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Democrat Jon Tester in '08?

Disagreeable

Well-known member
Link below; entire article.

"November 13, 2006
Fresh Off the Farm in Montana, a Senator-to-Be
By TIMOTHY EGAN
GREAT FALLS, Mont., Nov. 9 — When he joins the United States Senate in January, big Jon Tester — who is just under 300 pounds in his boots — will most likely be the only person in the world’s most exclusive club who knows how to butcher a cow or grease a combine.

All his life, Mr. Tester, 50, has lived no more than two hours from his farm, an infinity of flat on the windswept expanse of north-central Montana, hard by the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation.

For all the talk about the new Democrats swept into office on Tuesday, the senator-elect from Montana truly is your grandfather’s Democrat — a pro-gun, anti-big-business prairie pragmatist whose life is defined by the treeless patch of hard Montana dirt that has been in the family since 1916.

It is a place with 105-degree summer days and winter chills of 30 below zero, where his grandparents are buried, where his two children learned to grow crops in a dry land entirely dependent on rainfall, and where, he says, he earned barely $20,000 a year farming over the last decade.

“It’s always been tight, trying to make a living on that farm,” said Mr. Tester, still looking dazed and bloodshot-eyed after defeating Senator Conrad Burns, a three-term incumbent, by fewer than 3,000 votes.

Chouteau County, where Mr. Tester lives on a homestead of 1,800 acres, lost 8.5 percent of its population in the last five years — typical of much of rural America that has been in decline since the Dust Bowl.

To make extra money, Mr. Tester taught music to schoolchildren, and still plays a decent trumpet despite having only seven fingers (he lost the rest to a meat grinder as a child). He got into politics just eight years ago in a sustained rage over what utility deregulation had done to small farmers and businesses in Montana.

“You think of the Senate as a millionaire’s club — well, Jon is going to be the blue-collar guy who brings an old-fashioned, Jeffersonian ideal about being tied to the land,” said Steve Doherty, a friend of Mr. Tester’s for 20 years. “He’s a small farmer from the homestead. That’s absolutely who he is. That place defines him.”

Mr. Tester used to ride his motorcycle down from the farm to Great Falls to play softball with Mr. Doherty. He played third base, not an easy position for a man with a shortage of digits. They were colleagues later in the State Senate, of which Mr. Tester was the president this year. It is a part-time job, with the Legislature holding regular sessions of 90 days only every other year.

Congress has done little to improve the lives of people living in the dying towns across rural America, Mr. Doherty said.

“When Jon talks about the cafe that’s trying to hold on, the hardware store that just closed, the third generation that can’t make a living on the farm, he is living that life,” Mr. Doherty said.

Still, there was never a master plan, Mr. Tester said, for the arc that took him from soil conservation district leader to state senator to one of the victors who gave Democrats control of the Senate.

“I’m kind of a fatalist,” he said, breaking into a smile. “The good Lord gives you opportunities.”

And Mr. Tester learned quickly how to exploit those opportunities, running a bare-knuckle campaign against Mr. Burns, with a barrage of name-calling and negative advertisements making hay of the senator’s ties to Jack Abramoff, the disgraced former Washington lobbyist.

Republicans complained that Mr. Tester’s campaign was relentless and went overboard. Montana is a big state with a small population, where politicians are known on a first-name basis. The ferocity of such attacks seemed out of place, some here said.

Also, they said Mr. Tester favored measures while in the State Senate that had the effect of raising taxes on many of the small businesses that he promotes. They called him “Taxer Tester” for much of election year.

But with his trademark flattop — refreshed every three weeks for $8 at the Riverview barber shop here in Great Falls — Mr. Tester was a tough target for Republicans to stereotype as “just another Washington insider,” as one radio attack ad put it.

Republicans have kept their hold on the intermountain West in part by promoting issues known as the three G’s: gays, guns and God.

On gays, Mr. Tester says the “sacred document” of the Constitution should not be amended to outlaw same-sex marriage, though he favored a state ban that voters passed in 2004. On guns, Mr. Tester is quite proficient in their use, and says anyone — Republican or Democrat — who tries to take his away will run into trouble. On God, Mr. Tester says simply that he is a churchgoer, and notes that he met his wife when he spotted her in a pew.

“The fact is, I’m just a regular Montanan,” he said. “Those issues are important, but what I heard from people is concern about health care, fiscal responsibility and how we’re throwing so much money into a war.”

