I don't really want to make this election all about Derek Skees - but, man! He's just been popping up in the news all the time, connected to all sorts of crazy campaign tidbits!
Now Montana Cowgirl and James Conner have been doing an excellent job of following Skees' campaign, but I thought I'd provide a quick summary of the madness:
-- In a Mother Jones' profile of Semitool tycoon Ray Thompson's bankrolling of the "grassroots" Tea Party movement, it was revealed Skees - "one of the tea party's most radical candidates" - was one of Thompson's beneficiaries.
-- The "dirty tricks" written up by Matt yesterday - fake endorsement phone calls by foreign phone banks designed to make the Demcratic candidate look bad - first appeared against Skees' opponent, Will Hammerquist. (Conner's post also lists some other campaign "irregularities.")
-- Skees wore a jacket emblazoned with a Confederate flag in Whitefish's Memorial Day parade, admitting his crush on the Confederacy, secession, and nullification, and holding Abraham Lincoln responsible for the Civil War, to which slavery was an unpleasant but largely unimportant side-story.
-- In the same post, James Conner reveals Skees' love for The 5,000-Year Leap, a right-wing propaganda tract full of historical inaccuracies authored by a 1960s Glenn-Beck embraced "right wing pariah" too radical for the John Birch Society, and whose purpose is to pave the way for an American Christian theocracy.
-- And here's why Skees apparently hearts a Christian theocracy: he was called on by God to pursue political office. (No doubt he'll get a plum position in the New World Order.)
-- In a Whitefish Pilotprofile of Skees, the candidate reiterated his love of the Confederacy and nullification, and denied association to the "kooks" at the recent Liberty Convention, saying, "The John Birchers would call {them} a 'tangent'...someone who distracts from the real issues." Because we all know John Birchers aren't kooks, and nullification is a "real" issue.
Maybe it's me, but doesn't Skees make a nice illustration of the mania that's swept over American politics since Barack Obama was elected president? Here's a Glenn-Beck fueled far right conspiracy theorist running for political office in a local election on national issues...
Here's Tom Junod's explanation of right-wing "rage," the angst of the "Sore Winners":
It is one thing to listen to Sean Hannity tell his listeners, day in and day out, that they look down on you, and they think you're stupid. It is quite another to enter into a Facebook debate with an evangelical preacher of your acquaintance about the presence of God in the world - as I did a few weeks ago - and read this comment: "You and I believe many of the same things. The big difference is that you think I'm stupid." You could say that the preacher listens to too much Hannity, or too much O'Reilly, or Limbaugh, or what have you; but you'd be missing the point, which is that somewhere along the line of me having hurt his feelings. This is what you hear again and again from the Sore Winners, whether you hear it from the professional Sore Winners or the Sore Winners who happen to be your friends: the conviction that no amount of financial success, political domination, religious hegemony or cultural currency is sufficient to take away the sting of being looked down upon.
Derek Skees responding to a James Conner post criticizing Skees' ill-considered opposition to a local "dark skies ordinance":
It is a great joy of mine that in attacking me, they prove my point better than anything I could say or write: They want to tell us what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and why we should listen to them in their superior understanding for what is good for us. We can't argue with them and we can't ask them why. If one of us does, they label us a "hate based extremist", or someone who wants to destroy the government, or other such nonsense. They never answer the question, they just attack the one who asks.
It's not actually about policy or ideas of government! It's about fighting back against people who feel superior to you!
Call me crazy, but I believe it's important to elect those that craft laws who have a serious approach to policy and ideas of governance, not someone who's running out of a feeling of inadequacy and subscribes to crackpot conspiracies and policies that were off the accepted political spectrum 50 years ago and fed to him by a cable-news crank.
No wonder then, according to Skees' campaign finance reporting he's received less than half of his campaign contributions from his district. According to his Schedule C5 report (which for some reason I can't upload), only 31 percent ($3455) of his contributions came from individuals in Whitefish; 46 percent ($5085) of his contributions came from individuals outside of Whitefish; 7 percent ($800) came from GOP committees, half of which came from the Stillwater Republican Central Committee based out of Absarokee; PACs accounted for 12 percent ($1370) of his contributions, nearly a quarter of which came from PACs that aren't registered in the state. Hopefully, the donation patter augurs well for the district and the outlook of the state of Montana.
(PACs that support Skees include the Montana Farm Bureau, Seattle's Plumb Creek Timber, Montana Gas & Oil, Montana Employees of Qwest, Insurance and Financial Advisors PAC, Montana Auto Dealers Association, the Houston-based oil and gas Newfield PAC, the Billings Association of Realtors' RPAC, and ExxonMobil PAC. I wonder if they're aware of Skees' views on nullification, slavery, and secession, and his divine mission...)
