Montana Republicans continue their lock on the state legislature

MH dealt with the major Montana races in last Friday's column and with the Montana GOP's shocking sweep of the Public Service Commission on Monday. Today I want to talk about what is (in my estimation) the big prize: the Montana state legislature.

America's Founding Fathers set things up such that the legislature was the most dominant branch of government -- representatives of the people who make the laws. Granted, in the modern imperial era, the executive branch at the federal level grabs a lot of power for itself and simply legislates by regulation and executive order. At the state level, however, governors don't have those kinds of powers -- primarily because states have to balance their budgets (well, except for California, which is our own personal Greece.)

So, in a state like Montana, whichever party controls the legislature has an ability to drive the agenda and to set limitations on what the executive might want to do that the U.S. Congress can only dream about.

And this year, the landslide gains that the GOP made in 2010 were solidified. The GOP lost 7 House seats, meaning that they only have a 61-39 majority there, but posted a net gain of one Senate seat by flipping two seats in the Billings area (one of which we discussed last Friday), yielding a 29-21 majority.

The losses in the House were expected -- all of them occurred in seats that normally the GOP has zero chance of winning. The Montana Democratic Party was so busy spending every resource they had to oust Roy Brown from his Senate seat here in Billings that they forgot to shore up the seats they were supposed to win. Apparently Brown had to be punished and ground into the dirt for having had the temerity to challenge Gov. Schweitzer in the 2008 governor's race -- one would think that Schweitzer's overwhelming win over Brown would have been satisfying enough, but if you think that, you really don't understand how Montana Democrats think. Anyway, Montana Democrats beat Roy Brown, but amusingly, while they were concentrating on one district in Billings, they lost every other competitive race in the state in 2010. Every one of them -- and quite a few that shouldn't have been competitive for them.

So, Democrats won a handful of those back (those seats were the equivalent of Democrats winning Congressional seats in downtown Chicago or San Fransisco.) Meanwhile, in the all-important state Senate (where the buck stops, regardless of which party controls the House), Republicans padded their already comfortable majority. A good working majority requires 27 seats, since with 26, you can never have a single defection. With every additional seat, the ability of Senators on either side of the spectrum to hold the majority hostage rapidly diminishes.

These are not veto-proof majorities, but many of the important things that the GOP-controlled legislature needs to do involve holding the line -- no raising taxes, no out-of-control spending, no funding for additional state employees, etc.

Governor Schweitzer was combative when control of the legislature was narrow or divided, but was fairly quiescent when faced with these kinds of majorities, and I don't expect that a Gov. Bullock will be any different. The reality is that a Governor Rick Hill would have been in a position to deliver on his campaign promises, but a Gov. Bullock won't -- not for the next two years.

Perhaps the most important thing to note about these majorities is something that was a fact of life from 2004 through 2010. These are districts that were gerrymandered with active collaboration between the Montana Supreme Court and the Montana Democratic Party in order to maximize Democratic performance. The surprise was that the Montana GOP, through sheer willpower at times, managed to learn to beat the odds and fight to achieve parity until the 2010 GOP wave election happened. Montana Democrats never got the comfortable control of the state legislature that they expected when they were handed the "nonpartisan" redistricting committee after the 2000 census.

And having overplayed its hand, the Montana Supreme Court didn't dare to do something as baldfaced again. The new districts formed after the 2010 census should be more rational and less gerrymandered, meaning that Republicans should (barring self-destructive behavior, which is never out of the question with Republicans) be able to maintain comfortable majorities for another decade.

May they use the coming session wisely, and may they continue to recruit the kind of high-quality candidates that were necessary in order to fight for survival in the face of the gerrymandered districts that shaped the course of the legislature over the past decade.

That state surplus

So, we have an even bigger surplus than projected. It looks like a quarter is directly attributable to oil and gas revenues, and one suspects that even more is responsible indirectly. This shows us just a bit of what Montana could have if we were to get serious about energy development.

Not surprisingly, Sen. Roy Brown had one of the most trenchant comments about the "underspending" by state government -- spun by the governor as intentional "belt-tightening." Yeah. Right.

Brown: "The fact that state agencies were unable to spend at least $14 million should tell Montanans just how bloated the last budget was. The budget is growing so fast that state agencies couldn't keep up and spend it all, and that's not something to be proud of."

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.

The governor doesn't want to debate in front of smaller-town audiences

So Roy Brown calls for 18 debates, and the governor predictably says no.

