That was the headline in The Missoulian over the weekend. This, as Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), has been coming under direct fire from his opponent for “supporting Barack Obama 95% of the time,” and is actively working to distance himself from the president.
Chaney added, “In an interview at the Missoulian on Friday, the first-term senator from Big Sandy said Obama didn’t stay focused enough on stimulating jobs and the economy after the financial meltdown of 2008.”
Of course, the GOP response should be fairly obvious to anyone following Congress over the last few years. The president doesn’t set the legislative agenda, the Democrats in Congress set the agenda. At any moment during the health care debate, Senator Jon Tester could have stood up on the floor of the US Senate and demanded that his party leaders focus on jobs rather than the bill now known as Obamacare. But he didn’t. And now, instead of defending his own record, Senator Tester is throwing the president he supports under the bus, all in an attempt to save himself.
How will Tester’s efforts to distance himself from the president pay off?
Hotline’s Sean Sullivan had this, while remarking on the latest Rehberg-Tester ads:
Localizing races is a good aim for incumbents like Tester who will be hamstrung by the top of the ticket in the fall, but getting separation from the president from the same party – no matter how many personality ads a candidate runs – is a difficult task for a senator, recent voting patterns show.
On another note, when Planned Parenthood rolled into town, you didn’t see this headline in the Montana media: “Tester Seeks Support of Far Left.” But, when it comes to their coverage of the Republican gubernatorial candidates, the major Montana newspapers all mirrored this headline: “GOP Governor Candidates Seek Support of Far Right.”
So, just what rose to the level of seeking “far right” support?
The new pledge appears to go beyond a general support of the state and federal constitutions by also laying out conservative goals like school vouchers, tax reduction, and a rollback of regulations and bureaucracy that impede business.
And in at least one case it appears to possibly run afoul of the Montana Constitution, which lays out in great detail how revenue from state land will be used to fund education. The pledge, however, says that state land revenue should instead be used to reduce income and property taxes.
Reducing property taxes- that’s scary stuff folks. Scary.