Tim Adams
They all had the story.
The AP, US News & World Report, the Bozeman Chronicle, the Missoulian, the MT Standard, the Helena IR, the Billings Gazette, the Missoula Indy, ABC Fox Montana, NBC Montana, and the CBS affiliates.
Came out at 11 AM yesterday. It was called “Green Party candidate seeking Tester’s seat was on GOP’s payroll.”
The story was hot on Twitter until around 5, when the Party staffers went home. By 8 PM it was completely off the front page of the newspaper and TV websites.
Such is the nature of our media today, driving by one story then the next, never stopping long enough to tell us what’s really going on.
I’m going to try to tell you that today, and using the candidate’s own words.
Tim Adams didn’t want to talk to any of these media types today.
But he did make his feelings clear on Facebook.
Let’s explore.
Tim Adams took the time to visit Intelligent Discontent’s Facebook page and comment on yesterday’s story.
You can view those comment, on the March 12, 6:49 PM post. One quick note: those comments may be deleted by either the site owners or the commenter himself.
Let’s dig into what Adams had to say.
And for full disclosure sake – and a bit of context – the post Tim Adams is commenting on is one that was meant to disparage me. Adams only commented on the post after the Wild West Institute’s Matthew Koehler continued to press Missoula’s Pete Talbot, a strong Democrat.
Adams left a 1,300-word response around 6 PM…7 hours after the article on him had broken.
Here’s what he had to say:
I'll post here for your benefit what I posted on the Green Party groups after the AP story broke.
For reference, people like Don and AP reporters have falsely reported that I run shadow blogs for Republicans. It was never made public but Volz [Matt Volz, AP reporter for Montana] had to apologize for spreading incorrect information about me, so I declined to talk to him this time because of his past record.
I did talk to several other reporters today so perhaps tomorrow's news coverage will be more balanced.
My work over the past 6 months has been to expose work by corporations and insurance companies to profit from the Higher Education system. Volz characterizes this as "anti-tax" because it fits his narrative.
We are raising a generation that is expected to have lower life-expectancy than their parents and grand-parents, struggles to pay off loans from college degrees that do not provide the promise results of higher paying jobs, cannot afford homes in markets catering to out-of-state retirees and college students.
I respect people who believe the best way to fix these is through the Dems, but disagree considering the behavior of Bullock and Tester, as well as by simply looking at who they raise money from.
I'm whole-heartedly on board with aspects of non-violence including peace and avoiding war at all costs. We have a great example of that in Jeannette Rankin here in Montana. I've worked on those issues in the past when I was working with Libertarians and for Ron Paul.
At the end of the day we don't need 140 military bases around the world, and should scale back our for-profit involvements of contractors like KBR in our state government.
My dad was the target of an RPG explosion while he was working for KBR, so this issue is both philosophical and personal to me. If you are not familiar, Rachel Maddow has written a book called "Drift" that is probably the best account of the transformation of our military and foreign policy during the 20th century from a citizen army to a corporately hired one.
Ecology is probably where I'd appear "worst" to the average Green party person, mostly because I grew up in Seeley Lake in a timber family.
My father who never finished high school was able to raise a family of 4 on a timber worker's salary, and buy a home and have money left over. We picked Huckleberries in the forest, cut firewood to heat our home from the forest, and hunted deer and Elk to have food year round from the forest.
It is because of this symbiotic relationship I saw in my family and those of my neighborhoods I tend to try and take a more balanced approached to ecological management issues. I want to preserve the forests for future generations, but also find a balance so we aren't putting low and middle income people out of work.
I saw a tremendous amount of resentment growing up towards environmentalists because issues like the Spotted Owl etc. were always framed as being the fault of environmentalists. Overall my position here is balance between interests that allow use but also prevent destruction.
If you're in Bozeman or Missoula you see the tremendous problems that are arising because people cannot find decent jobs and affordable housing. I think the Universities have made this problem worse by catering to out-of-staters with larger pocketbooks and requiring massive amounts of government financed debt.
At the end of the day I believe in social justice work that allows people to live freely, but also has a well-functioning safety net for those in troubled times and who need additional help. Unfortunately I think bureaucratic overhead and the involvement of corporations has tainted this well.
~Why have insurance and pharmaceutical companies been the ones to rewrite our health care laws?
When we give sugar subsidies to the tune of $2 billion a year, causing 80% of our food to have added sugar causing problems like diabetes, obesity etc, and such excess we have to start putting it in our gas tanks, isn't that when we should stop?
It shouldn't be cheaper for a mother to feed their children corporately subsidized garbage than real, nutritious food. When 8 oz of fruit juice is considered the same as an apple, pizza is a "vegetable" and companies like Monster advertise how you can buy energy drinks with EBT cards, I think there needs to be a change.
~I'm an openly gay man who's lived in Montana and faced those corresponding challenges my entire life. Instead of moving away to a big city I stayed here. I've previously been a board member of the Western Montana LGBT center, a HIV and Hep C counselor during the bad meth epidemic of the early 2000s, and raised thousands for a host of gay organizations in the state. I really appreciate that the Greens have steadfastly supported LGBT issues.
~I worked extensively on the medical and recreational marijuana initiatives in Montana, including organization and signature gathering. My filing in 2012 was to challenge a Republican legislator over his votes to gut the medical marijuana program, leaving patients who truly needed cannabis as medicine vulnerable and unable to access medicine.
~At the end of the day, I don't want to support any party that puts profit over people. I don't want people who work hard everyday to pay taxes that just go to corporate profits. I want government programs to be lean and efficient so they help the people who need it the most, without overhead skimmed to corporate or special interests. Progressives have not been served well by the Democratic party.
