I stayed up to about 2 AM watching results come in.
I might as well not have – seems like Missoula County went home around midnight and didn’t going again until this morning.
Well, results are up now and I’ve updated all of them…except the Supreme Court races, PSC 4, and a few of the House and Senate races from around the state.
For the most part, the percentages remain the same as when I first reported them last night.
If you’re mad that I called your race before voting was done, don’t be – I called my own.
Yeah, I lost.
So why do I feel like such a winner today?
Maybe it’s because I got 315 votes.
Wasn’t I supposed to do a lot worse than that?
Hell, Nancy Keenan and her gaggle of D.C. minions in Helena wouldn’t even return my phone calls or emails!
They had some fun with that, heckling me with their anonymous Twitter accounts.
Well, I still did pretty good…as I mentioned last night.
Didn’t win, but did pretty good.
I'm sure the Dem elite in Helena will continue to laugh at me, and I expect that.
Nonetheless, I’m proud of myself and I’m looking forward to running again. I feel energized, like more people know me, and the message I push.
For the most part, that message is that the Montana Democratic Party is not working hard enough for common workers, struggling property taxpayers, and anyone else that’s feeling left out.
I feel voters recognize this.
- First, many voters are voting for the GOP instead of the Democrats.
- Next, many voters are not voting at all (turnout yesterday was 44%).
- Finally, I don’t see this trend changing.
Last night the results were abysmal.
- The Governor’s Race: GOP turned out 24,000 more voters
- The Sec. of State Race: GOP turned out 26,000 more voters
- The Attorney Gen. Race: GOP turned out 38,000 more voters
- The State Auditor Race: GOP turned out 29,000 more voters.
- The OPI Race: GOP turned out 26,000 more voters.
- The U.S. House Race: GOP turned out 32,000 more voters.
Anyway you slice it, Democrats are coming up about 20,000 votes short in turnout compared to the GOP.
Guess we can expect Dems to head up to Indian country a lot, huh? Yeah, I'm sure that'll help ‘em.
My God, what a failure the Dem message is!
Montana Democrats are set to lose every single statewide office in November, it's so obvious.
Instead of figuring out what to do about this, or why the current strategy isn’t working, I feel Montana Democrats will continue down the same tired path.
That’s more private fundraisers at rich people’s houses and more out of state fundraising from PACs.
I’m sorry, but if that strategy worked then why did Matt Rosendale – who has about $100,000 less in his campaign bank account – get 29,000 more votes than Jesse Laslovich?
I emailed Bob Funk today, Laslovich’s campaign manager, to ask those questions, and how they feel about their race in general.
I did not get a response.
I felt like emailing Denise Juneau’s campaign to ask similar questions, but you’ll remember that her communications director blocked me on Twitter.
I feel that Denise Juneau can do “fine” without me.
Yeah, coming up 32,000 votes short in turnout…that’s quite fine, isn’t it?
Of course, we can just say that many didn’t vote because there was no primary opponent for those races.
Hey, I like that…let’s use it!
That way we don’t have to change one Goddamn thing, don’t have to take a hard look in the mirror, don't have to figure out what’s really the problem.
So expect a lot of BS like that out of the two Democratic mouthpiece blogs of the state (three if you count the Missoula Current, which I think perhaps we should).
I went ahead and emailed Aaron Flint today as well about Gianforte’s race.
I specifically asked them how they planned to carry this momentum from last night forward.
I also asked how they planned to get those Nelson votes.
I got no response there either.
Oh, and I don't believe a lot of Dems were crossing over and voting for Nelson, I just don't.
Conclusion
We did get rid of fuck-head Art Wittich last night.
God, that man is such a loser.
Expect to see him in Gianforte's administration come January...if trends continue, which they likely will. Remember - Dems don't want to change.
Besides that, it’s being reported that moderates only made slight gains.
I feel we’ll see the hardcore Republicans tighten their ranks, perhaps make it even more difficult for compromise to happen.
Is that a bad thing?
Well, for Democrats it is, but really, when you win elections and your party wins more than the other party, you get that mandate.
You get the numbers in the legislature and that means you have the power to dictate the agenda.
That’s what winning is.
It’s why I continually say we need to take that Hi-Line and eastern Montana country back.
Instead of attempting this, however, we get the same tired message from Montana Democrats, the same message that hasn’t worked in decades.
- People do not care about us!
- We are not helping their lives!
- We are not doing a damn thing besides helping ourselves, lining our own nests and building a higher perch.
Democrats are not supposed to be like this…but when they’re not fighting for the common man, who is?
Sure as shit ain’t Republicans.
More and more Democrats like me are realizing this. It’s why we don’t care about voting in November, not one bit.
If we do vote it’ll be third-party and we’ll likely skip most down-ticket races.
I’m sorry if that bothers you.
Is it my problem or yours?
If the Montana Democratic Party refuses to change, these problems will persist.
- Charging people $70 to talk about your convention planks on Saturday won’t help.
- Charging $170 just to attend your 2-day convention in Helena won’t help.
Oh well.
I raised $340 for my race and got 315 votes.
I didn’t need to raise a lot of money to get those votes, but I did have to do a lot of work.
Montana Democrats need to do a lot of work, and they need to start doing it now.
Will they?
That remains to be seen.