently, the ruling that mattered was neither Sen. Tester's personal ethical caution nor an official "ruling" from law enforcement or the FEC.

What mattered were the political winds blowing from the Clinton Presidential campaign. A very proud day for Sen. Tester: leading the ethical way in Washington, showing us a new kind of politics.

Sen. Clinton shows Sen. Tester the way on ethics?

Sen. Jim Webb infamously assumed responsibility for the conduct of the Iraq war in his response to the President's last State of the Union Address, when he said on behalf of the Democratic Party that if the President didn't take action, "we will be showing him the way." No word on whether Sen. Webb's directives are making it to the generals in the field -- but that is another story.

Today, we have a "show the way" story with a sort of "man bites dog" flavor to it. A Clinton, of all people, showed our squeaky-clean Sen. Jon Tester the way today. The way, that is, that he should have responded to the discovery that he had some potential funny-money in his campaign coffers.

As we pointed out yesterday, it should have been a no-brainer for Sen. Tester to return or donate to charity the money funneled to him in the last campaign that came via the ministrations of fugitive fundraising felon Norman Hsu.

Sen. Clinton announced this evening that she would be returning $850,000 in contributions raised by Hsu. Even for a campaign as cash-rich as Clinton's, that has to smart just a bit.

And yet Sen. Tester couldn't figure out what to do with a mere $3750.

Sen. Clinton's campaign spokesman said: "we have decided out of an abundance of caution to return the money (Hsu) raised for our campaign."

Hm. An abundance of caution? Isn't that sort of like going out of one's way to avoid any association with unethical conduct -- i.e. the sort of thing that Sen. Tester and his supporters archly pointed out that they (unlike the evil Sen. Burns) would always do?

You know, the "above it all" sort of thing -- like posting a daily schedule and acting like it was an ethical and moral act on the level of Moses bringing the Ten Commandments down from Mt. Sinai.

There may have been nothing illegal about the contributions that Tester received. You can bet that there was probably nothing illegal about most of the money Clinton is returning, either.

Sen. Clinton has learned a thing or two over the years about the dangers of appearing to do something wrong or appearing to cover it up. It's one of the strengths that she brings to the table in her bid for the White House.

One would think that Tester wouldn't have to learn such a lesson, since ethics related to fundraising played just a wee bit of a role in his campaign and subsequent victory. But one would have thought wrong.

Is it really that difficult?

Back in March, when Republicans in Helena had done some really dumb things, we asked a similar question.

We refrained from using that same question regarding this latest GOP scandal involving Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, fearing that someone would take it as an intentional (or more embarrassingly, unintentional) double-entendre.

The mind boggles, as with the Sen. David Vitter scandal, the Foley scandal, the Newt Gingrich scandal, etc. Is it really that hard to figure out that trumpeting moral values while living like an alley cat (with apologies to any alley cats reading this column) is a formula for political disaster?

Mitt Romney is running scared from his buddy Larry right now. Who knows who else will be affected by this?

Many years ago, there was a meeting (true story, as we recall) of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. A speaker was scheduled to speak on ethical practice in psychiatry.

He came up to the podium, addressing the large auditorium full of shrinks, and said something to the effect of: "Here's your ethical guidelines: don't have sex with your patients. Any questions?"

After the stunned silence, he continued on to say that nearly every ethical disciplinary action he had been involved with in shrinkdom involved said professionals having sex with those they were supposed to be helping. He may not have said, "is it really that difficult to stay out of trouble?" in so many words, but that was the gist of the short talk -- and included in the talk was the admonition that "you will get caught, eventually."

Professional politicians probably more often resemble those who need psychiatric help than they do those who can provide it, but the analogy is pretty clear. Your sins will find you out. Maybe you'll slide by once, but not indefinitely.

Republicans often complain that there is a double standard involved regarding sex scandals -- after all, no one really seems to care if Democrats are out doing the wild thing with the wrong thing -- and if they are caught in flagrante delicto, their fellow Democrats defend them to the death.

This really isn't a valid complaint, however. After all, Democrats don't claim to be a party that defends traditional moral standards.

A more valid complaint would be that, John Edwards, a man who claims to be a class-warfare populist and who decries the existence of "two Americas" lives in a 28,000 square ft. house (when, with a bit of economizing he could probably squeeze into a 9000 square ft. house) -- and yet is embraced and forgiven for this by his progressive supporters.

Or that Al Gore wastes energy and produces CO2 on a striking scale at his own mansion and in jetting around in private airplanes rather than flying commercial or taking a train -- and yet is treated as an environmental demigod.

Or that President Clinton abused a grossly unequal relationship in the workplace to satisfy his sexual needs -- and yet is considered to be a women's rights icon.

Here, too, these aren't perhaps valid complaints, since Democrats have never given much credence to the idea that personal behavior is predictive of or relevant to public policy.

Put differently, average Republicans have traditionally tended to look at someone like Rudy Giuliani's shabby and shameless treatment of his second wife and wonder to themselves, "if he'd do that to his wife, what kind of conscience will he have about things that will affect me?"

On the other hand, Democrats tend to look pretty strictly at how political figures use political power -- how do they vote, what use do they make of rhetoric, and can they outsmart the opposition. Even when the hypocrisies in their personal lives would seem to have quite direct illustrative bearings on issues that progressive Democrats care about (see the above examples,) those hypocrisies tend to be ignored.

Perhaps a lesson for Republicans is that we should bring our candidates up short when they start to talk about "family values" and what-not, telling them that we really don't care a whit how they talk -- or even how they live. We should tell them that we only care about how they vote and how effective they are at pushing forward conservative policies.

For the most part, Republicans are increasingly voting that way, but old habits die hard.

The problem is that a whole lot of Republicans really want leaders who are faithful to their spouses, who don't do drugs, who don't seduce interns and pages, and who can be moral examples for Americans to look up to.

But given all of our recent experiences, perhaps the real take-home message for Republicans should be that if a candidate decides to make his personal moral values a campaign issue -- think about voting for someone else.