Ouch. I've stayed away from the hubbub surrounding Christine O'Donnell - GOP and Tea Party Senate candidate in Delaware - frankly, I don't care about her sexual history or hypocrisy in private acts. A lot of that stuff is just noise. But then I saw this video of O'Donnell "debating" Democrat Chris Coons on the First Amendment:
Why is it those who know the least always say things like, "that just proves how little you know..."?
For those of you who can't watch the video, O'Donnell spends the bulk of the video interrupting and bullying Coons with her "view" of the First amendment. Here's a sample from debate around teaching Intelligent Design in public schools:
O'Donnell: ...that theory {of Evolution}, if local school districts want to give that theory more credence than Intelligent Design, it is their right! You are saying, it is not their right! That is what you've gotten our country into, is the overreaching arm of the federal government, getting into the business of the local communities. The Supreme Court has always said it is up to the local communities to decide their standards. The reason why we're in the mess we're in is because our so-called leaders in Washington no longer view the indispensable principles of our founding as truly that: indispensable. {cross talk} We're supposed to have independent government, low taxes {cross talk}...
Coons: One of those indispensable principles is the separation of church and state.
{snip}
O'Donnell: Where in the Constitution does it say "separation of church and state"?
{audience laughter}
You have to hear O'Donnell's tone of voice to understand the surprised and contemptuous laughter. Because it seems from her tone that O'Donnell is genuinely mystified that such a notion actually might appear in the text of the Constitution. That's underscored by a question aimed at the candidates about amendments to the Constitution that the candidates may or may not agree with or wish to have changed - a question served up in the wheelhouse of a Tea Party candidate, what with all their unique interpretation of the Constitution - only O'Donnell has trouble remembering which amendment says what, and basically fumbles the question. She obviously does not know her Constitution.
And here's the last exchange of the video:
Coons: It is important for us, in modern times, to apply the Constitution, in my view, as it exists today and as it's been interpreted by our justices. And if there are settled pieces of Constitutional law, like the separation of church and state, like the individual right to reproductive freedom that Roe versus Wade represents, that we live with, and have lived under for decades, in my view, it is important to know whether you have, on my side, a candidate who believes and supports those things, and on the other hand candidate who -
O'Donnell: Let me just clarify, you're telling me the separation of church and state is founded in the First Amendment.
Coons: The government shall make no establishment of religion.
O'Donnell: That's in the First Amendment?
Coons: Yes.
Unbelievable.
And O'Donnell's not alone in her incredible ignorance surrounding our "founding" or the Constitution. Closer to home is HD4's Derek Skees, believer of the constitutionality of secession and nullification, and advocate of Willard Cleon Skousen's The 5,000-Year Leap, recently profiled in The New Yorker:
Skousen's pronouncements made him a pariah among most conservative activists, including some on the right-wing fringe. In 1962, the ultraconservative American Security Council threw him out, because members felt that he had "gone off the deep end." In 1971, a review in the Mormon journal Dialogueaccused Skousen of "inventing fantastic ideas and making inferences that go far beyond the bounds of honest commentary," and advancing doctrines that came "perilously close" to Nazism. And in 1979, after Skousen called President Jimmy Carter a puppet of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller family, the president of the Mormon church issued a national order banning announcements about his organizations.
...In 1981, he produced "The 5,000 Year Leap," a treatise that assembles selective quotations and groundless assertions to claim that the U.S. Constitution is rooted not in the Enlightenment but in the Bible, and that the framers believed in minimal central government. Either proposition would have astounded James Madison, often described as the guiding spirit behind the Constitution, who rejected state-established religions and, like Alexander Hamilton, proposed a central government so strong that it could veto state laws.
Skousen's book was, of course, revived by Glenn Beck, one of Skees' heroes, and probably the main culprit for confounding the ideas of many Americans with factually incorrect notions about American government and history.
Which would be okay if, say, we were talking about my brother-in-law or the guy at the end of the bar who was slurring conspiracies over his post-work screwdriver, but we're talking about candidates for public office who, if elected, will have the power to write laws for the nation and Montana. Ignorance of this level is dangerous when it's accompanied by power.
Who to blame? Beck for propagating this crap? The people arming themselves with misinformation and spreading it? Those running for office under these ideas? The media for gutlessly standing to the side and refusing to challenge the accuracy of their misstatements? The power brokers, who see in these people an opportunity to wrest government from the danger of progressive reform?
Your guess is as good as mine. You can't do anything about it in Delaware, but you can do something about it in Montana.
