Who wasn't at the dealmaking session

We noted that Speaker Sales and Rep. Sinrud weren't at the deal-making session in Helena. Many Democrats gloated about it.

What is interesting to note is that there was a far conspicuous absence at the meeting, per the news reports: Democratic legislators.

If we had any questions about who was behind the Democratic wheel on the last day of the session, this clarifies it as much as is necessary. No wonder Sen. Stapleton was so frustrated that day -- he thought that when he was negotiating with Sen. Cooney, he was talking to the decision-maker. Clearly not.

Left overtures

From the earliest days of Montana Headlines, many of our regular readers have been found amongst our friends on the left. We won't be so presumptuous as to say that they actually enjoy reading Montana Headlines, since we realize that a lot of blog-surfing is more opposition-research than anything.

But still, they do spice up life around here, and we hope that the free exchange of ideas between open minds does everyone a little good.

We were interested to see that our recent rambling post on the importance of rhetorical discipline and general good humour in politics, "Steady, steady...", drew a particularly high number of hits, due in no small part to some links from the left.

The first was from the Gallatin County Democrats, who quoted part of what we had to say about Flier-gate. We're glad to have that particular passage get some wider distribution, although how many Republicans read the Gallatin County Democratic website is still a matter for debate.

It is certainly nice to know that some Dems on the other side of the Bozeman Pass see Montana Headlines as representative of the Montana Republican "grassroots," but it shouldn't surprise them that those of us on the grassroots side of things would have the same negative response to those distasteful fliers as did the legislators we elected and sent to Helena.

In that light, something else that deserves a little wider distribution was another piece linked to on the GCD site: a gentlemanly exchange between John Sinrud and Shane Mason on Montana Netroots about the kind of low politics represented by these fliers and by a similar kind of flier attacking Sinrud that his own 11 y.o. daughter picked up in the family mail in a recent election.

Montana Headlines will be watching to see if Mike Lange and others make good on their promise to insist on party leadership that can figure out how to win elections and legislative fights without resorting to this kind of thing.

The other links came from our favorite leftward site, 4&20 Blackbirds, which first linked to "Steady, steady..." in the same straightforward vein of "see, even conservatives find this in poor taste."

Their second link to our post was more interesting, though, and deserves a comment. In a 4&20 BB piece on the Progressive Democrats of Montana, our brief reference to the PDM as a circular firing squad was labeled a "typical reaction from the right."

We're pleased that at least some of our readers on the left view "Steady, steady..." as typical right-wing fare, even if only in part. But it seems that it gave offense for us to be "bringing up the group's formation in the same breath as the GOP's juvenile death mailer." Point taken, and we certainly didn't mean in any way to touch a raw nerve or trivialize the PDM.

In hindsight, we were perhaps being a little too oblique in our references in that particular paragraph, so we should parse the passage a bit.

Our previous paragraph had ended by saying that Flier-gate not only didn't help the Republican cause, but may have "handed those three Dems their re-elections on a platter." Then, in the next paragraph (the "circular firing squad" one) we linked directly to Jeff Mangan's piece on the Progressive Democrats, in which he ends with the following words and graphic: "Can we give the GOP any larger of a platter?"

Hence our mention of the two in the same breath.

We suppose we could go through the exercise of making the case that in the big picture, mentioning a movement to turn Montana's Democrats further leftward in the same breath as "juvenile mailers" actually has the effect of making juvenile mailers seem more dangerous to the body politic than they really are. That would, however, be a digression too big even for this digression-laden site.

Suffice it to say that we have already once pointed out that "Republican fantasies of perpetual Democrat self-destruction" are "never exactly a good long-term political strategy."

Taking that risk, though, we elected to soften our words of GOP electoral gloom and doom brought on by Flier-gate by noting that Republicans are not alone in coming up with novel acts of self-destruction. We both occasionally construct oro y plata platters on which to hand the other party an election or two -- something that is so deeply engrained in Montana politics that it made the state seal.

Sunday roundup and branding -- the Gazette, and beyond...

Legislative campaign issues: The Gazette has an article that talks about the increasing amount of money that individuals are spending on their own legislative campaigns.

In spite of the fact that 2/3rds of all candidates in 2006 spent their own money on their campaigns, the AP writer was apparently unable to find Democrats to write about who had spent their own money on their races -- only two Republicans are listed.

