Archives Index, 2020 February
29 February 2020 — 2344 mst
Flathead legislative filings update
Updated 1 March 2020. Three more Democrats filed for Flathead legislative seats this past week, one Republican threw his hat in a house district ring, and one Republican is now listed as running as a Democrat.
25 February 2019 — 2043 mst
The longest two-hour debate in history
The winner? Donald Trump. His campaign came away with more lethal video clips, courtesy of the Democrats’ circular firing squad, than he’ll be able to use. Bloomberg, Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and to a lesser extent, Steyer, spent their time not explaining their positions and making the case for their being President, but bashing Bernie Sanders with slanders that made a mud fest in a pig stye seem like clean fun in a perfume parlor.
24 February 2020 — 1428 mst
When will Wuhan Fever (aka Covid-19) hit the Flathead?
How well will public health authorities be prepared for it?
▶ U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
▶ World Health Organization.
▶ Kalispell Regional Healthcare.
▶ The Flathead County Health Department directs you to the CDC.
Wuhan Fever, a highly contagious virus far more deadly than seasonal influenza, is breaking out of China, its country of origin. Writing in today’s New York Times, infectious disease specialist Michael Osterholm observes:
It’s now clear that the epidemic was never going to be contained. At most, its spread was slowed by the lockdown imposed in China and other countries’ efforts to identify infected people and anyone they might have been in contact with.
22 February 2020 — 1450 mst
Flathead legislative filings table
Filings close at 1700 MDT on 9 March. In the Flathead, several districts are without Democratic candidates, and thus far only one Libertarian has filed. Expect several last minute filings on 9 March as a few Democrats file in deep red districts, and a Libertarian or two throws his hat into the ring.
20 February 2020 — 1859 mst
New Flathead legislative filings, Rodney “shoot socialists” Garcia
gets primaried, body armor merchant files for governor
Four-man GOP primary in Senate District 2. On 18 February, Paul J. Longfield, who lists a Columbia Falls Post Offices box as his address, filed for the Republican nomination for Senate District 2, an open seat. He joins political tyro Norman Nunnally, Rep. Carl Glimm, and former legislator Jerry O’Neil, in what could be an interesting primary.
17 February 2020 — 0650 mst
Sandi, Christi, frivolity, and fraud
What interests voters? Issues. What exasperates voters? Political parties that play Gotcha! by filing formal complaints alleging that a minor (and probably inadvertent) misstep by the other party amounts to a heinous transgression of fair play, and perhaps law, that must be punished by the political equivalent of the death penalty, or at least a hefty fine and an official blackening of the miscreant’s reputation.
Although Gotcha! exasperates voters, political parties don’t let what the voters think deter them from playing the game. And so, on 27 January 2020, the Montana Democratic Party, through its executive director, Sandi Luckey, filed a complaint with Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices alleging that Christi Jacobsen, Deputy Montana Secretary of State, and one of four candidates for the Republican nomination for MT SecST, campaigned on the taxpayer’s dime:
14 February 2020 — 0559 mst
A golden start to a day for the heart
Happy Valentines Day! No songs of red roses or sweet candies today. Here’s something better: the Foghorn String Band playing Golden Slippers at The Red Room in Cookstown, Ulster, home of Bernadette Devlin, a celebrated wide and long main street, and enthusiastic fans of American folk music.
12 February 2020 — 0130 mst
New Hampshire primary and Joe Biden’s last hurrah
With ≈ 91 percent of the precincts reporting, Bernie Sanders has 26 percent of the vote and a 4k-vote lead over Pete Buttigieg. That’s too close to call. Amy Klobuchar has 20 percent of the vote. She’ll be third. The big losers are Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden, who are in single digits and within a point of each other.
11 February 2020 — 1217 mst
Background information on Iowa and Nevada caucuses,
New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries
New Hampshire’s voters are casting ballots in their primary today. For Democrats, 24 pledged delegates are at stake. At the 13–16 July convention, there will be 3,979 pledged delegates, the delegates eligible to vote on the first ballot. If the nomination goes to a second ballot, the pledged delegates will be joined by 771 superdelegates. New Hampshire’s outsized influence on the nomination comes not from its handful of delegates but from its determination to be the nation’s first primary.
South Carolina holds the next primary, on 29 February; Nevada, the next caucus, on 22 February. Ballotpedia provides the full schedule of nominating events.
The summary table below displays the presidential electoral history of the first four beginning in 1920, when women’s suffrage became universal.
7 February 2020 — 1327 mst
Another incumbent Republican Flathead
legislator receives a primary challenge
Republican Rep. David Dunn (HD-9, Evergreen) yesterday became the third GOP Flathead legislative incumbent to receive a primary challenge when Brian Putman filed for the HD-9 GOP primary.
HD-10 GOP incumbent Rep. Mark Noland is being challenged by Doug Mahlum. HD-11 Derek Skees is being challenged by Dee Kirk-Boon.
Putman, as best as I can determine, is the head of engineering at Nomad GCS, a company in Columbia Falls that manufactures mobile command and control facilities for para-military entities such as SWAT teams. He does not seem to have a campaign website or Facebook page yet, suggesting his candidacy may be a spur-of-the-moment affair.
6 February 2020 — 1817 mst
Iowa DP’s caucus reporting debacle reveals
limitations of smartphones in politics
Iowa’s Democratic Party smartly laid a paper trail of the decisions made in its precinct caucuses on 3 February. But it stupidly chose to report the results of the approximately 1,750 caucuses electronically using smartphones.
Most reports have focused on the rushed and incompetent development of the reporting application. But even if the app had been properly developed and deployed, the decision to use a smartphone was flawed and doomed the project from the beginning.
5 February 2020 — 1213 mst
Updated with statement by Kimberly Dudik
Retired Democratic legislator questions whether Raph Graybill
meets the constitutional qualifications for MT Attorney General
Billings resident Dave Wanzenried has filed with Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices a complaint alleging that Raph Graybill, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for MT Attorney General, may not meet the constitutional qualifications for the office.
4 February 2020 — 0538 mst
Tuesday morning roundup: Iowa, Rodney, Casey
Iowa Democratic caucus reporting debacle. The results of the 1,600 precinct caucuses were recorded on paper worksheets, so what went down is on the record in plain text and at some point — probably today — will be centrally tallied and the results released.
But the reporting system collapsed because Iowa’s Democratic Party tried to go high tech without knowing how. Its leaders commissioned, apparently in near secrecy, and evidently on a whim, a smartphone application that was supposed to transmit the data on the worksheet to Democratic headquarters at the speed of light. The app wasn’t vetted by security experts. It wasn’t fully tested. Not all precinct captains were trained in its use. It was bound to fail and did.
4 February 2020 — 0346 mst
Latest Flathead legislative filings ensure
contested GOP primaries in SD-2 and HDs 10 and 11
Republicans have now filed for all legislative districts in the Flathead.
3 February 2020 — 0908 mst
Flathead Memo is standing down today
FM’s editor and janitor is tending to exigent obligations. He’ll resume posting tomorrow.