Not sure why he wouldn't want to debate in smaller communities -- after all, the governor and his supporters have been trying to pin the old "big oil" label on Sen. Roy Brown (as if it would be something to be ashamed of even if it were true.) The governor needs to spend just a wee bit more time with the folks in Billings, where he will discover that there simply isn't any "big oil" here. If he thinks that what we have here is "big oil," then he needs to get out more -- to places other than California fundraising soirées, that is.

And then the governor's spokesmen are apparently now trying to make an issue out of the fact that Roy Brown went to high school in... Wyoming.

Wow. Talk about nailing one of those uppity foreigners to the wall.

We seem to recall an article from during the last legislative session indicating that a very large percentage (at least 40%) of Montanans weren't born here -- will they be amused by the governor trying to make an issue out of Brown being from such a distant and exotic locale as... Wyoming?

Or maybe the guv is just unhappy about the fact that Roy Brown is continually reminding Montanans in this campaign about how Wyoming (and North Dakota) are making money hand-over-fist in the energy industry while by contrast Montana's governor has been sitting on his hands when it comes to energy policy (and shaking his fists at anyone who crosses him.)

And the Brown campaign won the round with this one alone:

In response to Schweitzer's call for five debates, Brown's spokesman Tyler Matthews called it "disappointing that the governor doesn't want to go anywhere in the state where there won't be a TV camera."

Ouch. We definitely want to see Brown and Schweitzer debating in places like Miles City, Sidney, and Dillon. But we can expect to see the governor dodging that sort of thing. While he talks the rural talk, he's really more comfortable in Missoula and Helena -- when he has to be here in Montana at all.

When it comes right down to it, the governor's race is the only really big game in town this year -- the press should want to milk it for all it's worth, and press for a long series of debates. The governor may have to miss a few out of state fundraisers -- but we think the sacrifice would be worth it.

Update: More at Big Sky Cairn.

More on Roy Brown's editorial on Montana water

Montana Misanthrope did a great follow-up today on the editorial posted by gubernatorial candidate Roy Brown on Montana Headlines.

Read it, and follow both the "sinister" comments following the post and the dextrous replies to those comments. The good news is that Congressman Rehberg has weighed in, responding to the governor's support for this expansion of federal power at Montana's expense with words the governor can probably understand: "no, nope, no way, hell no..."

Guest editorial from Sen. Roy Brown

Montana Headlines is pleased today to host our Republican candidate for governor -- Roy Brown -- in the editorial posted below.

The piece speaks for itself, and deals with one of the most important ongoing issues in the intermountain West -- water.

Enjoy.

Coming attractions on Montana Headlines

Regular readers of Montana Headlines will notice that posting has been a little lighter of late.

But that doesn't mean that nothing is going on. There are two upcoming posts that readers won't want to miss. One is a guest editorial from our candidate for governor -- Sen. Roy Brown. The second is an on-line interview with State Auditor candidate Duane Grimes that will be posted over the course of several days in a series of posts.

We continue to have a commitment to providing information and commentary about politics at the state level here in Montana.

Gov. Huckabee stumps for Sen. Roy Brown in Billings and Bozeman

During the campaign season, Montana Headlines never tried to hide that we thought that while he wasn't the complete package, Gov. Mike Huckabee was a very attractive and intriguing Presidential candidate. He seems genuinely to care about ordinary people and what happens to them, he compiled an impressive record as a conservative Republican governor in a very heavily Democratic state, he wasn't a negative campaigner (his few slips on this score were exceptions that proved the rule,) and he has the consummate communications skills to convey his principles.

Because of what the Club for Growth did to him before the caucus and primary season ever began, it was clear early on that Huckabee was not going to be the Presidential nominee this time around, and that even if he did somehow manage to get the nomination, it was clear that there would be too many "good Republicans" who would be churlish enough to refuse to support him (just as there are "good Republicans" who will, contrary to the example of Ronald Reagan, refuse to support Sen. McCain, thus assisting the Democratic cause up and down the ticket.)

By process of elimination, it was clear, at least to us, even before the Iowa caucuses, that John McCain, in spite of some big problem spots with the Republican base, had the best chance of being a consensus candidate in the GOP who could actually win. We thus unapologetically and enthusiastically support Sen. McCain. The choice seems pretty clear this election season.

But back to Huckabee.