Okay, folks. First up, Will Hammerquist, Democratic candidate for HD
To begin with, Hammerquist is a native of the Flathead valley. His parents moved to the area in the 1970s. His father started out working on a ranch, then later got into the building business. His mother, a nurse, initially worked in the hospital in Browning. They settled in Creston, where Will grew up. He attended Flathead HS, and then Montana State with a degree in economics and political science.
Hammerquist has an interesting resume. During college, he was a student lobbyist for MSU students; afterward, no doubt influenced and abetted by his father's building business, he was director of member services for the Montana Contractors' Association. After his stint with the contractors, Hammerquist joined the campaign staff of Lt. Governor John Boehlinger, and later served in the governor's office as a policy adviser. His latest gig is with the National Parks Conservation Association,where he serves as program manager for the Northern Rockies regional office, where he's been instrumental in protecting the North Fork of the Flathead River from Canadian oil, gas, and mining activity.
The thrust of his campaign? Jobs.
In case you're not from the Flathead, the county has been struggling with joblessness. According to the Flathead Beacon, joblessness is down from its record-setting mark in March, but obviously double-digit unemployment (which fails to include the long-term unemployed) is a problem.
Hammerquist is campaigning around job creation, proposing ways to bring startup business to Flathead county, find workforce training money, and incentives for keeping money in the local economy. In a short telephone interview with Hammerquist, Will mentioned using more of the in-state lending program money for small business lending (much of money is currently invested in the bond market, which shows lower return than on local business investment). He also stumped for a "made in Montana" campaign, similar to the "Jersey Fresh" campaign.
And he favors giving local and small businesses a break or vacation from the state's business equipment tax.
In short, he knows the needs of his community, and is thinking about concrete ways to address problems.
Don't let the website of his opponent, Derek Skees, fool you. On the site, Skees depicts himself as a reasonable, apolitical "statesman." Nothing could be farther from the truth. A fund-raising letter sent by Skees reveals that he thinks he was "called by God" to run for political office. He's also a member of the divisive and ueber-partisan Tea Party coalition, on whose survey, Skees revealed that he thinks he has a special mission to be a legislator, and besides Ron Paul, the "most influential human being in his life" is the vituperative Father Coughlin of the 21st century, Glenn Beck. Cowgirl also has video of Skees distributing "The 5000-year Leap," which James Conner describes as "Willard Cleon Skousen's notorious tome that's become a bible for the teabaggers."
In the Leap, Skousen argues that the U.S. Constitution is based on the Bible, not on Enlightenment philosophy as most mainstream historians contend. Glenn Beck, like Skousen a Mormon, wrote the forward to the current edition of the book, which is popular among those teabaggers who favor making the U.S. a theocracy.
According to the Northwest Montana Patriots, Skees "...teaches a class on the 5,000 Year Leap and the U.S. Constitution every week to a large group." On his campaign's website, Skees promises to "...measure every aspect of my office through the Founders Basic Principles (Skees' link to The Leap) and vote only to their measure."
If setting up an American theocracy is your cure, Skees is your man.
But then, as Hammerquist himself says, "whacky-ism doesn't create jobs."
Two things:
Donate. Now. I've set up a LiTW Hammerquist page, and created an easy goal: $300.
This is easy. You folks could do this in your sleep. Three hundred. Donate what you can: five bucks, ten bucks, fifty bucks.
The second, for the Missoula-bound: Will's having a fundraiser in the Garden City on Wednesday. Here's the info from the info:
What: Will Hammerquist for Montana House Event Date: Wednesday, July 28th
Time: 6:00 PMPlease
Hosts: Kevin & Jodi Hammond
Co-Hosts: Dave Wanzenried
Tara Jensen
Greg Lind
Matt Singer
Cynthia Wolken
Jessica Grennan
Betsy Hands
Jennifer Hensley
Land Tawny
Matt Leow & Sarah Cobler
Julie Hammerquist
Dave McAlpin
Ellie Boldman Hill
Three Facts about Will: ~Endorsed by MT Conservation Voters
~Not Accepting any PAC or Corporate Funds
~Works for non-profit conservation organization
It's that time again: Left in the West's battleground races. You know the drill: we have a chance to elect good, progressive leaders to the state legislature, where a lot of good can be done. The blog's battleground races are those contests that are in doubt and can be won, and could decide the majority in the state House and Senate. These are the races where your donations could make a real difference.
Last year, we had an ambitious number of candidates and races. We raised a lot of money -- over $6,000 -- but it was spread out over more than a dozen House and Senate candidates.
