All of this has happened just in the past couple days, right as mail-in-only ballots go out.
So what’s the story? It’s about Triepke buying a house, a rental property, and some vehicles while still on food stamps.
So the big question is…will this cost her the race?
Did she ever have the race to begin with?
I dunno. I know this story doesn’t sound good…but I also know that lots of people don’t care.
If you go to the article on Facebook, you can see that things really backfired.
You can also see why the Missoulian removed your ability to comment from its site over a year ago – nearly all of the comments aren’t what the corporate staff expected.
In this case, the majority of the 85 comments are in favor of Lisa Triepke and against John Engen and/or the crappy, corporate, biased coverage of the Missoulian.
Yeah, talk about backfiring!
And this was after the Missoulian doubled down. On Wednesday they put out the article about Triepke buying two homes while on food stamps; then on Thursday they ran the story of her also buying a car and an RV.
In both instances, the public lashed-out…not at Triepke, but at the Missoulian.
What a fuck-up.
On top of it one of the commenters revealed that Emily Bentley of Ward 3 is dating Missoulian/Indy publisher, Matt Gibson.
Golly.
Kinda makes you think again about the reporting on the fairgrounds, and even how Bentley got her new fairgrounds director job in January.
We know she’ll get all the favorable coverage she needs – just keep sleeping with your boyfriend.
Kinda makes me do a lot of rethinking of my Indy interview last week. Now when the actual article comes out it’ll make a lot more sense to me – the publisher is in bed with the current, corrupt city government.
So that Missoulian piece really, really backfired.
Again…what effect will it have on the race? Election officials are only expecting a 20-25% turnout. So that means of the 45,000 ballots sent out, just about 10,000 will be returned.
I don’t see a lot of students voting, and that’ll hurt Engen.
Again, about all we can do at this point is wait and see how it goes. Most will have voted within the first few days of receiving their ballot.
The Challenger
Sarah Dean had her letter to the editor in just about every major Montana newspaper this week.
I read it on the MT Standard, for the main reason that when something like this comes out, I know it’ll be on all the state newspaper sites and that way I don’t have to use up one of my 10 free articles a month on the Missoulian.
Hey, I don’t pay for news. There’s absolutely no reason to today. The media companies have designed their sites that way, with copy-pasted articles from one site to another.
There’s no reason to pay.
Anyways, boy…I sure liked what Dean had to say!
That said, she was a bit all over the place. She focused on debt, then on the banking elite, and finally on Tester’s donors…among other things.
A lot to put out there in your first self-introduction to the state.
And she’s right on all she says.
Take debt. Montana has the 8th highest debt amounts in the nation, with an average debt load of $7,364 per household. The national average is $5,700.
Our students have it worse. We know that 60% of them graduate with debt, with the average load being $26,000.
To me, this is a serious problem.
Households struggle and recent graduates aren’t able to make big purchases like cars or houses, nor are they able to start families.
Our demographics will suffer, and that’ll make it even harder to fund Social Security in the future.
That’s the price we pay to ensure the bankers continue to live the high life, with their summers in the Hamptons and their winters in Europe.
We know Dean’s letter had impact as the zealots at ID had to quickly put up a post saying that “no one has ever heard” of this woman and that no one really wants to hear from her.
The idea of a woman exercising her Democratic and constitutional rights to run for federal office “is beyond suspicious, it is infuriating.”
Little zealous, if you ask me.
Personally, I think we need 10 candidates running against Tester. In case you haven’t noticed, the Montana Democrats have no bench to speak of. This is a good way to build one.
Aside from that, at least one challenger for Tester means the senator can raise more money during the primary process.
Also, shouldn’t Tester be so confident in his previous 2 terms’ worth of service that he knows he won’t lose in the primary?
But we don’t see any of that!
Instead we see zealous Montana Democrats shooting down anyone that has the ‘audacity’ to run for Congress against a man they think isn’t doing as good a job as he should.
Expect a lot more attacks from this site. I left a comment on their article about the efficacy of this, and I encourage you to read it.
Final Notes
I’m in Helena today, taking advantage of two days of no school to let my son visit his grandparents. I’ll be heading home tonight to work my bar job, however.
I did go up to the Montana Historical Society.
I finished up my research into Rick Hill and Judy Martz. All of that will go into my final volume of Montana history, which won’t be released until late-2020.
I was disappointed to see that there was no file on the Fagg family. I know that Russell Fagg has some roots in Montana, and I was hoping to find out what they were. Alas, not today.
I did find some interesting things on Tester as I began my research into him.
On May 25, 2005, the 48-year-old Jon Tester filed to run for the U.S. Senate against Conrad Burns. He figured he’d need to raise up to $800,000 to win the primary, and another $6 million to win the general.
At the time, Burns was 70-years-old and had already raised $2.2 million to try and win his fourth term. Most of his money came from telecom companies, lobbyists, insurance companies, and PACs.
Tester admitted that beating Burns would be difficult, but not impossible. “I think he’s kind of lost touch with Montana,” Tester said of him.
Fast forward 12 years and Tester is seeking his third term. He has nearly $8 million in his campaign war chest.
Most comes from Wall Street, lawyers, insurance companies, and PACs.
I think he’s kind of lost touch with Montana.