Gov. Huckabee was in Montana doing a fundraiser for private Christian schools in Billings, and stumping for our Governor/Lt. Gov. team of Roy Brown and Steve Daines. He spoke to a packed out GOP breakfast in Billings, and an overflow capacity luncheon in Bozeman. In the process, he again showed that easy and confident ability to campaign, communicate, and connect with voters that on display all through the primary season.

Huckabee's draw was in part seen by the fact that Sec. State Brad Johnson and our State Auditor candidate Duane Grimes were in attendance at the events, as were many local legislative candidates -- the presence of someone of Huckabee's stature is a rising tide that lifts all ships, and we certainly hope that this visit will not only help Brown and Daines, but will benefit Republicans up and down the ticket in Montana through the excitement created by the optimism that Huckabee exudes about the prospects of the Republican Party. It has been clear as the campaign has worn on that all of our statewide candidates see themselves as part of a Republican team that supports each other, so Johnson and Grimes were also there to show their support for Brown and Daines.

Huckabee's presence in Montana at this point in the campaign can be attributed in no small part to the presence of Steve Daines on the ticket, since Daines headed up the Huckabee effort for the Montana caucuses and developed personal contacts with Huckabee and his team. Not surprisingly, Huckabee came across very well in Billings and was an effective fundraiser and high-profile "rally the troops" visitor. He showed that he had familiarized himself both with Sen. Roy Brown and the political situation in Montana.

As a former Chairman of the National Governors' Association (a bipartsian goup) he displayed a confident grasp of both the big picture and the nuts and bolts of what it takes to be a governor, and how important the choice of a governor is. Of course, all of this is what skilled politicians do, but Huckabee's experience in governing and campaigning (and his natural gift for it) showed.

One insightful point that Huckabee made when being interviewed by the Gazette was when he was asked about Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- he noted that really, Rev. Wright at this point has to want Obama to lose. Wright is clearly not backing off on his views that the U.S. is an instrument of racial oppression, so for Obama to win would prove Wright wrong.

The Hoover Institution scholar Shelby Steele wrote a book within the last year about Sen. Obama explaining why he believed that Obama cannot ultimately win the presidency. It is worth listening to Steele discuss his analysis of why this is so, but it ties directly into what Huckabee said in Billings yesterday. Huckabee, in his last re-election campaign for governor, received nearly half of the black vote in Arkansas -- an amazing feat for any Republican in the South, but one which shows that Republicans can indeed connect with minority communities if they care to try to do so.

The governor and the sinestra blogosphere predictably pointed out the differences between some of Huckabee's policies while governor of Arkansas and those that Brown is proposing.

Well, with all due respect, this just proves that not all Republicans have to think alike on every issue, even while sharing similar values and principles, and supporting each other. It also neglects little things like the fact that when Huckabee took office as governor, his legislature was 95% Democratic. While substantial gains were made over his decade in office in gaining Republican legislators, he never did have a Republican legislature to work with.

And regardless, at a time when some prominent Montana Democrats (including our governor and his brother) are giving the impression that they are ready to throw their presumptive nominee under the bus, it is telling that Montana Republican candidates aren't afraid or ashamed to be seen stumping with the guy who lost the Republican nomination. It would be hard to imagine Republican candidates in Montana running from any of the major Republican candidates this year. Quite a difference.

Gov. Huckabee is a solid common-sense conservative with a gift for seeing where the Republican party needs to go -- particularly in terms of tone. His presence in Montana will only help Brown and Daines, and he will be busy on the campaign trail helping Republicans all across America raise money and campaign. He developed a wide network and admiring group of supporters (a great many of whom don't fit the evangelical Christian stereotype,) and he seems determined to use this political capital to help Republicans get elected, starting at the top with Sen. McCain and working up and down the ticket in states across the country.

While, as we pointed out, Steve Daines probably played no small role in making these appearances come together, one suspects that we would have seen Huckabee here in Montana this year offering to stump for a future Gov. Roy Brown regardless.

One wonders how many other former Presidential candidates will take the time to do the same. We hope that Huckabee will be just the first of many.

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.

Steve Daines to be Roy Brown's running mate

Sen. Roy Brown will be announcing formally tomorrow that Bozeman businessman Steve Daines will be his running mate. The two of them will kick off a statewide tour similar to Brown's one-day around-the-state swing that he took when he announced his candidacy.

Word dropped in the comments section of this blog earlier this week was that it would be Daines (of GiveItBack.com fame.) This was unconfirmed, however, and there weren't even any other rumors in the blogosphere about it. While that commenter proved to be correct on the name, the commenter's style was rather dyspeptic, and there didn't seem to be much of an understanding of the selection process for a running mate -- which hurt the credibility of that particular comment at the time.

