4 October 2019 — 0719 mdt

Whitney Williams and Cora Neumann are
high risk candidates for Montana’s Democrats

Williams, Neumann

Governing and politicking are arts mastered through experience. Sometimes starting at the top works out well for the politician, the government, and the voters: witness Brian Schweitzer and Michael Bloomberg. Sometimes it does not: witness Donald Trump.

Bloomberg and Trump won their first elections. Schweitzer did not, narrowly losing to Republican Conrad Burns in 2000. The lessons Schweitzer learned from that campaign enabled him to win Montana’s gubernatorial election in 2004 despite George W. Bush’s carrying the state’s two-party vote by a three-to-two margin (60.5 percent to 39.5 percent). Schweitzer received 52.3 percent of the two-party vote, Bob Brown, 47.7 percent.

Whitney Williams, running for MT Governor, and Cora Neumann, running for U.S. Senator have impressive personal résumés, but they’re virgin candidates. They’ve been involved in politics and associated with the wives of presidents — Williams is Pat Williams’ daughter and worked with Hillary Clinton, Neumann worked with Laura Bush and Michele Obama — but neither has run for public office before. As candidates, they’re tyros.

And that’s far more important than some may realize. Williams background may help her reduce problems with her campaign’s organization, but it may have surprisingly little effect on her ability to connect with voters. The kind of emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills that separate the great politicians — FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, to cite three — from the earnest but unexciting strivers is neither heritable nor transferrable through close association.

Bill Clinton’s political personality, his ability to connect with voters, to gain their trust, their respect, their loyalty, their affection, to win their votes, was not absorbed by his wife, Hillary, whose political personality is that of a cold and dangerously ambitious apparatchik who lacks what it takes to be elected deputy dogcatcher.

Whether Williams’ association with Hillary Clinton will hurt or help is a legitimate question, one that Don Pogreba examined two weeks ago at the Montana Post.

Pat Williams is highly popular with Montana’s Democrats. Hillary is not. In 2016, she lost the Montana Democratic Presidential Primary to Bernie Sanders by 9,351 votes (Hillary 44.2 percent, Bernie 51.6 percent, No Preference 4.3 percent), carrying just 18 counties, all east of the continental divide except Silver Bow and Deer Lodge (download primary spreadsheet). Primary voters might not punish her for picking the losing horse in 2016, but they're certainly not going to reward her for helping the Democrat who ran a historically incompetent campaign and lost to Donald Trump. Williams can only hope that her support for Hillary will be ignored or forgiven.

Gender will be a factor in the primary

Thus far, Neumann is the only woman running in the Democrat primary for the U.S. Senate. Her opponents are Wilmot Collins, Mayor of Montana and the first to announce; John Mues, an engineer and former naval officer; and John Knoles, a physicist who’s running a soapbox campaign and, according to the Bozeman Chronicle, “…won’t be disappointed if he loses the Democratic primary because he is committed to using his candidacy as an opportunity to spread his ideas.”

Williams is one of two women — ex-legislator Reilly Neill is the other — seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. Their opponents are Rep. Casey Schreiner, the minority leader in the MT House, and MT Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney, a former secretary of state and legislator.

Even if neither Williams nor Neumann explicitly demands that Democrats vote for her because she’s a woman, there’s a substantial bloc of Democratic primary voters that will vote for a woman because they feel it’s time for a woman to be nominated. In a multi-candidate field, that gender identity vote may be enough to enable the woman in the pack of candidates to prevail. In the gubernatorial primary, there are two women, but Williams, the alpha female because of her political connections and ability to raise money, will receive most of the gender identity vote. That may be enough for her to win, especially if either Schreiner or Cooney does not withdraw from the campaign. At this point, I rate her a slight favorite to win the nomination. I rate Neumann as having an even chance of being nominated.

If Williams wins the primary, her prospects in the general are dicey, but not hopeless. After 16 years of Democratic governors, Montanans may decide to elect a Republican governor on general principles. That voter mindset is a formidable obstacle for any Democratic nominee. Whether Williams, who is very much an inside-the-party candidate, and less well known statewide than most Democrats realize, could overcome that mindset is one unknown. Another is whether she would lose votes because some voters believe governing is a man’s job. Finally, we don’t yet know whether she would connect with general election voters like Bill Clinton, or connect negatively (remember the deplorables?) like Hillary Clinton.

If nominated, Neumann’s prospects for defeating Steve Daines probably depends on whether Donald Trump (if he is still president) carries Montana and by how wide a margin. She faces the same problems that Williams faces, plus the problem that she’s not running for an open seat, that incumbents seldom lose, and that states won by a Republican presidential candidate usually elect to the U.S. Senate a Republican who is running in the same year.

For Democrats, the election for governor is by far the most important. Steve Daines’ re-election would change nothing. But if Montana’s statehouse is captured by any of the Republicans running for governor, the kind of lunatic legislation that Brian Schweitzer and Steve Bullock vetoed will be signed into law, transforming Montana into a Kentucky or Alabama or Idaho-like dystopia.

Casey Schreiner and Mike Cooney are not necessarily perfect candidates, but neither are they tyros. Both men would make good governors. Let’s hope that when the time comes to make a decision, Democratic primary voters will choose wisely, and vote with their heads as well as with their hearts.