Mr. Tester and his wife of 28 years, Sharla, grow organic lentils, barley, peas and gluten-free grain in a county with 1.5 people per square mile. It is all earth and sky on the Tester family ground. A hundred years ago, a region with so few people was considered frontier.

Mr. Tester is very much in the mode of his longtime friend Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat who can be more prickly than Mr. Tester. The governor recalled a favorite moment with Mr. Tester from the last legislative session.

“We’re sitting there in this room where governors and powerful people used to drink whiskey and smoke cigars, me and Jon, and both of us had a bag of sunflower seeds — Russian peanuts we call them — trying to spit the shells into a cup,” Mr. Schweitzer said. “We looked at each other and laughed, like, What are we doing here?”

Republicans said that Mr. Tester was a favorite of “extreme liberal bloggers” and that the down-home persona masked an agenda out of step with much of America.

And indeed, the liberal Web site Daily Kos took up Mr. Tester’s cause early. When he announced he was running for the Senate, he was an underdog to a better-financed and better-known Democrat who was being promoted by the party establishment.

After Mr. Tester won the primary by a huge margin, Daily Kos posted a picture of him on its site, with the caption, “Say hello to the next senator from the great state of Montana.”

Mr. Tester is also a favorite of the band Pearl Jam, which promotes many liberal causes. But his tie is personal. The area around the town of Big Sandy, population 658 and falling, produced not only Mr. Tester, but also Jeff Ament, the bassist for Pearl Jam. The band did a concert in Missoula this year for Mr. Tester.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Tester spoke often of how “regular folks” just “haven’t been given much of a shake.” He is distrustful of global trade agreements that have hurt farmers, and big drug companies and health maintenance organizations that he says have put medical costs out of reach for many people.

Asked why he became a Democrat in a region that has been overwhelmingly Republican for the last generation, Mr. Tester said: “It started with my parents, who always said the Democrats work for the middle class. And in agriculture, Franklin Roosevelt did a lot of good things.”

Friends say not to worry about Mr. Tester going native in Washington. He said he planned to return home to the farm several times a month. He promised his barber, Bill Graves, that he would continue to come back to get his hair cut in the same wheat-field bristle.

“I haven’t noticed a change yet,” Mr. Graves said. “He’s the same man. Got a real dry sense of humor. We talk about everything. And then he says, ‘See you next time.’ ”



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/13/us/politics/13tester.html?ei=5094&en=0dce525b53932e52&hp=&ex=1163480400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
 

Hanta Yo

Well-known member
You ought to hear what his "neighbors" in Big Sandy (where he came from) say about him. Not good. He'll hurt Montana. I didn't vote for him nor did I vote for Schweitzer. Many people now are saying they regret voting for Schweitzer, he's a bully and doesn't go through the proper hoops...I'm saying Tester is going to be the same kind of person as Schweitzer which will give the both of them even more power..... I guess time will tell.
 

Disagreeable

Well-known member
Hanta Yo said:
You ought to hear what his "neighbors" in Big Sandy (where he came from) say about him. Not good. He'll hurt Montana. I didn't vote for him nor did I vote for Schweitzer. Many people now are saying they regret voting for Schweitzer, he's a bully and doesn't go through the proper hoops...I'm saying Tester is going to be the same kind of person as Schweitzer which will give the both of them even more power..... I guess time will tell.

You chose the corrupt Burns over Tester just because he's a Dem. Shows where your "values" are.
 

Hanta Yo

Well-known member
Disagreeable said:
Hanta Yo said:
You ought to hear what his "neighbors" in Big Sandy (where he came from) say about him. Not good. He'll hurt Montana. I didn't vote for him nor did I vote for Schweitzer. Many people now are saying they regret voting for Schweitzer, he's a bully and doesn't go through the proper hoops...I'm saying Tester is going to be the same kind of person as Schweitzer which will give the both of them even more power..... I guess time will tell.

You chose the corrupt Burns over Tester just because he's a Dem. Shows where your "values" are.


It's just your opinion he (Burns) was corrupt, Dis.

Dems were just as guilty, but the leftist commy news media made a big deal about the Repubs and downplayed Dems.
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Hanta, you have the same "liberal" point of view decrying that rcalf hasn't done anything
for you when you haven't even supported them.
 

Hanta Yo

Well-known member
Econ101 said:
Hanta, you have the same "liberal" point of view decrying that rcalf hasn't done anything
for you when you haven't even supported them.


I don't support R-Calf because I don't believe in what they are doing and how they go about it
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Hanta Yo said:
Econ101 said:
Hanta, you have the same "liberal" point of view decrying that rcalf hasn't done anything
for you when you haven't even supported them.