Several other names had certainly been be in the rumor-mill as possibilities, and Brown has made no secret of the fact that he has had serious discussions with a number of potential running mates.

But it is hard to imagine a better final choice for Brown than Steve Daines.

As we noted in our own response to that comment earlier this week, Daines is an outstanding choice for a running mate. He has the kind of tireless energy that can keep up with Sen. Brown. He had himself considered running for governor against the present occupant of the governor's mansion, but the time just didn't seem right for him.

Brown and Daines will have their work cut out for them, running against a formidable politician who has the power of the incumbency.

Just as the current governor, who had no experience in elective office, was wise to choose a running mate with extensive time in the legislature, so too it is a brilliant move for Brown -- an experienced legislator -- to choose an energetic and politically savvy outsider.

A Lt. Gov. candidate of Daines's energy and intellect is a major asset to the ticket. And having a candidate from Bozeman is a distinct advantage, since big Republican turnouts in Yellowstone and Gallatin counties will be lynchpins in a Republican victory this fall in the governor's race.

The lefties will predictably come up with reasons to downplay Daines, but as we have pointed out on Montana Headlines before, Daines is a guy who has shown an ability to make the Dems seriously worried. To quote from that post:

...for some reason that we can't figure out, Daines has Democrats worried. Why else would the governor have appeared recently with a sign behind him saying "We Gave It Back?"

Everyone knows good and well that the surplus wasn't given back -- and Democrats are proud of the fact that they spent nearly all that money on "essential services" rather than giving it back in tax credits or cuts. For them, it was a major political victory won by a no-compromise stance that the money wasn't given back -- a victory they should be proud of.

So why the sign saying "We Gave It Back?"

We of course know why -- the governor and his Democratic allies blew through the billion dollar surplus as though it didn't exist. The only thing that went to the taxpayers was a "check in every pot" election year $400 one-time rebate, rather than real, permanent tax relief.

The last thing that the governor wants to run against is someone who has shown some creativity in demonstrating that the Democrats most certainly did not respond to a historic surplus by saying to themselves "let's give it back." But we're glad that he gets to deal with Daines after all.

For those in Billings, the press conference and announcement will be at at Brown's headquarters on Grand Ave. at 9 AM.

Check your local Republican listings if you are in one of Montana's larger cities, and get out to see Roy Brown and meet Steve Daines when they visit in the next couple of days. Let's see a huge show of support, just as we did on Brown's announcement tour, which had outstanding energy and turnout.

And in the coming months, voters in every corner of Montana will get to meet our Republican Gov/Lt.Gov. team -- we suspect that with every month that goes by, the race will tighten for exactly that reason.

Browsing around, we also note that Roy Brown has a new website -- check it out, make a contribution to the cause, and volunteer to help out.

Stockgrowers on brucellosis: is the Board of Livestock really listening?

The MSGA describes the mood of its members as "uneasy," and it seems that it should be. That organization had seemingly staved off the governor's push toward a "split-state" approach to dealing with the brucellosis problem that looms over Montana cattlemen because of the reservoir of that disease in bison in Yellowstone Park. Or at least until the latest "listening session" with the Board of Livestock.

Last fall, the governor seemed to have publicly (in none too good a temper) thrown in the towel on his split-state proposal -- which could also be known as a "split the Stockgrowers" proposal." Not that we blame the governor for wanting to do the agricultural equivalent of union-busting when it comes to an organization that, while itself non-partisan, tends to be supported by Republicans.

It seems, however, that the executive branch may just have been lying low. At the time when the split-state proposal got voted down, the vote was nearly unanimous. Nearly, we say, because one BOL member, Stan Boone, stuck with the governor in spite of the overwhelming testimony that Montana ranchers opposed split-state status.

Boone, as attentive MH leaders will recall, was the member that the governor pushed onto the board in the teeth of opposition from the legislature and over the objections of nearly all of the brand inspectors in the state of Montana. For those who weren't reading MH back then, here's a place to start -- follow the links.

The governor knew he what he was getting when he pushed through Boone over so many objections -- a loyal rubber-stamp. Now again at this latest "listening session," Boone came through for the governor by reviving the specter of split-state status:

"Just to clarify, split-state status is not off the table, it is still an option," stated Stan Boone, a BOL cattle representative from Ingomar.