This phenomenon of the self-financed candidate is only going to become more common, since raising any significant amount of money at $130 a pop is very slow going. The same is true on the national stage, where Senate races in particular are increasingly the realm of multi-millionaires. Montana would do well to raise significantly the maximum donations allowed to legislative and other state candidates.

Might candidates be beholden to someone who writes them a $1000 check? Well, maybe. But how beholden are they to a well-connected individual (such as a governor or a senior legislator) who uses his connections to raise $10,000 in $130 contributions? Or how beholden will they be to the party HQ that pours money into a tight race, even though the party's interests and their constituents' interests might not always coincide? These conflicts are going to happen no matter what -- they are just more hidden.

In another legislative election issue, the Sidney Herald had a good editorial recently about the negative effects that term limits have on a legislature. Here's an excerpt:

Rep. Walt McNutt (R-Sidney) used an example... when he spoke to House members about water rights. "I got a deer in the headlights look by about 95 of them."

He said having legislators with less experience is especially dangerous for eastern Montana and the agriculture industry. While the "old guard" understand the importance of agriculture in Montana, it's not always the case with new legislators.

Eve Franklin and the Demo-rockers: Charles Johnson reports that Gov. Schweitzer called the Democratic members of the House Appropriations Committee "rock stars." We'll have to trust the governor on that one, we suppose.

But what did they do to earn this honor? They did sit in the room gavel to gavel, but appeared mainly to be answering e-mail, playing video games, and reading romance novels -- looking up only to vote "no" on any vote that came along.

We got to see Rep. Eve Franklin voting against funding for the College of Technology in her home town of Great Falls (something that didn't make the Great Falls Tribune particularly happy.)

We got to see 8 slightly pouty-looking Democrats refusing even to vote for a letter of legislative intent coming from the committee, even though their remarks made it clear that they agreed with the letter. They insisted that they would write their own "minority report" letter, apparently lest they be "tainted" (to use Rep. Franklin's words in describing why the Democrats were voting "no" on everything) by having their signatures on the same piece of paper with a Republican. Cooties, one supposes.

Since no votes were ever in suspense (unless an amendment drew a couple of Republican opponents to join with the Democrats to defeat it), it was more interesting to study faces and to listen to the way that particular representatives cast their vote.

Eve Franklin spat out "no" on every vote almost before the clerk recording the vote could finish saying the final "-lin" in the words "Representative Franklin." Rep. McChesney, D-Miles City, barked out his nasal "no!" as though he was worried that someone might not hear him and somehow accidentally mistake his "no" for a tainted "yes."

Rep. Janna Taylor, R-Dayton, was seen at least once mouthing the word "no" and tossing her head slightly while looking down, beating the Democrat to the punch whose vote she was predicting. Another time when temporarily chairing the committee she made an exaggerated expression of mock surprise when announcing that an an amendment had passed by a vote of..... 11 to 8! (Party line.) Her frustration is more than understandable (as is the Democrats') and we're sure that everyone is getting tired, but it still looked a little catty -- and we really don't need that.

Rep. Sinrud, whose composure and command of the situation has been impressive (again, it continues to become more apparent why the Democrats seem to feel so threatened by this smart and competent Republican leadership team), remarked that the Democrats' strategy seems to be to "cut off the nose to spite the face."

And as the Tribune said, "it's hard to disagree that that's how it looks."

Double scoop: Sen. Jon Tester scooped Republican Denny Rehberg by beating him to the VA hospital at Ft. Harrison. And again, the Western Word scooped Montana Headlines by pointing out that Rehberg had announced March 8 that he was going to tour Ft. Harrison to look for insights into how Congress should address the problems at Walter Reed in D.C.

Demonstrating impressive kleptoparasitic skills, Tester quickly arranged a meeting with the VA Secretary in Washington and then rushed out to Ft. Harrison to get there before Rehberg could. He promptly declared it "a Montana jewel" -- ensuring that Rehberg would be incapable of beating him on the obsequity front either. Again, very impressive for a wide-eyed "aw, shucks" rookie.

