Developer Dennis Rehberg Lies to Fergus County Republicans

by: Heartland1

Mon Mar 01, 2010 at 17:26:11 PM MST

And then he proceeded regale them with stories of his father's run for Congress against John Melcher. (Isn't it great that we have our political dynastys in Montana, just like they do in Texas and Louisiana?).  

He proceeded to tell the audience about his dad running against John Melcher for Congress in 1969 in a special election, and losing by 1 vote.  Now I can't find a trace of an election that close involving Dennis's Daddy in 1969.  But, he did lose to John Melcher in 1970 by 34,330 votes.  John beat him by 29.2 percentage points in that election.

Just another one of Dennis's fantasies that he like to propogate--like the one that he actually has done anything for Montana in his decade in office.

Update: (from Jay) Got a mail from a Rehberg staffer clarifying Rehberg's story:

The race where his dad lost by one vote wasn't the 1970 race against Melcher.  It was the 1969 GOP Convention at the Yugo Inn where the GOP picked its candidate for the special election to run against the Democratic nominee, Melcher.  Denny's father lost the convention primary vote by a single vote to Bill Mather who then went on to lose the special election to Melcher.

The next year, his dad lost the general election to Melcher as indicated in the post.  I suspect the nuance was lost in translation between the telling and re-telling of the story - an error in reporting, not in the facts of the story.  There's certainly no dishonesty in the story, and accusations of lying are pretty serious.  I hope you'll consider adding an editor's disclaimer to that post.

So there you go!