The first debate between Zinke and Juneau was in Frazer on Monday night. It lasted one hour.
Interestingly, according to the AP, Zinke’s dad helped build Fort Peck Dam and his mom is from Glendive…which is 119 miles away.
I didn’t watch it because I couldn’t – no one is filming it, unless you count Nelson TV, which airs it in a couple days – though Yellowstone Public Radio did stream it and I think MTPR did something as well.
So I saw a bunch of stuff on Twitter and that’s where I got my opinions.
For the most part, the two compared each other to Hillary and Trump – negatively, of course – and then spoke of refugees.
It came back to the two presidential candidates a lot, however, with Juneau saying Zinke is stumping for Trump too much and Zinke saying Juneau is just like Hillary, lying and untrustworthy.
At one point Zinke compared meth to ISIS, saying the drug is destroying us from within.
Juneau touted her experience at OPI and said Zinke needed to do more to help veterans. Juneau brought up all the votes Zinke has missed in Congress and Zinke…well, Zinke kind of stayed away from the attacks.
He’s in Congress, he has the job, and he just needs to keep it. It’s Juneau that has the uphill battle, and when making that arduous uphill journey, things often become more negative and combative.
Perhaps that’s what Juneau needs to do, though I feel most voters’ minds are already made up.
The other day Logicosity mentioned that Juneau’d probably get 42% to Zinke’s likely 58%, though maybe 56% or so if Libertarian candidate Mike Fellows – who chose to skip the debate – gets 2% or so.
The second debate is in 3 days in Billings and the last one is next Monday in Great Falls.
If they’re not on TV, what’s the point?
Something that is on TV is a new ad out from Juneau, and I thought it was pretty good.
Her biggest problem is the same problem that John Lewis had in 2014, however – the blue cities just aren’t enough to carry you through when it comes to the sea of red that makes up the Hi-Line, eastern Montana, the Bitterroot, the Flathead, and large swaths of the Billings area.
That’s a perennial problem for Dems, one that hasn’t been adequately addressed since at least 1992 and the loss of the Second Congressional Seat.
More than 153,000 voted in the 1990 Second Congressional race and 164,000 voted in the First Congressional race that year.
By 1992 there were 393,000 votes for the race between Williams and Marlenee for the combined seats and Williams took it by 14,000 votes.
Democrats had been losing the state well before that. There is no real hope for any kind of Democratic agenda until Democrats can find a viable message that appeals to those areas.
I still hold out hope that this will happen, that Democrats will get it figured out.
Interestingly, according to the AP, Zinke’s dad helped build Fort Peck Dam and his mom is from Glendive…which is 119 miles away.
I didn’t watch it because I couldn’t – no one is filming it, unless you count Nelson TV, which airs it in a couple days – though Yellowstone Public Radio did stream it and I think MTPR did something as well.
So I saw a bunch of stuff on Twitter and that’s where I got my opinions.
For the most part, the two compared each other to Hillary and Trump – negatively, of course – and then spoke of refugees.
It came back to the two presidential candidates a lot, however, with Juneau saying Zinke is stumping for Trump too much and Zinke saying Juneau is just like Hillary, lying and untrustworthy.
At one point Zinke compared meth to ISIS, saying the drug is destroying us from within.
Juneau touted her experience at OPI and said Zinke needed to do more to help veterans. Juneau brought up all the votes Zinke has missed in Congress and Zinke…well, Zinke kind of stayed away from the attacks.
He’s in Congress, he has the job, and he just needs to keep it. It’s Juneau that has the uphill battle, and when making that arduous uphill journey, things often become more negative and combative.
Perhaps that’s what Juneau needs to do, though I feel most voters’ minds are already made up.
The other day Logicosity mentioned that Juneau’d probably get 42% to Zinke’s likely 58%, though maybe 56% or so if Libertarian candidate Mike Fellows – who chose to skip the debate – gets 2% or so.
The second debate is in 3 days in Billings and the last one is next Monday in Great Falls.
If they’re not on TV, what’s the point?
Something that is on TV is a new ad out from Juneau, and I thought it was pretty good.
Her biggest problem is the same problem that John Lewis had in 2014, however – the blue cities just aren’t enough to carry you through when it comes to the sea of red that makes up the Hi-Line, eastern Montana, the Bitterroot, the Flathead, and large swaths of the Billings area.
That’s a perennial problem for Dems, one that hasn’t been adequately addressed since at least 1992 and the loss of the Second Congressional Seat.
More than 153,000 voted in the 1990 Second Congressional race and 164,000 voted in the First Congressional race that year.
By 1992 there were 393,000 votes for the race between Williams and Marlenee for the combined seats and Williams took it by 14,000 votes.
Democrats had been losing the state well before that. There is no real hope for any kind of Democratic agenda until Democrats can find a viable message that appeals to those areas.
I still hold out hope that this will happen, that Democrats will get it figured out.
In other news…refugees.
I saw today that the Daily Interlake did an editorial saying that when it comes to refugees, Gianforte’s right and Bullock’s wrong.
You’ll remember that Bullock is in favor of bringing refugees to Montana while Gianforte thinks it’s a bad idea.
It was also announced Monday that the US has admitted 10,000 Syrian refugees already and wants to do another 10,000 over the next year.
We just had some refugees come to Missoula, though they’re from the Congo and not Syria so there’s not too much to debate.
It’s the Muslim refugees that people are worried about, specifically those from Syria…or really, any war-torn area that could have young would-be terrorists joining the refugee ranks.
The Interlake mentioned the story of a 5-year-old girl being sexually assaulted by 2-3 refugees in Idaho in June.
You can read more by Googling it, and the first results up are WND, Breitbart, and Fox News…sites I’m always leery of linking to as sources as I find them way too biased.