I don't support R-Calf because I don't believe in what they are doing and how they go about it

Then you have no right to expect results from them.
 

Hanta Yo

Well-known member
From one of our "liberal" papers, the Billings Gazette. It was sort of buried.



Tester lost home county

FORT BENTON - Democrat Jon Tester did not carry the vote in his home county when he won Montana's U.S. Senate race this week.

Republican incumbent Conrad Burns finished with a 57-vote lead in Chouteau County.

Its election office initially said Tester, of Big Sandy, prevailed. Clerk and Recorder JoAnn Johnson said later that some numbers were transposed, causing Tester to be credited with 200 more votes than he received.

In Burns' home county, Yellowstone, he had a small lead over Tester.
 

Hanta Yo

Well-known member
Econ101 said:
Hanta Yo said:
Econ101 said:
Hanta, you have the same "liberal" point of view decrying that rcalf hasn't done anything
for you when you haven't even supported them.


I don't support R-Calf because I don't believe in what they are doing and how they go about it

Then you have no right to expect results from them.

I don't expect diddly-squat from them because they don't deliver. :roll:
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Hanta Yo said:
From one of our "liberal" papers, the Billings Gazette. It was sort of buried.



Tester lost home county

FORT BENTON - Democrat Jon Tester did not carry the vote in his home county when he won Montana's U.S. Senate race this week.

Republican incumbent Conrad Burns finished with a 57-vote lead in Chouteau County.

Its election office initially said Tester, of Big Sandy, prevailed. Clerk and Recorder JoAnn Johnson said later that some numbers were transposed, causing Tester to be credited with 200 more votes than he received.

In Burns' home county, Yellowstone, he had a small lead over Tester.

Does that make him any less of a senator?
 

Hanta Yo

Well-known member
Econ101 said:
Hanta Yo said:
From one of our "liberal" papers, the Billings Gazette. It was sort of buried.



Tester lost home county

FORT BENTON - Democrat Jon Tester did not carry the vote in his home county when he won Montana's U.S. Senate race this week.

Republican incumbent Conrad Burns finished with a 57-vote lead in Chouteau County.

Its election office initially said Tester, of Big Sandy, prevailed. Clerk and Recorder JoAnn Johnson said later that some numbers were transposed, causing Tester to be credited with 200 more votes than he received.

In Burns' home county, Yellowstone, he had a small lead over Tester.

Does that make him any less of a senator?



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: You are so funny Econ!! :!:


All his life, Mr. Tester, 50, has lived no more than two hours from his farm, an infinity of flat on the windswept expanse of north-central Montana, hard by the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation.

Wellllll, if this is the case, the people who knew him well were those in his county. His county didn't support him.


GREAT FALLS, Mont., Nov. 9 — When he joins the United States Senate in January, big Jon Tester — who is just under 300 pounds in his boots — will most likely be the only person in the world’s most exclusive club who knows how to butcher a cow or grease a combine.


Yeah, right :roll:


A couple years ago, Senator Burns was coming through Roundup, MT and wanted to have lunch with 4-H'ers, since he was a 4-H'er himself. Our daughter got to go (we did, too) and what a wonderful luncheon talking about 4-H.

I'm sure Conrad also knows how to butcher a cow and grease a combine :? So big deal.


Chouteau County, where Mr. Tester lives on a homestead of 1,800 acres, lost 8.5 percent of its population in the last five years — typical of much of rural America that has been in decline since the Dust Bowl.

Can't raise much cattle on that small acreage, must have it in crops. He is so far away from the farm....



To make extra money, Mr. Tester taught music to schoolchildren
,

That's basically what he has been for a loooooong time, a schoolteacher.

:wink:







[/i]
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
BTW, it was all out of state money that financed his campaign.

It remains to be seen what he'll do for Montana, but I'm not holding
my breath.

I stand with Hanta Yo.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Faster horses said:
BTW, it was all out of state money that financed his campaign.

It remains to be seen what he'll do for Montana, but I'm not holding
my breath.

I stand with Hanta Yo.

FH- Did you look at the figures that all the government watch websites are posting of "reported" donations?.....Actually it was the other way around- 3 to 1 Burns money came from out of state- and 3 to 1 his was Corporate or PAC money...Much of the late money came from other Republican Senators campaign funds and such- just to keep the Republicans in control- no matter how crooked the man was- or what he stood for....Did you look at the website I posted in the other thread of where the money came from? www.opensecrets.org

Comically Burns spent like $9 million to Testers $4 million and still couldn't buy himself back into office...

