Image 01 Image 03

Montana Tag

June 5 was the most important primary night for 2018 with a handful of states hitting the polls. Most eyes stayed on California since the state has a crazy jungle primary, which means the top two candidates will land on the ballot even if they're in the same party. It looks like the important House races in California remain undecided and we won't have an answer for days, which means the GOP could still shut out Democrats in those districts. The Democrats also had a huge blow on the governor's ballot as a Republican grabbed the second spot over a former Los Angeles mayor. What about other states? Here are a few key points I put together from a crazy night.

USA Today has done an excellent investigation into the Department of Veteran Affairs. Its latest bombshell shows that the VA has hired doctors they know have malpractice claims and felony convictions. How could this possibly happen? A not so thorough hiring process:
Applications are vetted, education and licenses verified, references checked, and interviews conducted. For clinical hires, a review and approval by a professional standards board also is required. But when applicants disclose prior problems with medical licensing short of revocation, malpractice or criminal histories, VA hospital officials have discretion to weigh the providers’ explanations and approve their hiring anyway.

Texas' Gulf Coast isn't the only part of the country being ripped apart by a natural disaster. More than half a million acres of Montana and part of Idaho are being destroyed by wildfires. To give you an idea of how widespread the current devastation is:

Rock'em Sock'em Republican candidate Greg Gianforte, best known for "body-slamming" and ego-shaming a reporter for The Guardian, defeated Democratic Candidate Rob Quist, best known as a nudist resort socialist Cowboy poet and singer. While the final numbers are not in as of this writing, it looks like the margin for Gianforte will be in the 6-7% range. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_state/MT_Page_0525.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

There is simply no excuse for what happened in Montana last night. Prior to a campaign rally held by Republican Congressional candidate Greg Gianforte for today's special election, Gianforte allegedly roughed up Guardian political reporter, Ben Jacobs.

James Taranto's late, lamented Wall Street Journal column had a running tongue-in-cheek rubric, "We Blame George W. Bush," in which the former president was blamed for everything under the sun, despite his utter lack of connection to it. In that spirit, Taranto might have had a field day with a panel discussion on CNN this morning, in which the participants did their best to blame President Trump for an incident in Montana in which the Republican congressional candidate has been accused of manhandling a reporter. Co-host Alisyn Camerota got the ball rolling by asking whether there is "some sort of larger story or message we should take away here . . . growing aggression against the press."

Having failed to score a win in the Kansas special election and with Jon Ossoff not winning outright in Georgia, Democrats are turning their attention to the May 25 special election in Montana. This special election is taking place to fill Montana's only House seat to replace former Representative and current Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke.  Rob Quist, the Democrat, is competing for Zinke's seat against Republican Greg Gianforte. Quist is a banjo-strumming cowboy who, according to the Washington Times, "hides his socialist leanings under a cowboy hat."

As we learned from Scott Brown's (R-MA) supermajority-breaking special election win in January of 2010, special elections can and sometimes do serve as harbingers for midterms.  There are three upcoming special elections to replace House members who have joined President Trump's cabinet, and each is turning out to be unexpectedly challenging for the GOP, who are expecting a low turnout in the wake of the Republicans gaining control of both Congress and the White House. Kansas, Georgia, and Montana will hold special elections this spring, and if the Democrats pick up one or more of these seats, their "resist we much" campaign will get a much-needed boost.