Meet Art Wittich, a little known but frighteningly-outside-the-mainstream candidate for Montana State Senate District 35, a district that includes the outskirts of Bozeman, MT out to Three Forks and Manhattan.  (Gary Perry’s old seat.)  Wittich tries to play it fairly straight on his own website, touting the fact that he’s an attorney blah, blah, blah. The facts, however, show he’s anything but mainstream.   Also, for some reason, Wittich’s site makes no mention of the case that made him famous.

Wittich is most known for (unsuccessfully) representing game farm owners against I-143, the voter passed initiative that banned shooting game farm animals for a fee, a practice critics call “pet hunting” or “canned hunting.”

Wittich also scored a shocking 100% on his Tea Party candidate questionnaire.  To put that in perspective, even Montana Representatives Tom McGillvray (R-Outer Space), Wendy “Wackadoodle” Warburton and Michael More did not attain that score.

Art Wittich (SD-35), is listed on the Bozeman Tea Party website as being among the three most tea-baggery candidates in the area because he

“consistently participated and actively supported the planning and execution of Tea Party rallies and other grassroots conservative events in Gallatin and Park Counties.”

They even sent out a crazy caps press release about him.

Tea Baggers are said to love the Constitution, and freedom and populism.  What part of that  makes them fall all over a guy who defends an indefensible practice: trapping deer and elk inside an escape proof pasture and offering them up as targets to well-heeled clients? Perhaps that’s why Wittich isn’t bringing it up.