I'm waiting for the last required donations to be reported- but I'll bet Burns' is over 3-1 out of state and PAC - including all the freebies you and I paid for of Cheney and Bush flying in and campaigning at our expense ($1 million+ a trip) - while Tester refused out of state politicians because he didn't want to get tied to/indebted to the Washington machine- same as Schweitzer had refused out of state PAC money...

Kind of like Hantas BS story of how everyone wishes now they had not voted for Governor Schweitzer- when he is one of the most popular Governors in the nation with the last polls showing his approval in Montana at like 65+% :roll:

I'm not a Schweitzer fan- but at least don't make up stories to fit your personal feelings without showing something to prove it..... What a friend of a friend said don't count when the other figures show the opposite.....
 

MTgirl

Well-known member
Thanks, Reader! :)

I believe that eveyone deserves a chance whether you voted for them or not. I hope some of the anti-Tester's on here do give him ample chance. I am excited for the change and believe our teriffic state and nation are in for some wonderful changes.

To also clear up one other thing in regards to the senators and their own counties: I read over the weekend in the Tribune that actually NEITHER candidate carried their own county. Do I care? Not in the least! Rural Montana is primarily republican and urban Montana is primarily democratic.. what did we expect?

Now, let's see what these new officials can do for us! :D
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Hanta Yo said:
You ought to hear what his "neighbors" in Big Sandy (where he came from) say about him. Not good. He'll hurt Montana. I didn't vote for him nor did I vote for Schweitzer. Many people now are saying they regret voting for Schweitzer, he's a bully and doesn't go through the proper hoops...I'm saying Tester is going to be the same kind of person as Schweitzer which will give the both of them even more power..... I guess time will tell.

Schweitzer must have won by 110%, if now many regret voting for him and his approval rating on Oct. 15th was 77% :roll: :wink: :lol: :lol:

This same poll said that Burns would not win- could they be more in touch with Montana than you are Hanta :???: :lol: :lol:

I'm happy to see Montanans going "purple" and voting the man/ the issues- not just the old died in the wool vote the Party.....

HELENA - A large majority of voters approve of the job Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer has done, but the biggest share still plans to vote for a Republican in their local state House races next month, results of a poll released Thursday show.

The poll, conducted by the Montana State University-Billings political science department, sampled 409 registered voters who said they were very likely to cast ballots in the November election. The telephone survey was conducted Oct. 10-12 and Oct. 14-15 and has a margin of error of 5 percentage points.

Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed said they approved of the job Schweitzer has done, while only 12 percent disapproved and 11 percent said they were undecided.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Faster horses said:
Living over here isolated like we are; I guess I haven't heard about Schweitzer.

Just what HAS HE DONE to make him so popular?

Not really sure either...But I do know he/or his staff has been very responsive to the main issue I've dealt with him about-Keeping me appraised of the Montana M-COOL-- the adoption of the administrative rules, and the final hearing process...He has been very supportive of getting the law up and running...

Maybe he's popular because he listens to and follows the wishes of the people- unlike the current administration in D.C./ USDA/the Congress/NCBA etal that have gone against the consumer polls, the wishes of the people, and a signed law in avoiding enacting the same M-COOL- and used backroom/snidely tactics to do it...

Now to me thats arrogance....The "we know whats best for you common folk" attitude :roll: Its also the reason the Republican party got the thumping they got last Tuesday- and the reason NCBA members are an endangered species in my area...
 

Hanta Yo

Well-known member
Kind of like Hantas BS story of how everyone wishes now they had not voted for Governor Schweitzer- when he is one of the most popular Governors in the nation with the last polls showing his approval in Montana at like 65+%


I talked to these people personally :roll: Why would I want to lie about something like that? I was also told Schweitzer had over 70% approval rating from our Dist. rep for House. (You posted 65% - I like that better...down 5 % :) )

The only way he is one of the most popular governors in the nation is because the press says so :roll: Press isn't exactly honest, you know :roll:
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
Unless they changed the Montana COOL law a bunch, that one's gonna
come back to bite us in the butt.

Putting out placecards that says "Origin UNKNOWN" because they
can't identify where all that meat came from is not good business.

Most people just don't think about it. I've done my own surveying.
Haven't found one person yet that worries that their meat isn't safe.
They buy it from someplace and it's good, so they go back. They
buy it from someplace that it wasn't good, they don't go back. People
have too much to think about, and safety of meat isn't one of them.
When it's in the meat case, they trust it.

Don't kick a sleeping dog.
 
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