Posted: August 1, 2012 at 7:24 am

Jersey Shore Comes to Montana

Rick Hill is bringing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to Montana help him close the lead Steve Bullock has built in fundraising. As the Billings Gazette reports, Bullock has about five times the funds.

Hill calls Christie “one of the biggest stars in the Republican party.” Christie is definitely big, as big as a planet if not a star. As for his celebrity status among the national GOP, it’s easy to see how it has come about. For Christie has the basic prerequisites that all GOP stars must have: he’s run up a massive budget deficit –the second largest in the nation, he talks constantly about “less government,” and he makes a sport of beating up on public employees even though he once was one himself.

In fact, one of Christie’s favorite sports is to stage public events in hopes of getting some teacher or other civil servant to ask him why he has frozen or cut wages, or why he has cut school funding, or why he doesn’t send his children to public school (like the Montana governor). Then, he pounces on the questioner, and shouts at them and tells them to go to hell, or berates them as stupid, lazy or undeserving.And so, into a state with the largest surplus in America, brought about by smart management by Democratic officeholders, comes this crude slob to talk about his idea of how to manage state finances, to try to raise money for a career politician. This should be very enjoyable. His trademark disrespectful behavior that causes the TEA Party to swoon has already worn thin on the Jersey shore, (his popularity has waned) and Montanans have no interest in it at all.

Christie is also coming into a state with leaders (like the Governor, Attorney General, and the three other statewide elected officials, all of whom are Dems) who understand that working with public employees is a partnership best served by a good working relationship and praise from the boss, so that workers take pride in doing a good job, no matter who is employing them.

The best part, though, is that he’ll be speaking to an audience that includes a bunch of angry people, cheering and whooping in a state of idiotic rapture when Christie slobbers about “too much government.” Among these will be Betti Hill, who not only was a state employee for the better part of her career, but used the position to deliver a large sack of taxpayer money to her husband regularly while she was a top aid to Gov. Martz.

Posted: April 4, 2011 at 7:00 am

Not Wisconsin: Schweitzer Electrifies Union Rally at Montana Capitol

A few months ago, the Montana Tea Party organized a rally on the steps of the Montana Capitol, for “patriots” to “take back America.” Organizers encouraged people to bring their guns with them. The rally drew about 20 or so angry men and women (minus some teeth) and one or two rifles. And that was it. Little has been seen or heard of the Montana Tea Party since.

Last Friday, working folks from around Montana tried their hand at a Capitol rally (without guns). They drew about 1500 people. It was a festive and positive day, and a stark comparison to the theater that has played out in Midwestern states where union bashing is lately all the rage. In Helena, there was folk music and constant chanting of the mantra “courage, not cuts.” The crowd comprised firefighters, police, teachers, health-care workers, home-care workers, state workers, and others who make very a modest living (a starting teacher makes about $17K in rural Montana) but do important work for society.

To the delight of the crowd, Governor Brian Schweitzer, who is a rancher by trade, did a Charlton Heston imitation, lifting not a gun over his head but a “VETO” cattle-branding iron, which he promised to use for branding “stinking, bad bills” like the current budget that the GOP legislature is trying to send to his desk, which attempts to balance the budget on the backs of the working class. KXLH has the raw video of the speech.

In his short speech, Schweitzer told the crowd that the difference between Montana on the one hand, and Wisconsin and Ohio and Indiana on the other, is that “those states don’t have Governors that appreciate a partnership.”

That’s for sure. Republican Governors Christie (NJ), Daniels (IN), Kasich (OH) and Walker (WI)–who at night have been having recurring wet dreams about running in a GOP presidential primary–saw an opportunity to get some cheap political mileage by getting citizens as angry as possible against public employees. In essence, these spineless four governors were drawn to public opinion polls which showed that a certain sector of voters was amenable to being incited with angry rhetoric, and that society in general is concerned about spending.

So these guys painted by the numbers. They trashed public workers, engaged in artificial standoffs, bashed anyone who is in a labor union, and then downloaded videos of themselves to Youtube and hit the FOXNews scene to try cement their reputation as conservative national heroes.

Schweitzer, who is the most popular Democrat in America even though he’s governor of one of the country’s more Republican states, does not seem to be getting hurt politically by standing up for public workers as he did at the rally. He was correct when he said that these other guys don’t understand or value the concept of a partnership. Leadership is about creating something that society can be proud off, not tearing people down.

And it looks like justice has been served lately, with Christie and Walker having seen their job approval numbers spiral down into the toilet. Kasich and Daniels are hopefully not far behind.