The MSGA has made no secret of the programs that it thinks will best address the problem, and continues to wait for the Board of Livestock and the governor to be a help rather than a foil for the livestock industry in accomplishing the important task of maintaining Montana's brucellosis-free status. This should not be an issue that provokes partisanship, given the importance of the cattle industry in Montana, but it seems that this is an executive branch that is always looking for a partisan advantage.

We look forward to a Governor Roy Brown, who will work with a united ranching community, rather than working to divide them.

Notes on the governor's fundraising letter

We've already had Ed Kemmick handicap the quality of the quotations in the Gazette article about the governor's campaign sending a certain fundraising letter to people who had contributed reportable amounts to Republican candidates for governor in 2004.

And we've had LITW label the GOP reaction as "hysterical," sort of missing the point that Roy Brown, for instance, was reporting on the reaction he was getting from Republican faithful, rather than saying anything negative himself about it.

As Bob Brown (one of the former candidates whose donors were hit up) pointed out, there is nothing illegal whatsoever about the letter. Nor is there anything unethical about it. Fundraising data is public information, and the governor's campaign simply used that public information.

What was unusual about the letter wasn't having Democrats hit up Republicans for money -- we get on Dem fundraising direct-mail lists all the time. What was odd was having a sitting governor send a letter to those who funded his opponents, telling them in the first sentence that his campaign had taken note not only of whom they had contributed to, but exact amounts.

It is one thing to be put on a mailing list, and quite another to have something of that specificity coming from a governor. Again, there was nothing illegal or unethical about the letter, which was written in a nice, friendly sort of way. It was just unusual.

The reactions that we heard from those who received the letter were absolutely as negative as Roy Brown said he was getting from people he has met on the campaign trail since then. But the letter was a sort of Rorschach test.

Those who claimed to have personal knowledge of the governor's strong-arming ways saw the letter as vaguely menacing -- "I know where you live, I know you gave to my opponent, and how much."

We'd be interested to know if anyone else has seen this tactic before: a large-scale letter sent by a candidate in one party to supporters of the opposition, reminding them that what they give is public information.

Anyway, those who had contributed to Pat Davison's campaign felt they were being reminded that they had contributed money to a convicted felon.

Those who have a visceral dislike for John Bohlinger saw the prominent featuring of Bohlinger's name and the emphasis on the "bipartisan ticket" as yet one more example of cynical game-playing on Bohlinger's part, messing with the party he claims to belong to even as he works to defeat its candidates up and down the ticket.

And so forth.

Most expressed a determination to respond by sending a check to Roy Brown.

Surprisingly few mentioned the letter's citation of the goofy Gazette online poll that showed the governor with a 75% to 25% "lead" over Roy Brown, which was a bit concerning, since it perhaps shows a lack of knowledge about the complete unscientific nature of online polling of this kind.

Anyone who believes that the governor is going to carry a majority in the coverage area of the Gazette -- let alone win it by a 3 to 1 margin -- is of course welcome to do so, or to believe any other sort of foolishness.

What is also interesting is that the Gazette itself, which is quick to point out that its own online polling "unscientific" (put differently, "for entertainment purposes only") didn't mention this aspect of the letter, and point out that on-line polling has no scientific validity.

Will the letter be successful? To a certain extent, it can hardly not be successful. A few people may send a check the governor's way (although that could hardly have been the main point,) and some may feel a bit unnerved and decide not to give to Roy Brown, having been reminded that someone in Helena is watching. If you are someone who believes those stories about political opponents getting tax audits and what-not, then you might decide to put your money elsewhere -- or maybe just leave it in the bank.

But for every dollar "gained" by one of those two ways, ticked-off Republicans will probably give several more to Brown's campaign, wiping out any real advantage. So money couldn't be the main point.

The main value of the letter was rather, surely, to test the Brown campaign -- to see if it will be reactive rather than pro-active. If Brown's history of campaigning is any indication, he will stick to his campaign strategy and for the most part ignore this sort of stunt.

The governor's campaign was out for a reaction -- preferably an over-reaction that it can point to either as a sign of unreasonableness or of weakness (depending on the audience to whom the over-reaction is being pointed out.)

As LITW pointed out, "independents are watching."

Republicans in general would do well to remember that attacking the governor -- especially in a reactive way -- has never worked. Name one thing it has ever accomplished. One.

He's just too good at that sort of jujitsu.

Yes, the campaign for governor will have to involve Republicans answering -- calmly -- the Democratic charges against Brown, and pointing out -- matter-of-factly -- what the current administration has done wrong and what it has failed to do right.

