You may have seen this story this morning, with an excerpt from a letter Conrad Burns sent to elections offices across Montana inquiring about purges of election rolls (an odd request, given that as of about 65 days ago, no more purging of voter rolls could be legally done -- as we've recently learned thanks to Judge Molloy).
In quoting just a single sentence, reporter Chelsi Moy is forced to 'sic' it up twice:
"As chairman of the McCain/Padin (sic) campaign here in Montana, we are getting reports from all across the country of fraudulent registrations and the abuse and mis-use (sic) of our liberal laws to get more people to participate in our system," he wrote.
But this excerpt hardly does justice to the full email:
Election Administrator
As chairman of the McCain/Padin campaign here in Montana, we are getting reports from all across the country of fraudulent registrations and the abuse and mis-use of our liberal laws to get more people to participate in our system. These irregularities are not just in areas who have noted reputations. We should encourage all citizens to vote and to facilitate the electors as much as legally possible.
I would appreciate if you could inform me as to when you last purged your list of registered voters in you county. It seems that is where we experience most of our irregularities. Now some take our laws lightly and abuse them to give their political party power or personal politics become more important than the welfare of our state or nation. It becomes very important to millions of responsible citizens who go through the rigors of being a legal and motivated voter. They do not think it smart or cute to abuse the law.
There is a reason election laws tend to be broken or abused. There is no penalty and/or no change in the result when violations occur. Our elections are based on honesty and integrity because we as the free self-governed people take voting very serious. Until we change the law, we are strapped with a law that is very hard to administer.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Conrad Burns
We've been trying to make heads or tails of this letter. Frankly, we can't tell whether our former Senator is calling for purges of the voter rolls or for jailtime for Jake Eaton. Either way, it's a heckuva read!
Now that the Schweitzer story has sunk to a new low and landed on Fox News as part of their mission to drum up anxiety for non-existent voter fraud, it's time for the grownups to stop and reflect on the "scandal."
Where's the crime? If the joke was about murder, there'd be no body. There'd be nobody missing. Mike McGrath: "the accusations contain no allegation supported by fact." Those who are demanding for investigation need to do one thing: find someone -- anyone! -- who was victimized by the kind of action described in Schweitzer's jokes.
H*ll, even Brad Johnson admits this on his 15 minutes of fame in the Fox News segment:
Fox News: ...the Attorney General Mike McGrath turned your request for an investigation down. He said there was no allegation supported by fact. Do you buy that, or do you think there could be wrongdoing here?
Brad Johnson: Well...you know...I'm not judge and jury, Eric. Uh, it's, it's my job to see to it that we get to the bottom of this and, uh, the authority I have in that regard is to formally refer this matter to the Attorney General, and the fact is that he rejected the request.
The shorter Brad Johnson: "No, I have no facts to support my allegations."
This is electioneering, this is political. If Schweitzer had said he framed Roger Rabbit, the usual gang of bloggers and brainiac Republican officials would fall over themselves demanding an investigation.
And remember, Johnson is the man who crowed after the legislative audit of the 2006 election showed no voter fraud, "This audit is a victory for Montanans. It's a victory for the dedicated county elections officials around Montana who make this system work. We protected the integrity of our electoral process, and it shows."
(Ah...the first shots fired in SD22... - promoted by Jay Stevens)
Taylor Brown has taken some time off from telling anyone that will listen what he's going to run for after he's done with the stepping stone that is the Montana Senate. He granted an interview to the Billings Gazette.
In the story, our favorite Disc Jockey reminisced about his old pal (and fellow radio personality) Conrad Burns. Brown says, "I am not Conrad Burns, although we probably do share agreement on many philosophical values."
Exactly which 'philosophical values' do they agree on?
I was on Steve Bullock's website yesterday and came across a link to a fundraiser in Butte hosted by Don Peoples. I seem to remember Peoples as a big Burns supporter in '06.
A little research on opensecrets revealed that Peoples has given over $13,000 to Republicans in the last two election cycles alone. The search I did is here:
Peoples also wrote a letter to the editor of the Butte Standard on August 27, 2006 publicly opposing Tester and suggesting that he would be worse for the Butte economy than Burns.
