Developer Denny recently released an outlandish and blatantly false ad attacking Sen. Tester and his record. The ad uses fake headlines from a fake newspaper. Oh, and what’s the ad called? “Honest.” Yup. You read that right.
Rehberg’s team must have realized what a pile of crap this ad was because, as you can see from the snapshot below, ratings and comments have been disabled. Even more transparency and honesty for you.
The hypocrisy of this attack ad is simply unbelievable.
For months, Erik Iverson, campaign manger for Denny Rehberg has touted three polls showing Rehberg with a small two point lead in the U.S. Senate race. Obviously, two points isn’t much to brag about – it’s inside the margin of error and doesn’t even factor in the two Libertarians now running for Senate.
It’ll be interesting to see Iveron try to spin the latest PPP Poll, which shows Tester leading Rehberg 48% to 43%.
The numbers get worse for Developer Denny when you look at Independents who now favor Tester 48% to 36%. That’s huge.
The PPP Poll also took a look at the Democratic Congressional primary. Results:
Gillan is the modest early favorite to win the Democratic nomination. She’s at 21% to 13% for Diane Smith, 11% for Wilmer, 9% for Dave Strohmaier, 4% for Sam Rankin, 1% for Rob Stutz, and 0% for Jason Ward. Just like in the general election match ups though the big winner is undecided- 41% don’t yet know how they’ll vote.
I certainly don’t mean to start yet another fight with the 4and20 blackbirds blog over the relative merits of Senator Tester and Representative Rehberg, but it’s hard to overlook the analysis offered today which suggests that Senator Tester is somehow trailing in the Senate race by a few points because he’s taken money from the “wrong constituency.”
It’s not only same tired argument that’s been trotted every few months, but it fundamentally ignores the dynamics of this race and the role of money in contemporary politics. While it would be wonderful if Senator Tester could choose not to take donations from people affiliated with corporations at all, unilaterally disarming against Denny Rehberg and letting him impose his idiotic worldview on the Senate for six years would be far more damaging than taking money from banks, law firms, cable companies, and the League of Conservation Voters—who are by far Tester’s largest contributors.
It’s also simply unfair to suggest that Tester is somehow beholden to big banks, and just willfully blind to suggest that Rehberg wouldn’t be far, far worse. There’s a reason that Rehberg is getting the support of Citizens United—and it’s not his position on the Constitution.
There’s a relatively simply set of reasons that Rehberg is marginally ahead in the polls. Montana is a state that leans Republican—and Rehberg has more incumbent advantage going into the race. In fact, rather than suggesting “that something fundamental is amiss” in the Tester campaign, the fact the Tester is within 2-3 points, given a 8 point GOP advantage in the state, suggest that his campaign is right where it needs to be to be competitive.
To remain competitive with the massive influx of Super PAC money that Represenative Rehberg will have at his “uncoordinated” disposal, Senator Tester will likely need to outraise Rehberg by 2:1.
From the outset, winning this seat was going to be a challenge for Tester, but eschewing large donations and driving around the state in a VW wagon fueled only by self-righteousness and biodiesel would make it impossible for him to win.
Ideological and financial purity may warm the heart, but they certainly doesn’t win elections. For my money, I think it’s in the interests of Montanans to send a Senator back to Washington who doesn’t believe that corporations are people, who believes in the minimum wage and the rights of workers, and who fights for the middle class.
While Representative Rehberg would like to frame his ‘no’ vote on the Ryan budget today as
some kind of stand on behalf of Montana’s seniors, his continued failure to present any alternatives is yet another sign of his willingness to put politics ahead of practical solutions. It’s so bad that even the rabidly conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page called him out on it today:
Mr. Rehberg thinks he’s inoculating himself on Medicare, and he even issued a press release saying “I simply refuse to gamble with something as important as Medicare.” The real gamble is to continue on the current path that will ruin Medicare, and Mr. Rehberg’s vote suggests he’s from the remaindered pile of the GOP’s Tom DeLay status-quo wing.
Rehberg voted against seven budget proposals in the past twenty four hours. The only budget proposal he’s supported in the past year was the House’s radical Cut, Cap, and Balance Plan, which would have devastated Medicare while risking economic calamity, according to conservative Norman Ornstein:
Best Picture: Most Irresponsible Legislative Proposal of the Year. Here the clear winner is the balanced budget constitutional amendment, which has been endorsed by all 47 Senate Republicans. …. But a constitutional requirement to balance the federal budget is a virtual guarantee that we will have economic catastrophes that will make the Great Depression look like a picnic. Here is the problem, which should be evident to anybody who has taken Econ 101. When the economy sags, the initial remedy is what we call countercyclical policy — counter the downturn with a jump-start via economic stimulus. Every major country acted in 2008 to do just that, and by consensus avoided a global disaster far more serious than we got.
That’s Representative Rehberg: casting a cynically, politically-motivated vote designed to appeal to Montana’s seniors, despite his commitment to a budget proposal which would have been far worse for them.
Remember back in September when the NRSC used a Photoshopped photograph of Senator Tester embracing President Obama? In the ad, Senator Tester had ten fingers. I don’t need to tell you that our junior Senator has a mere seven fingers due to an accident that took place during his childhood on the family farm.
The snafu resulted in plenty of critical press for both the NRSC and Congressman Rehberg. You’d have to assume that one would learn from their past mistakes, but you’d be wrong
Rehberg is currently running ads online attacking Tester. The attack ads direct you to Rehberg’s campaign website and a page entitled “The Tester-Obama Agenda by the Numbers.” If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you’ll see that Rehberg and his cronies didn’t learn from their past mistake.
Here’s the photograph featured on Rehberg’s campaign website. I’ll give you ten tries to guess what’s wrong with this photo.
Montana Blog Feed
