Today was the first of several debates between Jon Tester and Conrad Burns. This was a 'rural' debate, held at the high school in Hamilton MT (population about 5,000). It's one of the most conservative counties in the state (e.g. Militia of Montana were big here in the 80's), but there are plenty of people with moderate-to-liberal leanings moving into the area that are beginning to dilute local politics.
More after the fold...
I sat behind Conrad Burns' wife and some others in his entourage, which was pretty bizarre. They got kind of antsy, kind of grumpy, as the debate wore on. Why, you ask? Well, for one thing, there were about 4 Tester supporters (or, et least, anti-Burns types) for every Burns supporter. Secondly, these anti-Burns types were an unhappy bunch. They gave shit to Burns (booing, shouting out snarky comments) every time he said something truly stupid (i.e. frequently; they were rude, true, but angry people get rude sometimes.) And, finally, Burns' attempts to expose Tester for 'dirty politics' were truly pathetic. Tester is State Senate President, and as such, travelled with a group of legislators (to Taiwan, or some such, and to somewhere else [I stopped taking notes at about this point because it was getting pretty heated]). Tester in his rebuttal read off the (very long) list of tax-payer supported trips Burns has made. It was hilarious. He said something to the effect that Las Vegas is apparently very important to the Senator, given that he's gone there 10 times! The most ironic 'dirt' of all was Burns' actually taunting Tester for having applied for, and received, drought relief money from the Federal Government. As Tester pointed out, we've been in severe drought in Montana for 6+ years, and the abuse of these programs is all the Federal dollars going to big corporate farms, not to an individual farmers like him.
It was a good debate for Tester; he answered the questions concisely, and he just made sense. Regarding NCLB, he has experience as a school board member, and was able to use that experience to speak to the problems with it. The other really great thing about this was that Montanans are all about local control and state's rights, and NCLB is a complete loser for them.
Here's the letter I sent to the editor of our local paper:
Tester-Burns Debate
Today we learned some things about our candidates for the U.S. Senate. From Senator Burns, we were witnesses to the National Republican Party strategy for this election cycle: dig up dirt and throw it in the opponent's face (what little of it there is), and equate disagreement with President Bush to being a traitor. That's right, the 60%+ of us who don't like the direction this country is going and who think we should have a plan to get out of Iraq are no better than traitors. Conversely, from State Senate President Tester, we got to hear his answers to every question posed in the debate. We were inspired by his closing statement, a positive vision for the future of Montana and the US. What a contrast.
Speaking of dirt, if you are one of the farmers or ranchers who have sought relief from the federal government after 6+ years of punishing drought in our state, you'd better watch out. Burns attacked Tester for it, and he may come after you, too. So much for "bringing the pork home for Montanans" , or whatever the heck Burns' campaign slogan is....
J.G. Corn
I don't know how do colored boxes yet, but I will learn.