He's spent a lot of money trying to defeat good Democrats. Why is Bullock even touching this guy?
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.
The Justice Department has apparently concluded its investigation of Conrad Burns, according to Burns' lawyer Ralph Caccia. Naturally Burns and his lawyer are crowing that "justice" has been served, and he's been completely exonerated. Naturally Burns blames everybody else for his woes, calling accusations of his corruption "baseless and politically motivated," rued this "era of 'political character assassination,'" etc. & co.
I'm sure a lot of folks on the right are going to be crying foul and blaming the "liberal" media and bloggers for "smearing" Burns' character, but the truth of the matter is that Burns' activities look, smell, and feel grossly corrupt. Did the DoJ find evidence to pursue charges against Burns? Maybe not. But is there enough circumstandial evidence out there to make the electorate wonder if Burns was fit for his Senate office? Absolutely.
Burns and his pal Leo Giocometto are hardly choir boys. In fact, I'd welcome any attempt by the state GOP or rightie bloggers to argue otherwise. I'd get in that debate any day of the week.
The truth is simple. Burns was in deep with the corrupt DC system, and his ouster from his Senate seat was a good thing, both for Montana and the country. Good riddance.
National Journal has an interesting article this morning on Montana's former Senator and his old ties to his new boss (subscription only):
The U.S. attorney's office in Montana is probing Gage's financial connections to the Inland Northwest Space Alliance, a nonprofit venture launched in 2003 by the University of Montana with help from almost $3 million in federal earmarks pushed by Burns, two sources familiar with the inquiry have told National Journal.
After it was formed, the alliance hired Gage as its lobbyist and for consulting advice. Over a three-year-period, Gage and a company called Compressus -- which had both Giacometto and Burns's daughter, Keely, on its board -- received about $350,000 in fees from the alliance. According to Senate lobbying records, Gage registered as a lobbyist for the space alliance and for Compressus in 2004 and 2005. If federally appropriated funds were used for lobbying purposes, it would be a violation of the law.
Sources say that Gage has hired white-collar lawyer Stephen Ryan of the firm McDermott Will & Emery to help fend off the U.S. attorney inquiry as well as a separate probe by the inspector general at NASA. It is unclear whether Burns himself is a focus in either investigation. When questions about spending by the alliance were first raised in news reports last year, a spokesman for Burns defended the funding as a way to create jobs, and said that Burns was not aware that any federal money had gone toward paying lobbyists.
Well, you'd think he might ask before going on to take a paycheck from the same people who may have violated federal law. That is, you'd think he would if he cared about federal law.
The newly disclosed U.S. attorney's inquiry and the NASA probe, which has been previously reported, underscore concerns that lobbyists and former colleagues of Burns raised earlier about his ties to Giacometto and Gage.
Several lobbyists with long ties to Burns say they were dismayed by his decision to join Gage after he left Congress. Two lobbyists said in interviews that they advised Burns against making that move. "I'm depressed about the senator's action," one lobbyist said. "In most people's eyes, he could have done so much better and gone out with dignity."
Other lobbyists once close to Burns said they warned him that going to Gage might spark legal scrutiny. One said that it almost seemed like the former senator was trying to put a "bull's-eye" on himself.
Thanks to Gerry O'Brien for posting a diary about the FEC's ruling on the Butte debate seating scandal way back in early May. I would have commented on it earlier, but the legislature was going full-bore, and the ruling seemed inconsequential.
Unfortunately, O'Brien's headline for the FEC ruling - "Montana Standard, Resodyn cleared in Senate debate flap" - was misleading. Here's what the FEC ruled:
"The fact that Resodyn Corp. had seats that were located in the center section of the audience could not have had an effect on the substance of the debate itself, such as the questions that were asked of the candidates or the ability of the candidates to respond to the questions," the decision said.
Additionally, the FEC said that Resodyn did not request reserved seating and that it was extended by The Standard after the research and development firm agreed to help sponsor the debate, believing the seats were for corporation employees.