This year, I thought I'd try something different. Instead of identifying all swing races, I narrowed down the list to races from differing geographical areas that feature candidates that the LiTW readership can get excited about. If we can contribute the same amount of money we did last year, but to fewer candidates, we have a better chance of impacting those races.
Still, I'll be writing about as many races as I can this summer and pointing you to candidates' Act Blue pages. And, of course, any- and everyone is encouraged to create your own Act Blue pages and post diaries about races you'd like the readership to support.
Anyway, here are the five House candidates we're supporting this cycle:
HD 4: Will Hammerquist
Mike Jopek's leaving this Whitefish-area seat, and Will Hammerquist, of the National Parks Conservation Association and working to preserve the water quality of the North Fork of the Flathead River, is running on a platform of jobs creation. His opponent is DerekSkees. 'Nuf ced.
In Great Falls, Donna Zook is running for the House seat that Deb Kottel has vacated. Zook runs her own psychology and clinical psychology practice, and was an outspoken opponent to the Highwood coal-fired power plant. She's running on three main principles: public health, anti-discrimination, and conservation.
Scobey resident Julie French is our only incumbent in the battleground House races. Elected to the House first in 2006, she became the Democratic Majority whip in only her second term in office. She sits on the Human Services and Rules committees, and was vice chair of the Agriculture committee. In 2008, she was the primary sponsor of several bills, including an attempt to revise Montana's medical marijuana laws, which was killed by gross partisanship. Her opponent, Austin Knudsen, is a lawyer and big-business Republican running against health care reform.
HD 77 stretches over much of Jefferson county, and includes a slice of Helena. Here, born-and-bred Butte-ian and miner's daughter, Sheila Hogan, is battling a "constitutional Republican" looking to hand over the keys of the state to multi-national extraction and energy corporations. Hogan is the executive director of the Career Training Institute, and a long-time advocate for jobs in the state, which makes her the ideal candidate in this economic slump marred by joblessness.
Had to get a Missoula candidate in the mix! This is Curdy's second shot at HD 100; in 2008, he jumped into the race at the last minute to replace an ailing Gary Brown. Rancher, smokejumper, teacher; running on job creation, public education, and access to health care: what's not to like? If that's not enough, consider that Curdy is a fave of curmudgeonly scribe-ster, Bill Vaughn. At the very least, you can expect some wry commentary on the race. That incumbent Republican Bill Nooney dropped out of the race because of financial troubles gives Curdy an edge in a race that would have been competitive anyway, but don't count out Champ Edmunds despite his sneer: Tea Party toxicity and GOP enthusiasm makes this race touch-and-go.
Just like last year, I created a page on Act Blue for all of the battleground House candidates. Take a look at the candidates, mull 'em over, donate if you want, but I'll be starting fundraising pushes pretty soon, as well as presenting a list of Senate battleground races.
If you're chomping at the bit, here's quick link to the donations page:
I'm working on a list of key "swing" state House and Senate races to keep an eye on and to support - just as we did with the "battleground" state legislative races in 2008. We raised a lot of money then - money from individual donors and readers, not big PACs or lobbyists - and we should do the same this year, too. We all talk about inserting ourselves into the political process: here's our chance.
One of the races I'm looking at this year is HD 4, the Flathead district around Whitefish. If it sounds familiar, it's because I've already written about GOP candidate Derek Skees, Tea Party darling.
Well, Skees made blog headlines again over at Cowgirl's place. (And she's been en fuego ever since moving off of LiTW!) Cowgirl got her hands on Skees' Tea Party Coalition Survey - and it's a doozy:
...why would I want to sacrfifice[sic] all of my free time, never see the light of my life (my family)be scorned by the Press and Socialist kool-aid drinkers? I have to be. If not me who? If not now when? I am tired of the current state of affairs and I want to fix it and go back home.
I turned my TV off in 1998 All I do is read. I love anything to do with freedam[sic], Liberty, God and Truth. I admire and study the founding fathers.
God has gifted me with a great memory and I can communicate my knowledge well. I am a businessmen[sic].
I must have missed that chapter in the New Testament on business.
As you chortle over your morning coffee at the Grate Comoonicator's poetic flourishes, let me introduce you to Skees' Democratic opponent, Will Hammerquist:
Will Hammerquist grew up exploring Glacier National Park and the backwaters of the Flathead River. Will graduated from Montana State University-Bozeman in the spring of 2003 with an emphasis political science and economics. In 2001, Will spent five months living abroad in Antigua, Guatemala, completing a faith-based service project at the orphanage Casa por los Ninos while completing an independent study on the history of the country.
