22 May 2020 — 1220 mdt
Political briefs
Why is Whitney Williams running a dirty campaign, four GOP legislative primaries in the Flathead, Trump’s dog whistle to supporters who resent elites, and more.
Whitney Williams is running a dirty campaign — VOTE FOR COONEY
At The Montana Post, an outraged Plains Feminist calls out Democratic gubernatorial candidate for swinging spiked elbows in her primary contest with Mike Cooney. It needed saying. Williams is not going so low as to emulate Trump, Jr., by calling her primary opponent, Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney, a pedophile, but she’s slinging mud bigtime and being dishonest. Here’s an example from her website:
Voters can’t trust Mike Cooney to protect our public lands or keep our rivers and streams safe from pollution. Cooney’s administration issued a permit for a copper mine in the headwaters of the popular Smith River. Williams believes that the mine that should never be built.
Yes, the Bullock-Cooney administration issued the permit, but to conclude from that act that Cooney will be the tool of the mining industry, and by insinuation, other despoilers of the land, is a heaping pile of oats that just passed through the horse.
And there’s another good reason for Democrats to vote for Cooney: Williams, a de facto carpetbagger, probably would lose to Gianforte; yes, even in a plague year.
Four Republican legislative primaries in the Flathead
Yesterday, Mike Dennison, reporting on fierce ideological battles in Montana’s GOP primary, called attention to contested primary in several house districts in the Flathead. I’ve followed some of these for the last year, so last night I looked at the fundraising numbers and how candidates were spending their money during a pandemic preventing their campaigning door-to-door. Here’s some of what I found:
HD-6 (Whitefish to NW Kalispell). The seat is open. Last fall, Amy Regier, daughter of well known hard right Republican Sen. Keith Regier (SD-3, Whitefish and HD-6), filed. On the last day of filing, 9 March, former Sen. Bruce Tutvedt, who was pretty much tarred and feathered by the Hamas wing of his party for supporting expanded Medicaid and the Flathead water compact, filed. Regier has raised several thousand dollars from the usual donors. Tutvedt is mostly self-funding, having loaned himself at least $6,000. Both candidates are spending heavily on mailers, and mass media advertisements, and probably pestering voters by telephone.
HD-7 (downtown Kalispell). Columbia Fall’s old warhorse, gadfly, and former ineffective legislator, is challenging progressive incumbent Rep. Frank Garner as punishment for Garner’s support of expanded Medicaid. O’Neil doesn’t have a snowcone’s chance in a blast furnace, and I did not look at the fundraising and expenditures for this district.
HD-9 (Evergreen and East Kalispell). Engineer and businessman Brian Putnam is taking on first term incumbent, Rep. David Dunn, a far right farmer. Dunn’s fundraising total is approximately half of Putnam’s. Putnam has loaned himself at least $4,000.
HD-10 (Bigfork). Mark Mahlum, a progressive Republican, is pouring money into this primary. Thus are he’s loaned himself more than $7,000, and received individual contributions from some of the same progressive Republican legislators who contributed to the campaigns of Putnam and HD-11’s Rep. Derek Skees. Incumbent Rep. Mark Nolan has raised approximately half as much, but mostly from individual donors, among them the usual suspects from his wing of the GOP.
HD-11 (SW Kalispell, Lakeside). Derek Skees, running for his third term from this deep red district (he served one term from a Whitefish district at the decade’s beginning), is being challenged by Dee Kirk-Boon, a Flathead Republican activist who filed her C-1 shortly after the 2019 legislature adjourned sine die. Her donors include Frank Garner, former Kalispell mayor Tammi Fisher, and a number of other legislators. Kirk-Boon is only the more progressive in a relative sense. Skees has raised less money, some from legislators and former legislators such as Jeff Essman, and seems to have gotten a late start.
Fisher and former GOP county commissioner Gary Kruger, especially Kruger, have used their Twitter accounts to excoriate the current leaders of the Flathead GOP. They’re part of a plan to take down several far right legislators that probably had a modest chance of succeeding before the pandemic removed their ability to campaign door-to-door. I think most or all of the incumbents under challenge win their primaries.
Trump's dog whistle to his supporters who resent elites
Democrats have correctly observed that President Trump’s claim to be taking the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine goes against sound medical judgement and what is known about the drug’s efficacy against the coronavirus. It also reminds voters that he loves giving scientists and experts his middle finger. It’s a signal to his supporters who resent elites that he still understands and shares their disdain for and resentment of teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and the rest of our society’s professionals, some of whom are insufferably condescending. Joan Williams examined this dynamic in her excellent book, White Working Class, especially in Chapter 4, Why Does the Working Class Resent Professionals but Admire the Rich?, and Chapter 14, Why Are Democrats Worse at Connecting with the White Working Class than Republicans? At The Democratic Strategist, there are several perceptive white papers on the same subject by Andrew Levison.
Best to mail your ballot no later than Tuesday, 26 May
That gives the USPS a week to get it to your county’s elections department, which should be plenty of time. Otherwise, it’s probably better to drop it off at the department’s office on 2 June.