By the sounds of US Senate candidate Corey Stapleton’s speech at the Montana GOP convention, Republicans certainly aren’t shying away from a candidacy by former Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-MT). “We can beat (him) the way we did in 2006,” says former state Sen. Corey Stapleton, of Billings, who led the Republicans’ campaign that year that took control of the Montana Legislature away from Democrats. “We can beat him because, in the end, all he wanted to do was run on our ideas.”
That’s how he was quoted by Lee Newspapers.
Meanwhile, here’s video of Rep. Champ Edmunds (R-Missoula) as he addressed the Montana GOP convention regarding his candidacy for the US Senate.
ADDITION TO INITIAL POST- The Stapleton campaign sent out this video in a campaign mailer later in the week:
In other convention news,it’s interesting to note that Will Deschamps received more than 50% of the vote after a 3-way battle for his re-election as Chairman of the Montana Republican Party, as The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports.
Emcee Rick Hill told the membership that when more than two candidates are vying for a seat, the one with the most votes wins.
When Deschamps was declared the victor, Hill said the nominees wanted the membership and the public to know that he had won more than 50 percent of the vote.
The Chronicle alsoadded this tidbit to their GOP convention coverage:
Saturday was also the anniversary of the passage of the 1906 Antiquities Act.
The act empowered the U.S. president to designate any area or landmark of natural or cultural significance as a National Monument.
On Friday, Rep. Steve Daines appeared before the House Natural Resources Committee to condemn the use of presidential designations. He used the designation of the Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument as an example of abuse of the act’s power.
WatchdogWire: Congressman Daines at Montana GOP Convention: CISPA Protects Privacy
Delegates and elected officials alike eagerly looked forward to the arrival of Congressman Steve Daines Saturday afternoon. One attendee noted that it took Daines more than half an hour to navigate a hundred feet or so from the hotel entrance to the atrium. His popularity is clearly one potential source for shoring up the GOP in Big Sky Country.
Watchdog’s Michael Mattson then added this note on Daines’ vote for the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).
Before CISPA passed, the House of Representatives made “nineteen changesrelated to privacy. You start with rights and privacy, and we don’t give up liberty for security”, Daines said. “Those nineteen improvements are what got me over the hump so I could vote for it.”