13 April 2018 — 1812 mdt

Remembering Melcher’s cows

Former Sen. John Melcher, a Democrat from the midwest who sought his fortune in Montana after graduating from veterinary school, and one of the best friends farmers had in the U.S. Senate, died yesterday. He was 93.

In 1982, Melcher revived his faltering campaign with his quirky talking cows TV ads, but a reprise of the ads wasn’t enough to overcome Conrad Burns in 1988. Melcher’s wilderness bill, which Reagan vetoed to help Burns, was not popular with conservationists, who at the 1988 convention of the Montana Wilderness Association gently satirized him in a skit featuring the talking cows in the photograph below.