But to the extent that the race turns into Republicans being drawn into a three-ring circus, it is only to our disadvantage. When someone is clowning around, usually ignoring the act is the best way to get them to quit.

For the Billings Gazette, Roy Brown is just local news; also -- addressing the first (weak) attacks on Brown

Yes, Roy Brown is from Billings, but why did Charles Johnson's piece on the progress of Sen. Roy Brown's gubernatorial bid get put in the "local" section of the Gazette on-line? Especially when it was datelined "Helena?"

Just curious.

Sen. Brown is staying on theme, as he should: our state government has spent too much money and hasn't cut taxes when it could have.

The business equipment tax needs to be eliminated entirely. It is a relic -- one that the vast majority of states that used to have one have since gotten rid of.

As to the executive branch's defensive statements in response -- well, they are pretty weak.

There is of course the usual bragging about the $400 election-year "check in every pot" property tax rebate that the governor preferred to a real across-the-board property tax cut. It made work for all of those new Department of Revenue employees that we apparently so desperately needed (isn't it logical to respond to a $1 billion dollar surplus by hiring more tax collectors?) And it helps with the re-election campaign of the governor and the Democratic legislators the executive branch orders around.

And then there is the red herring of Sen. Brown and others voting to over-ride vetoes on certain spending bills. Well, perhaps true -- heaven forbid that the legislature actually determine how money is spent.

The whole reason that those vetoes happened was that the governor was unwilling to compromise with the legislature in general and the Republican-controlled House in particular. The governor's original spending demands were rammed through, pretty much unchanged, even though Democrats in the Senate were prepared to do some compromising with Republicans.

Which left a number of bills out there that had been passed by both houses of the legislature that didn't fit into the executive branch's master plan.

What was amazing was not that Sen. Brown voted again for the same bills that he had voted for the first time they came around -- what was amazing was that Democratic legislators allowed themselves to be strong-armed into voting against bills they had originally voted for.

In some cases, as we recall, there were even cases where Democratic legislators had co-sponsored bills -- and when the governor vetoed them, they were cowed into voting against their own bills when it came to over-riding the governor's veto.

So, the truth will out in the end -- but it is going to be a long, hard campaign, refuting these kinds of tedious charges against Sen. Brown, one at a time.

Sen. Brown continues his trip around the state

Sen. Brown, as promised, is off and running hard. Travelling around the state, he is meeting with weekly newspapers, radio stations, local clubs and groups, people in coffee shops and cafes.

In other words, Sen. Brown is setting out to win the governor's race Montana-style -- one voter at a time.

So far, here has been Sen. Brown's path around the state:

Monday -- Billings, Huntley, Hardin, Crow Agency, Forsyth, Roundup, ending the day at the Harvest dinner in Lewistown, with nearly 100 enthusiastic attendees.

Tuesday -- Stanford, Fort Benton, Chester, Havre, and Chinook.

Wednesday -- Fort Belknap, Malta, Glasgow, Wolf Point, and Scobey.

Thursday and beyond -- Plentywood, Sidney, Glendive, Terry,Miles City, and Hysham.

Next week will be about 25 cities in Western Montana.

Montana Headlines encourages readers who have had a chance to see Sen. Brown on the campaign trail to e-mail us with reports, impressions, and updates. We feel confident that those who go to hear him will leave enthusiastic about his candidacy.

May the best man win

Montana Headlines has, so far, refrained from endorsing anyone's campaign. Much of this is because of the fact that we have hard primary campaigns ahead of us, and we're waiting to see how the various candidates perform under pressure.

We have a 5-way race for President. Mike Lange and Kirk Bushman are facing off to see who will face Max Baucus in the U.S. Senate race, Tim Fox and Lee Bruner are running for the GOP spot on the ticket in the AG race, etc...

While we still could see someone else jump into the governor's race, we are prepared to say that it really doesn't matter who it might be -- we'll be going with Roy Brown.

And so, we're happy that the first icon to go up on Montana Headlines is for Sen. Brown (see the sidebar at right.)

There may be others to follow in other races, there may not. We're a bit picky around here to begin with, and we're inclined to see what the Republican voters of Montana have to say about some of these primary races.

Stay tuned for more on the governor's race, but keep in mind that posts of equal or greater importance have been backing up around here. Reviews of books on Benjamin Disraeli and Julius Caesar, more observations on agriculture both modern and ancient, comments on recent symphony concerts, etc. are all in various phases of conception at this point.

