October 28, 2006
Jack Wells Launches A Whopper
Yesterday evening I was driving around town and heard Representative Jack Wells say this on talk radio: "Of course I'm in favor of these alternative energy proposals that people bring forward". Good thing I wasn't sipping from my water bottle. I would have spewed all over the windshield, I was laughing so hard.
To see why, let's just check the oficial voting record on the major alternative energy bills in the 2005 legislative session. We can start with Jon Tester's SB415, the wind energy bill that resulted in Montana vaulting from 48th to 15th in nationwide alternative energy production. Of course, Jack Wells voted against it. Twice. Check the record yourself, here and here.
While you're at it, notice that all of the rest of the Gallatin Republican house members voted against it, too. That's Sinrud, Sales, Koopman, and this campaign's Mister Bipartisan, Bill Warden.
Funny, wind energy is the best rural economic development we have going. It means fat rent checks for ag landowners who host windmills, and jobs in tiny rural communities to take care of the equipment. Jack Wells represents western Gallatin county, where they have lots of ag land and lots of wind. Same for Scott Sales, whose district runs from Bozeman to East Helena. Why do you suppose these guys wouldn't push the green button to actually help their constituents?
How about biodiesel? Ag producers can grow their own fuel by raising oilseeds, and take part in producer cooperatives to process the crop into diesel. That's real economic development in rural Montana, and real energy independence, too. We had two important biodiesel bills. How did Wells show his support? He voted no, of course, which you can see here and here. And here and here.
And on every one of those votes, Wells was accompanied by Koopman, Sinrud, and Sales in saying no.
And ethanol, which would provide Jack's ag constituents with another market for grain? Nope, Jack voted no here and here, along with the full complement of Gallatin House Republicans: Sales, Sinrud, Koopman, and Warden.
Every one of those four bills were signed into law by Governor Schweitzer. Jack Wells, along with Koopman, Sales, and Sinrud, had a perfect record of voting no. Warden at least batted .500 by supporting the biodiesel bills. I'll leave it up to his constituents to determine if .500 is good enough, or if Bill's opponent JP Pomnichowski might do better by batting 1000.
So Jack Wells is campaigning to get his House seat back, and claims that "of course I'm in favor of these alternative energy proposals." His voting record is exactly the opposite. What do you call it when a politician votes so doggedly one way, then goes home and says something completely different, just because it's what the voters want to hear? I start with hooey and hogwash, and get stronger from there.
Voters in western Gallatin County who really do think that alternative energy is important would be better off voting for the candidate who really supports the effort. That's Loren Acton, not Jack Wells. And in northern Gallatin and Broadwater counties, that would be Laura Obert instead of Scott Sales.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2006
Koopman Calls a Rove Play
You know how Karl Rove perverts elections. He takes his candidate's biggest weakness, then attacks his opponent on it.
Bozeman's Roger Koopman is trying to pull this same trick on his opponent for a Montana House seat, John Vincent. Vincent, a long-time legislator himself and a current Gallatin County commissioner, is rightly holding Roger accountable for his voting record in the 2005 legislative session.
We had a number of bills trying to get a grip on the methamphetamine problem. I sponsored three of them myself. And Roger has a terrible voting record on meth. So when Vincent points this out, what does Koopman do? He's running newspaper ads attacking John Vincent for, believe it or not, not being enough of a warrior on meth.
What Koopman is saying is, shame on John Vincent for not doing Koopman's job. That's the Karl Rove play.
Those of us in Bozeman with long memories remember the first half of the 90's when Roger Koopman wrote the biweekly rightwing screed in the Bozeman Chronicle now so ably authored by Tammy Hall.
Like Tammy, Roger spent years smearing, sneering, and jeering at anyone who disagreed with him. There are a lot of us. I especialy remember the time that he labelled me and my friends at Montanans Against Toxic Burning as Nazis for committing the terrible offense of demanding that a multinational corporation, well, you know, obey the law.
So now Roger has to actually be accountable for his official actions. Like so many conservatives who are plenty loud about how everyone needs to be accountable for their actions, he doesn't like it when it's his own actions on the judgement table. And his first instinct is to make a character attack on his opponent.
Maybe this is the year when the voters see through this.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2006
Dragging Tester Into the Gutter
I'm up in Helena for the day, and ran into Jim Farrell, who is the Executive Director of the Montana Democratic Party. He explained the strategy of the Burns campaign. "When your guy is behind, and you can't bring his numbers up, your only choice is to smear the other guy".
Jim went on to explain, in somewhat stronger terms, how bad it is. He showed me the Burns mail piece that accuses Tester of supporting child abuse. It's truly vile. "This is the kind of piece they would normally use to close a campaign, but this year it's their opener."
Stand by for worse. Much worse. Conrad's got $8 million of ugly to unload. His corporate pals are desperate for him to win, because if the Democrats take control of either the House or Senate, you can look forward to Truman-style hearings where we get the names and addresses of the folks who have been bribing our Congress and ripping off the Federal treasury.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 04:12 PM | Comments (0)
September 30, 2006
Bill Warden Is No Moderate
Don't get me wrong. Bill, who represents House District 63 in the Montana Legislature, is a nice man. He's not nasty mean like some of the far-out rightwingers. Bill is popular and well-liked in the Bozeman business community. And he has a pretty good sense of humor.But Bill is no moderate. He votes with his leadership time after time. And the men who lead the Montana House Republican caucus are some of the most extreme in the state. So don't you believe any campaign material that claims that Bill was reaching across the aisle, because he didn't.
And for my money, that makes him too extreme for his district, because it's not about how pleasant or popular you are, it's about how you vote. Having campaigned in Bill's district in 2004, and knocked on just about every door, I think I'm qualified to make that judgement.
Here is an extremist bill that Bill sponsored to strip Montana law enforcement officers of their authority for helping the Feds enforce the law, and allow them to be prosecuted as private citizens for carrying out their official duties.
Once the law enforcement guys figured out what was going on, word spread pretty fast. The Judiciary Committee wouldn't vote to pass it, so Bill's seatmate Roger Koopman actually made a motion on the house floor to pull it out for general discussion. He got crushed 64-35.
Bill's opponent, JP Pomnichowski, is the kind of common sense Democrat that the folks in the south and east suburbs of Bozeman will find represents them better. Check out JP here. Extra bonus: JP is funnier than Bill.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)