The (Big) Sky’s No Longer the Limit
By 
Steve Bullock is (very probably) running for Senate after his every so slight shot at the Presidency. Bullock was the kind of candidate who, perhaps in 2004, would have been ideal: young-ish blue governor from red state who managed to win many statewide elections (twice as AG and twice as governor). While an unknown candidate who was generally popular with less than 1% of the electorate and occasional subject of favorable op-ed coverage, Bullock’s national reputation within the twitterverse was largely negative given his fervent and frequent denials that he would run for Senate. More than casual observers of the political process seemed to think that his not getting in the race was tantamount to him personally giving the senate to Mitch McConnell. (While orders of magnitude quieter, this kind of outcry resembled leftist anger at Warren for daring to stay in the race at the cost of votes for Sanders or Black voters possibly voting for Joe Biden).
To be fair to angry people, it was curious/bonkers that Bullock would opt for President when Senate seemed more obvious. Yes, there are advantages to running for President even if that is a lost cause: you get interviewed, you get to debate, you can even be a media darling for a spell. It’s useful when you are term limited. Montana has two statewide federal races this year – one involves the House seat currently occupied by Greg “The Bodyslammer” Gianforte and the other occupied by Steve {nickname not found} Daines. [Authors note: I’ve rewritten a description of Gianforte several times and have been unsuccessful in not using truly profane language. So, insert your chosen term of art in describing something detestable here. Something like Gian___Face]. Gianforte is a Republican cut straight from the Trump cloth – billionaire who buys elections, supports white nationalism, funds museums that show Jesus walking with dinosaurs, who also displays general governing incompetence. He has a temper, particularly when confronted with things he doesn’t understand; thus, he’s angry most of the time. The issue for which he is famous outside of Montana is his bodyslamming of Guardian reporter, Ben Jacobs, for asking him about the CBO score of the attempt to repeal and replace the ACA in the summer of 2017. Math is hard.
Gianforte’s first foray into Montana politics was an expensive and ignominious loss to Bullock in the gubernatorial contest of 2016. However, Gianforte but was able to win the special election for the House in the Spring of 2018 when then Representative Ryan Zinke was tapped by President Draco to extract all resources from all federal lands and, by the way, destroy the protective authority of the Antiquities Act. Montana’s House seat essentially replaced Crabbe with Goyle. That election demonstrated how shallow the statewide Democratic bench is in Montana politics and the influence that the 2016 Democratic presidential primary fight had on state politics in Montana and elsewhere. The 2016 nominee, Denise Juneau, decided not run for the House seat, which meant a wide open contest. Montana is generally an anti-DC, anti-Establishment, and anti-Helmet state; the 2016 election brought a candidate widely associated with all of those things (well, I’m not sure about helmets) to Montana and then another guy who was not (again, not sure about helmets for Sanders). So, Sanders captured a number of the presidential delegates, but, Sanders supporters captured a number of Democratic county commission seats. This is important because delegates from county committees picked the Democratic nominee for the special election – there were some excellent candidates, but, they went with a never-elected-to-anything folk singer Rob Quist who lost. To be fair, I knew people on the Quist campaign and they worked their asses off; and, while not elected, Quist had name recognition. He also had unpaid bills which you think would not be a problem for a state that voted for a President who famously does not pay his bills; but somehow this mattered.
So, Gianforte is trying to win the office he lost before and has a very good shot at it with Bullock leaving. Though, that contest is heating up and maybe I’ll write about it later… However, the other contest in Montana politics that matters far more to national politicos is the race for Senate. The current occupant – which is a good way to describe Steve Daines – is running for re-election for the first time. This is when candidates are most vulnerable, equivalent to the sloth descending a tree to defecate every three days, and Bullock is the jaguar prime to pounce. Curiously, the state has been in this position before. The 2014 race was an open seat vacated by venerable Democrat and later Ambassador to China, Max Baucus. The Democratic party implored the former populist (when that term didn’t have so much stank on it) governor Brian Schweitzer to run. He demurred and Daines, one of America’s least exciting and least important politicians, became a person who gets to vote on treaties. Daines’ passivity makes him a perfect, pliant Death Eater.
Winning as a Democrat in Montana is hard, but, not impossible as it would be in ID, WY, UT, ND, or SD. The party is still strong, labor is still important, and people there still generally care about good government when the right candidate is in front of them. Montana’s senior senator, Jon Tester, is a testament to that. Daines is beatable – he famously avoids town halls – so much so that when called on it by my friends over at the MontanaPost, he built a feature on his webpage that shows where he’s been in Montana (look at 2019 – you’ll notice no town halls). Daines will occasionally host virtual town halls which is fitting for a man who is virtually a free-thinking senator. Though Zinke was prepared to give away America’s public lands, he only took that ideological position when he was no longer accountable to Montana voters who very much care about this issue – Democrats, Independents, and some Republicans.
The race already has qualified candidates, but, in Magnanimous Monday fashion where Pete and Amy threw their weight to Joe, one of the candidates has already dropped out and endorsed Bullock even though he has yet to file the paperwork. The race will consolidate quickly there around him and then Montana is going to be the scene of a bruising national fight. But, we’ve seen this before in 2018 when Donald Trump made it his personal mission to oust Jon Tester. Trump visited 3 times, Pence visited 3 times, and Junior visited 9 times to support auditor and Maryland transplant Matt Rosendale in his fight against Tester. In response, Montanans handed Tester his largest vote share in his three electoral contests (to be fair, he still won by less than two points). Regardless, this will force Republicans to spend their resources away from presidential states such as AZ & ME (CO has Gardner running but I can’t imagine it would vote for Trump even if Gardner wins). It’s a good thing and I’m glad Steve is running.
The timing of Bullock’s decision, a day after Biden’s SuperTuesday showing, is telling. Montana, like other moderate districts, would have been a radioactive wasteland with Sanders at the top of the ticket. People like Bullock would not have even run much less been successful.
Still, it won’t be easy. While running for President might have benefits, one of the costs Bullock incurred was a position on gun control that will be hard to walk away from. He’s going to have to prove that he didn’t get too much DC or too much Establishment on him during his run. And, even though Montana politics is about to be a war zone, he should consider not wearing a helmet.