Stick around.

Getting the Scoop on Roy Brown

We were gratified to learn that this "level-headed hometown blog" encouraged at least one right-thinking Montana blogger to turn out to see Roy Brown on his whirlwind tour of the state today.

It was interesting to read Scoop's impressions, since a whole lot of people are going to be getting to know Sen. Brown for the first time in the coming months. Those impressions are worth reading, and they ring solid and true.

As Scoop put it, referring to the six-figure investment that the Dems made into attempting to defeat Brown in his most recent legislative race, "no wonder they were trying to sink this guy!"

Word on the Billings street was that Brown returned from his trip invigorated from the enthusiastic reception he received around the state and, well, looking and sounding like someone who is ready to be our next governor. He's at another level of campaigning, and he is showing that he is more than ready for it.

The Gazette editorial page begins its honeymoon with Roy Brown

The Billings Gazette editors certainly picked a great day to run an editorial about the Old Fund liability issue -- right after Sen. Roy Brown set a date for the formal launch of his campaign for governor, and the day before the scheduled formal announcement.

The piece itself is a typical Gazette editorial that throws together a bunch of mushy alternating statements, first putting the 2003 Republican legislature in a bad light and then acknowledging mitigating factors and shared blame between the parties involved. But tempted as we are to critique, once again, the turgid prose and confused organization of Gazette editorials, our emphasis today is on content.

The piece culminates with highlighting then House Majority Leader Roy Brown's sponsorship of the bill that borrowed $23 million from the Old Fund as part of a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to address a projected $232 million budget deficit, although the editorial does acknowledge that the bill had overwhelming bipartisan support.

The Gazette editorial writer then wraps up with a final "pay as you go" scold (presumably Gazette editorials at the time were advocating $23 million in addition tax increases or program cuts -- we can't find it in the Gazette archives, but maybe it's hiding somewhere.)

In short, the net effect of the piece seems to send a not-so-subtle message that Republicans are fiscally unreliable -- not particularly helpful to Sen. Brown's campaign, given that he is rightly running his campaign at least in part on the reckless 40% state spending increase we have endured over the last 4 years.

One wonders, though, whether the editorial writers at the Gazette bother to read their own newspaper.

You see, Gazette reporter Jim Gransbery -- on the very same day, wrote an excellent article that includes key information about what happened in the 2005 legislative session that was left out of the editorial. But not once in the editorial is the year 2005 even mentioned, even though presumably the editors got a sneak preview of Granbery's piece.

Yes, right there in the news section of the Gazette itself is the rest of the story. Namely, the story of what happened in the very next session after the money was borrowed from the Old Fund:

When the state's financial situation improved, Sen. John Esp, R-Big Timber, introduced a bill in 2005 to repay the Old Fund, but the bill was tabled on a party-line vote in a committee controlled by the Democrats, (Sen.) Brown said.

He said Esp approached the governor's budget director, David Ewer, about repaying the money, but nothing came of the overture.

Ewer said Tuesday he recalled vaguely Esp's effort, but his office did not take part in any of the hearings of Esp's bill.

Brown said that with a $1 billion surplus in the state's checking account this year, the Schweitzer administration made no effort to repay the money when the Legislature was in session.

Isn't that fascinating? David Ewer only "vaguely recalls" GOP efforts to repay the money, and apparently didn't bother going to the hearings about a bill that would have paid back the money in 2005 -- obviating the need even to be discussing this issue in 2007.

Given the budget director's, shall we say, colorful performances in the last legislative session, we find it hard to believe that he would pass up an opportunity to weigh in publicly with his opinion.

Unless, that is, the executive branch and the 2005 Democratic legislature was in such dither to get down to spending as much money as possible that they didn't want to have their allowance cut by $23 million plus interest.

And then, there was a $1 billion surplus this last session. Couldn't the executive branch have done with a little less of a spending spree and cut $23 million free somehow?

The 2003 legislature did what it had to do in the face of a deficit -- if anything, Sen. Brown and the Republican legislature should be praised for finding a comprehensive solution for situation it faced. They raised some taxes, but avoided raising taxes that would hurt the economy and jeopardize future tax revenues. They cut spending, but by borrowing a little of the government's own money avoided even deeper cuts.

Republicans had faith that the economy would improve, and that the money would then be available to replenish the fund. And at the very next session, that's exactly what they tried to do -- to no avail.

So, why didn't the Gazette editorial mention any of this? Why didn't it mention the events of 2005?

