Question: What contributed to Montana Democrats doing so well in 2004?

Was Judy Martz very unpopular?

Did Howard Dean's organization showing up make a difference?

Were Montana Democrats really good candidates?


Just wondering.

It gives a blow-by-blow account of how the local Dems did it.

BTW, I believe Schweitzer was a candidate listed under "Dean's Dozens". So yes, the "Deaniacs" may have played a role here.

Link:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0412.sirota.html

(snip)
The story begins with the man himself. If you look in an encyclopedia under Montana: Self-Image of, you'll find a picture of Brian Schweitzer. He is the grandson of Montana homesteaders and looks the part: He is a burly six-foot-two, always clad in jeans with a gilded silver belt buckle. Schweitzer put himself through college by mopping floors at sororities, got a master's degree from Montana State in, of all things, soil science, and then worked for eight years on irrigation projects in the part of the world that's hardest to irrigate—the Sahara Desert. When he returned to Montana in the late 1980s, he built a farming and ranching business from scratch—no small task at a time when corporate agribusiness was swallowing huge swaths of America's heartland. He is gregarious, tough-talking, and utterly without self-doubt.

But in addition to a winning personality and strong populist convictions, Schweitzer had an innovative, three-part political strategy, one that perfectly fit the current conditions in Montana, but which Democrats across the country could learn from. First, Schweitzer took advantage of public dissatisfaction with two decades of insular one-party rule in the state capital, casting himself as an outsider and a reformer. Second, he rallied small business, usually a solidly GOP constituency, to his side by opposing the deals Republicans had cut in Washington and Helena to favor large or out-of-state corporations over local entrepreneurs. Third, and most interesting of all, Schweitzer figured out how to win over one of the most important, reliably Republican, and symbolically significant groups of voters: hunters and fishermen.

(snip)

much much more...


:kick:

Judy Martz - most hated - unbelievable freeper

Brian Schweitzer played it right - he went to the sportsmen and told them how it was -

that's what is needed - telling the freeper types the truth about Bushco

I lived half my life in that state and I hope to God these people have finally had enough of being screwed by the corporations

of Corp's like WR Grace literally killing hundreds perhaps thousands of people with their vermiculate plant - their lies are becoming legend now - big lawsuit in Missoula soon

I wish Ohio had a governor race in 2004. BushInc would have had to triple their vote-stealing to cover for Taft.

was when the GOP was in power they sold off the state owned power plants and hydroelectric dams to private industry to raise revenue without new taxes. This resulted in an almost immediate 200% increase in power rates. Enough to piss anyone off.



Thought this one was funny



GOP leaders: Schweitzer harassing freshman lawmakers
By ALLISON FARRELL of the Missoulian State Bureau

HELENA - Gov. Brian Schweitzer has been threatening and intimidating freshman GOP lawmakers when they vote against his legislation this session, and the harassment has got to stop, Republican House leaders said Monday.

House Republican Floor Leader Mike Lange, R-Billings, said Schweitzer has been telling new Republican legislators that he will personally campaign against them during the 2006 election season and will veto their other bills if they don't toe his line on ethanol, wind energy and ethics laws.

... Lange and House Republican Leader Roy Brown of Billings said they will ask the governor to back off during their regularly scheduled meeting of state government leaders Tuesday morning.

"I've never heard of a governor who used the bully pulpit of his office to do that kind of thing to an individual freshman legislator," said Brown, who is in his fourth term in the House. "It's just not proper."




http://missoulian.com/articles/2005/03/08/news/top/news01.txt

Schweitzer is a Democrat, and apparently a pretty pugnacious one, but his first loyalties are not to the party. His running mate was a Republican, and I think in 2000 he endorsed John McCain for President when he was running for Senate.