Baucus and his bag of CHIPs: It seems that one can hardly even read the Thrifty Nickel recently without learning about Max Baucus's advocacy for the CHIP program. It is a good program, and deserves to be funded well, since providing adequate health-care for low-income children is a basic responsibility of a society capable of affording it.

But one can't help wondering if all of this flurry isn't an effort to ease some of the growing heat on Baucus from the left wing of his party here in Montana.

You see, Baucus in 2005 was tied for third place amongst Democratic U.S. Senators in his American Conservative Union score. It was a measly 24, but even a score that low is too high for those in "progressive" circles.

Normally right about now, Baucus would be kicking into his late-term swing to the right in preparation for campaign season, after 4 years of voting left. But the leftish heat that he is getting these days is going to make that a bit trickier this time around.

But who can argue with something done "for the sake of the children?" He'd better milk this one.

"Flier-gate" continues at GOP HQ: As if the fliers weren't enough, GOP party chairman Karl Ohs says he "might respond" to a letter written by Democratic Party Executive Director Jim Farrell, who asked him to "explain the apparent hypocrisy" of having the GOP HQ send out attack fliers while GOP legislators denounced them. Um, write the letter and apologize, Mr. Ohs. It's called damage control, and if you don't do it now, you're just going to make things more difficult on the Republicans who are running for those legislative seats in 2008.

But for Mr. Farrell's benefit, the "hypocrisy" is really quite simple to understand. The GOP legislators probably didn't have anything to do with the fliers -- a rather believable proposition since the fliers were in abysmal taste, were incapable of accomplishing anything constructive, and wasted money and good-will that the GOP can't afford to throw around in this kind of close-quarters legislative fight. Say what one will about the GOP legislative leadership, they've run a rather tighter ship than that this session -- and we believe they probably were busy with other things.

Not that the GOP party HQ has a corner on bad taste. Some of the most offensive fliers we've received over the years have been from the state Democratic party. We sort of look forward to the day before an election, since we never know what kind of late-hitting tasteless and distorted flier or robo-call we're going to get from the state Democratic party.

Just when you think they can't go any lower -- they do. So enough of the sanctimony, Mr. Farrell. We're ashamed of the state GOP e-briefs and of these fliers -- but not because of any particularly high standards that you folks set.

No substitute for victory

"There is no substitute for victory..."
-- Ronald Reagan, 1976 Republican Convention

Montana Headlines has made no secret of our admiration for the creativity of the so-called "6-pack" that the Montana House Republican leadership came up with as their solution for the challenging hand dealt to them. (As a side-note, we'd like to know which out-of-state Einstein thought that calling this a "6-pack" plan would make it less popular with Montanans.)

We have already expressed our dim view of the idea that this plan was done for the sole (or even primary) purpose of causing partisan bickering and general confusion. It makes far more sense as a practical political solution aimed at passing a comprehensive and reasonable budget plan that would garner nearly all Republican votes.

Democrats, had they wanted to keep HB 2 together and reach consensus (and they claim to have wanted both), could have taken the offensive by coming to Republicans and negotiating compromises throughout that bill.

They could have used the usual game-playing tactics of telling the public "well, we're offering them to cut spending back from 23% to 18%, and they're too stubborn to take it -- we're offering to cut property taxes across-the-board for all, but the cuts are only half of what they were wanting."

Republicans then would have the chance to take those things and claim victory because of forcing cowering Democrats into spending and tax cuts.

Democrats would likewise be able to campaign next season about the way the vicious and evil Republicans forced them to take candy out of the mouths of small children – and furthermore boast about the fact that they had prevented Republicans from actually eating those same small children.

HB-2 would be intact, and in theory everyone would be equally happy or unhappy, depending on how one chose to look at it.

Self-evidently, nothing like this happened. We’ve heard nary a whisper of anything remotely like it. The obvious explanation is that Democrats decided to go for the whole tamale, gambling that Republicans wouldn’t have any viable political options. Jeff Mangan has written an insightful piece in which he notes that “keen political observers” knew immediately after the election that the House would have problems passing HB 2 in almost any form.

Mangan also notes “one amazing (still unbelievable) fact.” Namely that “this Republican house (+ Jore) can and will band together for the 50 votes when needed.”