Maybe there's more to the 2005 story than Gransbery was able to dig up -- but then why didn't the Gazette hold off on on an editorial that prominently features Sen. Brown in a negative light until that paper could get the story straight?

Was it more important to get that editorial published the day before Sen. Brown's formal announcement of his candidacy for governor?

Sen. Brown's initial lap around the track

One thing that everyone knows about Roy Brown is that he is a tireless worker, as we noted yesterday, and the opening of his campaign only indicates more of the same.

On Thursday, he is going to be starting out with his announcement early in the morning in Billings, and then flying around the state: Billings, Helena, Great Falls, Kalispell, Missoula, and Bozeman -- and back in time for a piece of pie and cup of coffee at the venerable Stella's Bakery in Billings that evening. So we hope that our faithful readers in those cities will check their local Republican listings and turn out to show support for Roy.

Then, it's 50 towns in 10 days on the road.

Advancing a four-point program, Brown said he will work for long-term real property tax relief; elimination of the business equipment tax now frozen at 3 percent; a return to accountability and integrity in campaign finance and openness in government; and the enactment of responsible state spending.

Sounds pretty good. And Brown has the record to show that he has legislatively worked to achieve just those goals. He correctly points to the 40% increase in spending over the last two legislative sessions as a trend that we can't sustain:

"If there is a blip in the economy, the taxpayer-funded surpluses will not be there to fund the new spending," he said. "There are automatic escalators written into those spending increases..."

While it isn't good for one's mental health to spend too much time reading the comments section after articles in the Billings Gazette, it is interesting to note that Roy Brown is, depending on who you read, "just another liberal Republican" or "another rape, pillage and plunder Republican." While it's never any fun to get abuse from anyone, if you're getting it from the far opposite extremes of the spectrum, then you're not doing too bad.

Oh, and back to that 6 cities in one day and 50 towns in 10 days thing:

From what we understand, once Sen. Brown gets warmed up, he'll try to pick up the pace a little -- so the opposition shouldn't get too complacent.

Roy Brown for Governor

The waiting and the rumors are over.

We have a candidate for governor -- and a good one. An outstanding one.

It will be an interesting race, since the governor and the Dems poured money into defeating state Sen. Brown in 2006, but failed to unseat him. It was, as we recall, the most expensive state legislative race in Montana history. Brown is a tireless, smart, dedicated public servant and a formidable politician -- there's a reason the Dems wanted to knock him off.

Brown is a common-sense conservative, soft-spoken and quick thinking. From what we understand, he is a successful businessman who earned it the old-fashioned way -- hard work and private enterprise.

And by all appearances he is a gentleman and a man of integrity. One struggles to think of examples where Democratic legislators had bad things to say about him in past sessions -- on the contrary, we recall him as being acknowledged to be a man of his word. In short, while he sticks with his principles, he does so while working and playing well with others -- an invaluable trait in a chief executive.

Of course, now that he is running for governor, the gloves will come off, and old friends will become new foes. Every aspect of his record, life, and work will come under scrutiny.

Not all of this is bad -- the scrutiny works both ways, and we should indeed scrutinize the behavior and records of our high officials.

But even after all of the inevitable mud is slung at Sen. Brown, we find it hard to believe that Republicans won't be enthusiastically working for Roy, donating to his campaign, and voting for him.

It is the Montana Headlines opinion that Republicans shouldn't and don't need to run a negative campaign against the sitting governor. Comparing policy positions and public actions, yes. But it would be both unseemly and counterproductive to engage in personal attacks at the governor. Yes, we realize that he drives many Montana Republicans crazy in just the same way that Clinton drove national Republicans crazy and that has led to the famous "Bush derangement syndrome" on the left in recent years.

Why some people elicit that response is an interesting psychological and political question -- but as has been proven over and over, giving in to that temptation is bad for one's mental health, hopeless as a political strategy, and probably not great for the state of one's soul.

In Sen. Brown, we have a candidate who can run a straight-up positive campaign, comparing the differences between Republican and Democratic principles and visions. He can run that kind of campaign, and he can win. What kind of campaign will be run against him? We'll have to wait and see.

There could, of course, still be a primary campaign on the GOP side -- just in case more than one Republican is itching for the privilege of taking on the formidable opposition. If so, we'll see how the field shakes out.

But for now, there is joy and (metaphorical) dancing in the Republican streets.

If you can, turn out to show support for Sen. Brown at his formal announcement Thursday morning in Billings.