The most reputable source after that is #5 in the search results and it’s from the Idaho Statesman saying the refugee-assault story is false.
“According to those officials, three boys were involved, ages 7, 10 and 14, and the alleged victim was a 5-year-old girl. The boys are from Sudan and Iraq; none are Syrian. They are being held at a juvenile detention facility. Officials suspect the boys have been in the United States fewer than two years, but their refugee status wasn’t immediately clear to the police chief.”
Well, Sudan…that’s just great.
The Sudan is 1,300 miles from Congo.
Personally, I can see why people might be worried. And Iraq? Gosh, that’s the Middle East, and while it’s true it’s not Syria, it’s pretty damn close.
I’ve written about refugees and racism in Montana before, so you know my stance.
I think we have enough native Montanans and native-born Americans that are having problems. We should help them first.
I also believe the best way to help refugees is by ending the war in Syria.
America started all the messes over there. We should have left Saddam in place – what the hell do I and other low-wage workers give a damn about those countries for anyways?
If their rulers are so bad, then those people need to overthrow them.
America needs to see to its own problems, of which there are many, and stop meddling in other parts of the world.
With the current idiots in charge and the corporations that fund them, however, that probably won’t happen anytime soon.
Let’s discuss a bit about gubernatorial politics.
Bullock is catching some flak for not debating Gianforte in the Flathead.
Still, Matt Rosendale is getting some flak for not debating Laslovich anywhere.
What the hell?
I feel that if you’re in politics – or want to be – you should be willing to debate anytime, anywhere.
I’m talking drop of the hat style debates. Hell, out back in the parking lot after a night of drinking in the bar too!
Why don’t these people want to debate?
I love debating. I love talking about the issues. I love arguing about them too.
Why, then, is Matt Rosendale not that way…and why is Bullock shying away from another debate as well?
I guess they figure debates won’t help them, may even hurt them.
Lame-O!
Anyways, I see that Gianforte continues to make the rounds to just about everywhere. Yesterday on Twitter he had a photo up of him doing a “pitch fork fondue” in Wolf Creek.
Gianforte in Wolf Creek
Is it normal for a gubernatorial candidate to travel this much?
Perhaps, but maybe we just didn’t see so much of it before social media became so prevalent.
You can see some of my Gianforte image posts here:
- What Has Greg Gianforte Been Up To? (Dec 31, 2015)
- Greg Gianforte’s Regulation Roundup Rides Into Missoula (Feb 16, 2016)
They’re posts that I put up over the past year and show him just about everywhere and doing just about everything.
Damn, Gianforte is going to know the state pretty well when it’s all said and done.
If he loses this race he’ll be one of the most experienced Republicans in Montana when it comes to running for office.
In other words, he’ll be back at some point and at some point he’ll win.
As to Bullock…gosh, where is he?
We hardly see him around much, but maybe he is going places but it’s just not ‘hyped’ as much.
Gianforte does have a good campaign staff that ferries him around and makes sure people know of it.
I’m no expert on campaigns, but besides the heavy media spending, I feel his campaign spending so far has been both responsible and effective.
I’d like more of that spending to be in-state, as I’ve said many times, but what can you do?
Bullock is spending money, but I’m not sure it shows. Without his incumbency status I feel he’d be even lower in whatever internal polls have no doubt been done.
That said, I feel those internal polls still show him coming out ahead…but not by too much.
Why else would he be spending $20,000 a day on ads for the month of July if he was feeling so confident?
To take it a bit further, why would Hillary continue to fundraise all this past week if she was so confident of winning?
I see a lot of similarities between the presidential and gubernatorial races, the big one being that members of both parties aren’t that thrilled about the candidates they’re expected to vote for.
We know that’s the case with Gianforte, as so many voted for his primary opponent, and with Bullock, I feel that – again, without that incumbency – many wouldn’t really care about Bullock.
When we get to presidential politics we see that both Trump and Hillary are no good.
Trump is out to protect the Wall Street hedge fund managers while Hillary is protecting the big banks.
Trump says he’ll close the $17 billion a year tax loophole that the hedge fund managers enjoy.
This is called the carried interest exemption and it’s worth $180 billion over 10 years.
What’s interesting is that the same hedge fund managers that Trump will deal a blow to by closing this are the same that are now donating to his campaign.
Why would they do that?
Simple – Trump will close the carried interest loophole while opening a new loophole that saves them even more money.
It’s all in the semantics.
Instead of taxing carried interest at 23.8%, as it is now, Trump will tax it at 15%.
I can’t rightly rail against our own State of Montana’s -4% capital gains tax and then accept this handout to the rich that Trump has in the works.
I see no reason to vote for him at this point, unless you’re a rich person that wants to game the system so it works even better for you at the expense of common citizens that do the real work and toil in this country.
Paul Singer is currently backing Trump financially. You might remember that he profited off the massive Argentina debt to the tune of $2.4 billion.
They call that man “the Vulture.”
Politico also has a list of Trump donors that, once they give him a ton of money, become advisors.
The Wall Street Journal also reports on this.
For instance, hedge fund manager Robert Mercer – who gave $13 million to Ted Cruz – is now giving $2 million to the Defeat Crooked Hillary PAC for Trump.
It’s ‘pay to play’ and the rich are paying a lot. You and your family’s concerns don’t factor into it.
69 days to go.
Let’s remember that 62% of Americans want Gary Johnson in the debates.
Johnson’s at 10% in the polls so needs 5% more to get into the debates.
Perhaps it’s time to get a Johnson bumper sticker, huh?
I'm ordering a pack of 5 from the official Gary Johnson site. If you'd like one, I'll send you one for free...just use the contact form