Amazing and unbelievable indeed, and completely unanticipated by nearly everyone – especially by Democrats. But at this point, it has been so consistent that there is no reason to expect anything but more of the same – this outcome has been largely assured, ironically, by the Democrats in Helena themselves through their harsh attacks and overheated rhetoric.

Who ever would have expected that Rep. John Sinrud, R-Bozeman, would be the one that objective observers would see as the calm one in the Appropriations Committee meetings?

Mangan notes that “the ball is clearly in the Democrats’ court,” and gives the choices that they have: vote for the bills to prevent Republicans from being able to run against them as having chosen partisanship over voting for reasonable budget increases (and every department is getting an increase under the Republican plans, as continually has to be repeated); or hang together and force Republicans to put together their 50 votes to prevent giving “red-button” Republicans the luxury of voting against spending increases of any kind.

We think that Mangan has it exactly right.

Ed Kemmick’s recent dead-tree column in the Gazette and related blog-post takes the refreshing view that politics has always been at least partly about gamesmanship – both sides have always played it, and both sides are playing it now. The Republicans are arguably playing it better than the Democrats, since in spite of having virtually nothing to work with, they at each step have been creative enough to keep Democrats from cornering them into unacceptable choices, and disciplined enough to keep Democrats from drawing them out into looking uncontrolled or unprofessional.

The smarts of the Republican plan are obvious – its success has always depended, however, on execution of the play, not the X’s and O’s in the playbooks. As the opening quotation from the Gipper indicates, “there is no substitute for victory.”

Republicans should take sober note of the fact that their party’s nominee – Gerald Ford – lost that fall after Reagan’s speech. But on the other hand, the years of retrospect have shown that Reagan was probably never talking about that victory, but rather the one that would begin in 1980 and continue on for nearly 3 decades.

As we have noted before, Democrats in the end hold all the power in this legislative session if they choose to strong-arm their budget through one way or another. Republicans certainly hoped to force Democrats into coming to terms with the new political reality and into coming to the bargaining table. The odds are, given what we have seen, that strong-arming is exactly what they will get instead -- and Republicans will lose that particular arm-wrestling match.

How they comport themselves during that struggle and loss will determine the longer-term victory – which is always the one that matters.

State employee legislators -- part 2

Rep. John Sinrud's bill to ban sitting state legislators from accepting paid positions as state employees passed the Montana House 51-49. In spite of the fact that Republicans pointed out that this bill had more ethical logic to it than does the ban on legislators getting employment as lobbyists for two years after leaving office -- something that Democrats wanted -- only the Republicans were behind this particular reform.

Sinrud pointed out that both the Missoulian and the Bozeman Chronicle support his bill -- something he isn't used to. He jokingly said that he hoped their support wouldn't kill the bill. (Note: stricly speaking, the Missoulian editorial expresses a belief that the practice of giving a legislator a paying state job is already prohibited by the Montana Constitution. It doesn't suggest whether it believes the matter should be addressed through the legislature or through the court system. We were unable to locate quickly the Chronicle editorial.)

There were a couple of misleading points to the AP article and Gazette headline. First, the headline (like the title of our own blog entry) misleadingly implies that under this proposed law, state employees couldn't become legislators. All would be banned, however, is having a sitting legislator accept a paid state position. If the legislator ran as a non-employee, he would need to stay that way. It is an issue of transparency. It would not prevent individuals who are already state employees from running for the legislature -- voters can sort out for themselves whether they think there is a potential conflict of interest or not.

Second, the article ends by saying that Rep. Kevin Furey, D-Missoula, objected because the bill would prevent legislators from joining the Montana National Guard. Rep. Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, quickly pointed out, however, that the Montana Constitution specifically allows legislators to join the state guard or militia, so that argument was a red herring -- the article should have reported Milburn's part of the exchange, since most readers would rightly object to a bill that would prevent anyone from joining the Guard.

All of this was, of course, an unintended consequence of the Kitzenberg party-switch, a switch tainted by appearances of impropriety since he had, just a few months before, accepted an unadvertised state job from the governor.

Given that the Democrats are currently portraying themselves as the party of transparency, one would think that they would want to defuse this as a future campaign issue by helping pass this bill. The party-line vote indicates that we can instead expect that this particular piece of ethics legislation will be shot down in the Democrat-controlled state Senate. The campaign ads for 2008 on this subject are already writing themselves.