Voters agreed, and Burns was defeated in one of the tightest races in state history.
An organic farmer by trade, Tester, a former state legislator, ran his family’s homestead just outside Big Sandy in northern Montana, where the winter chills can chatter your teeth as early as mid-September. Sporting a Marine drill sergeant buzz cut, Tester is essentially an NRA approved populist with libertarian tendencies who vowed he’d redeploy troops from Iraq as well as repeal the PATRIOT Act. And although nobody would consider Tester an anti-globalization activist, his position on international trade is more in line with the protesters who shut down Seattle in 1999 than with the Democratic Leadership Council.
On a "Meet the Press" broadcast shortly before he took office, Tester even addressed the most evaded issue in national politics: poverty.
"There’s no more middle class," he asserted to Tim Russert, "the working poor aren’t even being addressed. Those are the people who brought us here [to Congress] and they need to be empowered. It’s time to show them attention ... We have to use policy to help that situation."
In a debate in September 2006, Conrad Burns attempted to paint Tester as wimpish on terror. "We cannot afford another 9/11," Burns chided. "I can tell you that right now, he [Tester] wants to weaken the PATRIOT Act." To which Tester bravely countered, "Let me be clear. I don’t want to weaken the PATRIOT Act. I want to get rid of it."
Tester built his campaign from the ground up, shunning support from nationally known Democrats like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, as he knew they’d rub Montanans the wrong way. Instead, the nearly 300 pound farmer who lost three fingers in a meat grinding accident as a child, drove around the state so he could chat face-to-face with his potential constituents.
Fortunately for Tester, he’s used to bucking the system. His first foray with the Washington Consensus came in 1998 when he ran for the Montana legislature because he was outraged over the huge energy hikes that had resulted from the state’s deregulation of the power industry. And he’s been speaking out against policies that pit working folks against the corporate class ever since. Tester even occasionally touts renewable energies and a livable minimum wage.
Still, like Montana’s current governor, Tester isn’t an ideal politician, if there is such a thing. While he may remain strong on some issues, he is weak on a many social justice issues, such as the death penalty and gay rights. Nevertheless, Tester’s campaign and personal appeal may serve as a winning blueprint for left-leaning populists out here in the Interior West. Indeed Brian Schweitzer used the exact formula to become Governor two years earlier.
Yet, Jon Tester’s win wasn’t even close to the biggest triumph for the state. The largest political victory for Montana came when voters overwhelmingly shot down a mining initiative in 2000 that would have returned the dreadful and polluting open-pit cyanide heap-leach mining to Montana’s hills. Big mining companies put up millions to raise support for the bill, but Montanans didn’t bite. Environmentalists and the public won outright.
Open-pit cyanide heap-leach gold mines have forever polluted water and left environmental destruction in their wake. Montana is used to it. Throughout the state these vast toxic pits have poisoned streams and drinking water, killed off wild trout, desecrated the landscape and created environmental catastrophes that have cost taxpayers millions to clean
Still, the greatest change in Montana isn’t happening in the electoral arena. It is taking place on the ground where a plethora of movements, from environmental causes to anti-corporate organic farming, are coming to a head. Election Day hoopla is only a shadow of the real activism going on. These agitators know that ultimate victory requires enduring many, many losses and years of protest before cultural changes are reflected in policy and ultimately, their daily lives.
There is a dreadful attitude still lingering out in Blue America where folks put the majority of their energy into electoral politics, anticipating that change can only happen within the confines of the voting booth. And it’s a downer.
No doubt "blue" is an apt color to describe the dejected mood that still paints our coastal states even with the Democrats in power. Fortunately, progressives, libertarians, anarchists, and others out here in Montana, although a tiny minority, have rolled up their sleeves and continued their work. Elections are never deterrents. They have stayed the course, never abandoning their issues, and are slowly winning as a result.
Maybe liberal Blue Staters will realize this isn’t "fly-over country" after all, and borrow a page from these Red State dummies.
