Mostly it comes down to Tester.
Despite having about $7.5 million more than all the GOP candidates do, Dems are worried he’ll lose. And I think he probably will lose. This is a red state.
Currently the GOP candidates are trying to paint him as for Obamacare and against tax cuts. Both are effective arguments for them.
For his part, Tester is playing-up the bills he’s had Trump sign, his efforts to help veterans, and the always-reliable could-lean-left, could-lean-right farmer crowd.
I just don’t think it’ll be enough for him, even against California Troy or Maryland Matt. The money won’t be enough. Word’s that it’ll already be a $50 million race, but I think it’ll be closer to $100 million.
I’m not convinced the money game is the way to win anymore. Spam in my mailbox, spam in my inbox; robo-calls to my home phone, annoying surveys to my cell phone.
And the ads, my God…the ads!
They’re already running. We’ll see a lot more online, a ton on the radio, and more than we can bear on the ol’ TV. God, it makes us sick.
And yet we put up with it. Lots don’t – they’ve simply given up on voting. I think many more will do that this year, burned out by it all, and feeling no excitement for either of the two candidates.
There’s nothing to get excited about.
And of course the Senate race will take the wind – and the money – right out of everything else.
There’ll be no help for the eventual Democratic U.S. House candidate this year; no help for any of the legislative Dems trying to win back a majority in either chamber…no matter how silly that concept may seem to us now, after more than a decade without.
Logicosity talks about this today in regards to the mysterious, Bermuda-Triangle-like Blue Bench strategy. More people have seen Sasquatch than’ve seen whatever the hell that plan is.
Won’t stop Dem brass in Helena for taking credit for recent municipal wins, however.
Over at Flathead Memo, James Conner feels that progressives need to put down their protest signs and actually run for the legislature. What most of those progressives know, however, is that standing on a corner for a few hours is easy; running for office is hard.
Many have no idea where to even begin when it comes to running for office. The MT Dems are so wrapped-up in Tester’s race that they won’t have the time to tell them.
Over at ID, I’ve been banned.
Happened sometime yesterday, I guess, after I left a very simple comment on a post talking about the immense sums of money we’ll have in the ’18 race:
“Tester has raised 81% of his money from out-of-state.”
Just putting up a fact that Mike Dennison gave us last week in his two-part look at Tester’s efforts. ID of course linked to the first, ‘favorable story while they ignored the second, ‘unfavorable’ story.
I have no problem getting banned or even a comment deleted.
But to then edit my comment so that it looks like I’m saying something different…all the while keeping my name and profile image there?
That’s pretty lame, and I said as much today. Even tried to email ID – I’ve been banned from even doing that – and tried to contact Pete Talbot on Facebook, but no luck there either.
So I guess the comment will just have to stay. Oh well.
I think it points out just how scared these folks are of the truth, the idea of dissent, and free discussions where all voices can be heard.
Mostly, Dems just want a small bubble where true-believers, the faithful, and the vetted can take part, while everyone else is left out in the cold. But then I don’t think it ever was the Dems that claimed they had the ‘big tent’ of inclusiveness. They sure don’t now.
Sites like ID and Cowgirl exist purely to telegraph to the troops on the ground (including "journalists") Democratic talking points.
As 2018 draws closer you can only expect more and more of this from them, since they'll be laser focused on keeping Tester's seat. Trump's win when they were told so unequivocally he was going to lose, along with Gianforte's body-slam to victory are making them scared.
What they (and "journalists") don't seem to be realizing is that they just come across as dishonest and hyper-partisan when they continue to disallow any and all dissent from the dialogue.
I can’t take the banning from ID personally. Pete Talbot and Don Pogreba only want as big an audience as possible to congratulate them on how amazingly-large their brain cavities are, and anything to the contrary that might cause these large craniums to overheat and explode will be dealt with as we’ve seen here.
The fact that they have to resort to personal attacks like calling me an idiot or criticizing my readership is an excellent display of their true character. We see it a lot for all kinds of commenters there – instead of discussing the comment, Pete and Don in particular, fall back on the tried-and-true character attacks that they’ve cultivated so well over the past decade of blogging.
Meanwhile the causes and the candidates they support continue to fail; the state they care so much about continues to get redder and redder.
Talk about spinning your tires in the mud.
We’ll see which tires get the most mud on ‘em this coming spring, summer and fall when the R and Tester get out there to shake as many hands and grab as much money as they can.
Someone will win.
I can’t help but think Montana will lose.