Here in Montana they routinely pick their candidates in backrooms, who then go on to lose. Then the grassroots are thrown under the bus. (see John Walsh/Amanda Curtis) This also appear to be the case with Bernie in 2016, which has been proven in court filings showing the DNC coordinating with the Hillary campaign, despite Bernie being the better candidate to take on Trump.
I want the people to pick their representatives, not just blindly support whoever the party leaders think will be the best "gimmick" to win."
I'll also post a second response that shows testimony before the Regents back in November.
"I know that the Associated Press is attempting to paint me as some covert operative for Republicans. I've made a few comments on here addressing those, but I wanted to post a recent testimony I gave at the Board of Regents meeting that shows some of the things I've been working on.
We have a Board of Regents that oversees education in Montana that is intimately involved with banks like Glacier Bancorp and D.A.Davidson and companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is wanting to spend $1.5 million on the LR 128 ballot issue.
Higher Education costs have spiraled out of control and the people running these colleges have responded by focusing enrollment on out-of-state students instead of being more frugal or foregoing corporate influence over their spending. I'm attaching my testimony to the regents in November about housing and spending so you can actually see me and hear me speak to these issues.
I'm not going to tell anyone what to think. Don and Pete obviously have their opinions and nobody is going to change them. From my perspective they are so deep down the ideological rabbit hole they now think blog posts denigrating specific people and posting snarky shit on Twitter all day is somehow helping the Democratic party.
I would hope people can see that blind allegiance to the Democratic party has only harmed progressives and continuing to support party leaders who pick candidates based on gimmicks over substance has lost many races.
When pressed on his involvement with the Montana GOP by Intelligent Discontent, Adams responded with this 600-word comment:
To answer your questions Don, I did data analytics for the GOP during the 2014 cycle. I compiled daily and weekly reports for top campaign staff on what each region had done that day. I gave daily reports on how we were doing with specific demographics of importance to the campaign.
After the campaign was over I was asked to stay on to clean up the party's voter database and try to integrate with it's fundraising efforts.
I did in depth analysis of how much money our fundraising efforts were losing because no one was paying attention to them and just writing checks to consultants in DC.
Will Deschamps declined to listen to the advice of myself and the treasurer at the time because he thought it would make him look bad. It was around the time Deschamps was ousted because the party was $80k in debt under his tenure.
I was let go because I was told bluntly "this is the last check I can write you where I'm sure it won't bounce."
It didn't ultimately matter, since as I've found out with most political ideologues, they won't listen to anyone but themselves, no matter how bad the advice.
To your 2nd question, here's the GP statement of values and I don't see "free college" anywhere, so you'll have to show me where you came up with this.
The state university system has increased it's spending 4 fold above what was been given in increased allocation by the legislature.
It's also borrowed hundreds of millions more for pet projects, sometimes by members of the banking industry that profits from these loans.
You may disagree on the appropriate level of taxpayer funding, but I think the involvement of insurance companies like Blue Cross, D.A. Davidson and Glacier Bancorp should be brought to light so we can have a legitimate discussion on whether higher education is becoming out-of-reach for Montana students because the costs are actually necessary or whether they are there to subsidize the profits of involved corporations.
…
I'll throw in one more thing. Why does Bullock have almost $500,000 in his presidential aspirations PAC with 3 years in office?
That is money that could have gone to your candidates this cycle, instead of letting him suck up all the air in the room.
Nobody thinks Bullock has any chance at being President but yet when the Brian Schweitzer train fell off the rails Stern just convinced Bullock to run.
If Tester or down ticket Democrats lose this cycle, will anyone be looking resentfully at the huge money Bullock was stockpiling for his own vanity run? Let's hope not...
Conclusion
The Montana Green Party is desperately trying to reconcile the media reports about ‘its candidates’ with what those candidates actually believe.
Danielle Breck – currently head of the Party, though not running for an elected position herself – has been biting her nails with the stories that came out about Tim Adams yesterday.
Coupled with new questions about other Green Party candidates – which tickets they’ve run on before, and what their views are exactly – and the Greens aren’t quite having the rollout they would have wanted.
But they’re there, and they’re in the news…however bad it might seem now.
As you can see from Tim Adams’ comments, however, this is a guy that exemplifies the Green Party ideals.
He wants honest, working people to make a living. He wants us to eat clean food. He wants money out of politics. And he wants to end our damn wars.
The Greens have become the victim of an expected, and what should have been a foreseen, attack...one coming from the Dems.
The Dems feel threatened, and rightly so. For the first time in a decade in this state, they’re looking to lose votes from progressive members of their Party.
While Dems try to lean right to catch the ‘large group of in-the-middle independents,’ this could alienate progressives and even strong- or leaning-Democrats.
We’ve all seen the stories of Tester cozying up to his ’13 bills signed-by-Trump’ story.
The TV ads will be never-ending, talking this shit up.
And boy will some Dems be ticked. Those are Dems that now have an option, as Danielle Breck alluded to on Monday night:
Dani Breck, state coordinator for the Green Party, told MTN News Monday that mainstream-arty candidates seldom “step outside their comfort zone” to address voter concerns on issues like global warming, socio-economic conditions or increased militarization in the world.
“There is a huge percentage of voters, they simply don’t vote, because they don’t feel like there is an option for them,” Breck said. “We’re really trying to engage the non-voters and get them out to the polls.”
The Montana Green Party has been taken out of its comfort zone over the past 24 hours.
What’ll be interesting to watch is how they get back in it.
Disavowing candidates won’t do it.
None of us are perfect; we all have our faults.
But is working for the GOP to try and figure out why they’re wasting so much money a bad thing?
Gosh…a burgeoning political party could probably use that experience and know-how.
Seems to me Tim Adams is pretty progressive on many of the issues.
But will that be enough for the Green Party of Montana?