"Once informed of the relationship between Resodyn Corp. and the Friends of Conrad Burns-2006, The Montana Standard refused to accept any funds from Resodyn Corp. to defray the costs of the debate," the decision said.
In October 2005 Republican lobbyist Leo Giacometto hosted a NASCAR Fundraiser in Georgia. For $2,500 a pop donors received breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton and a day at Atlanta's famed Motor Speedway. Giacometto, a former chief of staff to Montana GOP Senator Conrad Burns--disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's favorite senator--has been involved in a number of tawdry political scandals, raising questions about why any elected official would want to be associated with him. But the most interesting thing about his NASCAR party was the identity of the guest of honor: not a fellow Republican but the Democratic senator from his home state, Max Baucus. To Giacometto, Baucus, the ranking Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, was not a partisan adversary but a useful and valuable ally. "I believe that he's good for what I believe in," the lobbyist told the Billings Gazette.
Today, in the aftermath of the Democratic sweep of Congress, Baucus is still one of corporate America's favorite Democrats. As chair of the Finance Committee, he counts among his friends and political supporters a Who's Who of bankers, oilmen, ranchers, pharmaceutical lobbyists and Wall Street executives. He's particularly close to Montana's sole billionaire, industrialist Dennis Washington, a major donor to the Republican Party whose business interests Baucus has promoted over the years. The business community, in turn, expresses admiration for Baucus in its usual style--by writing big checks.
For anyone who was worried about whether Conrad Burns would land on his feet, worry no more. He'll be a senior advisor to a lobbying firm -- a lobbying firm that made millions off of Burns' appropriations earmarks.
The revolving door continues to turn. Thank the heavens.
I wasn't going to write about this, but I've seen the storyline emerge repeatedly lately that Stan Jones cost Conrad Burns this election. Elsewhere, Mark Tokarski responded to this argument by saying that Jones turned out his own voters and that his supporters would not have gone elsewhere.
So what's really going on here?
Tester won the election by 3,562 votes. Stan Jones got 10,377 votes. Now, if we took it as gospel that all 10,377 Jones voters would have voted anyways and that Libertarian voters would naturally go R without a Libertarian on the ballot, it seems pretty clear that Burns would have emerged the victor.
But I don't think it is quite that simple. Both because a number of votes cast for Jones were probably cast by people who would vote for neither Tester nor Burns. Why? Well, let's just say taxes and the Patriot Act to keep it simple.
And I also don't think we can assume that with Jones off the ballot that his supporters would flock to Burns. Burns is way too down with the erosion of civil liberties to draw the support of 100% of the folks who voted libertarian.
In other words, to figure out whether Jones cost Burns the election, we'd need to know what percent of Jones voters would have voted even if he wasn't on the ballot and we'd need to know by what percentage his supporters would break for Burns.
If 70% of the Jones voters would have voted anyway, that would be 7,263 votes cast. In order for 7,263 votes to overcome a 3,562 vote margin, they'd have to break about 3-to-1 for Burns. That's probably a bit unrealistic. And it's worth noting that this would result in about a 10 vote margin for Burns -- clearly subject to recount.
So I don't really think Jones cost Burns this election. He may have (stress the word may) have moved it out of recount territory. But he probably didn't change the outcome.
The Associated Press had an interesting story a couple days ago about the National Republican Senatorial Committee becoming a whipping boy for blame following pretty disastrous Election Day results -- especially the narrow defeats here in Montana and in Virginia.
The strangest thing about the article, though, is that it begins with Burns saying the NRSC's ads hurt him more than they helped him -- an allegation that says that in the .7% race, Burns thinks Liddy Dole basically cost him the election. But other critics think the NRSC didn't do enough in Montana, failing to get back on the air here quickly enough.
This juxtaposition goes unmentioned by the reporter -- all grouped together simply as the NRSC gets the blame. It reveals a few things, though:
Politics is still more art than science. There is little agreement among the practitioners of its dark arts over what works, what helps, and what doesn't.
Campaigns like to blame party committees. Party committees like to blame independent committees. Independent committees like to blame candidates and parties. And voters get damn sick of all of 'em.
Success has a 1,000 fathers. Defeat is an orphan. No surprise here.
