| Did you hear the news (via Montana Headlines)? "Boss Hogg" Burns is now the new chair of frontrunner John McCain's campaign here in the Treasure State .
Two words: high comedy.
McCain, as you may remember, was one of the authors of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. Conrad Burns' claim to fame is an all-too-cozy relationship to convicted lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. Burns also infamously changed his vote on a Marianas Islands labor bill that would have ended forced prostitution and slave labor, after a 15-minute meeting with a representative of the islands' garment industry and a $5K campaign donaton. (Which he apparently did out of principle.)
McCain, as you also may remember, was an outspoken critic of pork-barrel spending and a proponent of earmark reform. Conrad Burns, of course, was the drunken sailor of spending. In 2006, his campaign essentially consisted of him telling us we owed him our support for the pork and earmarks he brought to the state, never mind the tawdry methods by which the money was acquired.
In short, marrying Burns to McCain feels like a state GOP project to rehabilitate Conrad Burns' reputation in time for the 2012 election (when Dennis Rehberg will no doubt run on the platform that Tester "stole" his seat from the now "saintly" Burns). But I wonder how McCain feels about being tied to Conrad Burns?
Now, after the Florida primary, with McCain seizing the reigns of the primary race, the Montana GOP finds itself in a bind. After all, it certainly appears as if the state's Republican caucus was engineered to give establishment candidate Mitt Romney Montana's delegates. And now? What if the state's Republican voters want to vote for McCain - and Iverson et al gives them Romney? And McCain wins the nomination? The state GOP leadership would find itself defying both the party's nominee and its base.
But changing the caucus - as suggested by Montana Headlines - so that caucus goers vote for the winner of an open Republican primary would necessarily p*ss off the hundreds of folks who signed up to be party precinct captains so they could help pick the presidential nominee. So much for enthusiastic help next November, which seemed to be the other goal of a caucus.
In the end, of course, John McCain is the conservative apostate, and the state GOP probably can't stomach the thought of a McCain win of Montana 's Republican delegates. So the caucus will likely stay as it is, and Conrad Burns can continue to enjoy his retirement, unmolested. |