During his final semester at Montana State University, Will was hired by the Associated Students to represent the 24,000 students of the Montana University System to the Montana Legislature. He also completed his senior thesis on the Montana budget process, fiscal environment, and tax structure.
In 2003, joined the staff of the Montana Contractors' Association, a Montana-based trade association. Will began working for Governor Schweitzer in 2004 as campaign staff to Lt. Governor John Bohlinger and field director for Yellowstone County, Montana's largest county. In January 2005, he joined the Montana Governor's Office as a Policy Advisor. In 2007, he returned home to the Flathead to work for National Parks Conservation Association. A non-profit that advocates from America's national parks.
Let's consider Will a target for LiTW's swing district project. I'll get a list up by the end of the weeknd, and an Act Blue page set up, and we can start working on these races...
I was reading James Conner's excellent post on HD4 Hammerquist wing-nut opponent, Derek Skees, and his opinions about the Civil War.
This one stuck out at me the most, as it's the most controversial - if, by "controversial," you mean dumb-@ss, ill-informed, and flat-out wrong:
That having been said, I must add that the "Civil War" is a tragic failure of our history in its current remembrance ... It was actually an unconstitutional war declared by congress and President Lincoln, as it is the Constitutional right of the individual states to depart the union whenever they feel any grievance that may arise is too great to mend.
If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, "one Nation, indivisible.")
The states-rights argument is less interesting, if only because we see it all the time in an effort to distance "states-rights" from its racist past. But the fact of the matter is that federalism and states rights are simply tools that various powers use to enact or oppose legislation or reform they favor, not the principle dividing point of North and South.
The antebellum South happened to be in favor of states rights because they had a smaller population and, therefore, less federal power. When the opportunity to use federal power arose to preserve the "peculiar institution," Southerners seized onto it with both hands. (See "The Fugitive Slave Act.") Even today, conservatives, still proudly displaying the banner of states rights (out of necessity, finding their base still in the less-populous South) oppose state initiatives when it threatens their interests, as happened when Bush fought California's strict emission laws. Likewise conservatives constantly evoke the 10th amendment when it comes to, say, health care reform, but claim the 2nd amendment trumps any right of a state to enact strict gun control laws.
Make no mistake, states-rights is steeped in a racist past. It was first evoked to preserve slavery, then later to preserve segregation. And the Civil War was fought over slavery. Not that the North was fighting to free the slaves, but the voters of the north opted for a presidential candidate and a political party whose main plank was the opposition of the expansion of slavery. And while Skees is correct that large capital interests were more interested in tariff rates than the issue of slavery, the South's cotton economy was supported by it. Any attempt to halt the expansion of slavery meant that the South could expect to find its federal representation and power shrink as the vast territories to the west were filled with settlers and free-state Senators and representatives filled the halls of Congress.
In short, at the core of every economic, political, and social conflict between the north and south was slavery. In 1864, when Confederate general Patrick Cleburne drafted a proposal and submitted to his superiors that suggested his cause's only hope was to emancipate the slaves, recruit the freemen into the Confederate army, and use emancipation as the means to European recognition, he was called the "serpent of abolition" and his ideas "revolting" by his army peers. His proposal was discreetly tucked away by the Confederate government for fear of inciting feeling against Cleburne for trying to undermine the "traditional values" of the South.
The Confederate flag is the symbol of the Confederacy and slavery, not states rights or low import tariffs. And the flag is the shame of both the South and the North for bringing slavery to North America, and letting it continue so long.
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Skees' handling of the flag is an ill-considered and childish nod to the romantic notion of the Confederacy, secession, and rebellion that didn't actually exist. Christopher Hitchens:
The political flag of the Confederacy--the so-called "Stars and Bars"--is one thing. The battle flag of the Confederate army, the most militant symbolic form that secession and slavery ever took, is quite another. Under this fiery cross of St. Andrew, the state of Pennsylvania was invaded and free Americans were rounded up and re-enslaved. Under this same cross, it was announced that any Union officer commanding freed-slave soldiers, or any of his men, would be executed if captured. (In other words, war crimes were boasted of in advance.) The 13 stars of the same flag include stars for two states--Kentucky and Missouri--that never did secede, and they thus express a clear ambition to conquer free and independent states.
He has a photo of Skees with an interesting hat choice, but as Conner writes:
But it's another article of clothing that's likely to get Skees in a heap of trouble. In Whitefish's 2010 Memorial Day parade, Skees wore a jacket sporting the confederate flag. When a person watching the parade congratulated him on the courage required to wear that flag, he replied...
I don't want to ruin your reading experience by giving anything else away here. Go to Flathead Memo and enjoy the whole story.
