Huge kudos to the Montana Standard for uncovering a Post Office document “through other means”–a document which reveals that the Postal Service lied to the people of Butte about the impact of closing the Butte mail processing center.

Specifically,

• while the Post Office claimed the closure would only cost 6-7 jobs, their own documents revealed that 21 jobs would be lost.
• while the Post Office claimed the move was to create cost-savings, they failed to report that the move to Great Falls would cost over $350,000 initially, not to mention long-term costs associated with transportation.
• The Post Office refused to provide information following a Freedom of Information request because they do not “release the contents of AMP studies because of the proprietary nature of the information.”

The same corporate culture at the Post Office that justifies exorbitant salaries for clearly incompetent CEOs seems to also being endorsing the idea that “proprietary” corporate information trumps the critical importance of open government. The Post Office can’t be corporate when it’s convenient and government when it’s expedient; they are a public trust that needs to behave much better than they have.

And that’s why the work Senator Tester is doing to protect postal service in Montana is so important. His work in the Senate, along with Senators Wyden and Merkley, will give the public enough time to find out just how dishonest the Postal Service has been during this process, not to mention what other “proprietary” secrets might reveal about their decision-making.

As for Republicans in the House, like Representative Rehberg, who created the problem? Their bill doesn’t protect small post offices or prevent rash closures:

The bill still has to be approved by the House, which is far from a sure thing. The House of Representatives bill on the matter is much different, and does not include language that would keep the Butte center open.

How about it, Representative Rehberg? Why not stand up to your leadership and protect Montana jobs and mail service?

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 was voting entirely for the sake of the press yesterday, Senators Tester and Baucus were working to do something to restore fairness to America’s tax system—voting to end massive tax breaks to the oil and gas industry. The measure was designed to encourage development of alternative energy and reduce the deficit:

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., would target more than $2 billion in annual tax subsidies to the so-called Big Five oil companies — BP, Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips.

Had the measure passed Congress, about half of the $24 billion in savings over 10 years would have been reinvested in tax breaks for biodiesel, wind, cellulosic ethanol and energy-efficiency programs.The other half would have been used to reduce the federal deficit.

Now Senate Republicans who killed the measure argue that these ending these tax breaks to oil companies would increase the price of gas at the pump. As is usually the case, though, they ignored the evidence. The Congressional Research Service says that’s simply not true:

For the purpose of economic analysis, the repeal of the Section 199 deduction is equivalent to an increase in the tax on corporate profit. It is widely accepted that a proportional change in taxes on profit affects neither the firm’s incremental costs or revenues, and therefore does not change its behavior with respect to output.  Since output does not change, there is little reason to believe that the price of oil, or gasoline, consumers face will increase.

No one here argues with the idea that industry should be able to make a profit, but it’s hard to accept a system which allows massive, multinational oil companies to pay a much lower rate of taxes than small businesses pay. I think that the five big oil companies have probably reached a point at which they no longer need tax incentives to survive. I suspect they’ll survive with $125 billion in annual profits just fine.

But it was those corporations that Senate Republicans voted to defend yesterday. Not Main Street, not family-run businesses, but massive corporations who recorded $137 billion in profits last year. It’s little wonder that Republicans have received 88 per cent of oil and gas contributions this election cycle.

Does anyone have any doubt about how Representative Rehberg would have voted yesterday, given the $450,000 he has received from the oil and gas industry during his do-nothing career, including $141,000 in this cycle alone?

Melinda Gopher announced on Facebook this evening that she will not be running in 2012 for the U.S. House.  Instead, she plans to “oust” Senator Baucus in 2014.

I wouldn’t hold your breath.  A year ago Gopher was threatening to challenge Tester, then she announced a run for the House.  Now the plan is to hold off until 2014 to challenge a different Senator.

Today in Mike Dennison’s story about how the two major candidates for the US Senate have voted, we got an instructive lesson in how headlines can shape perceptions of a story. The Independent Record certainly offered a unique take on a story that largely argued that Dennis Rehberg votes with Republicans and Jon Tester votes with Democrats. Shocking stuff.

• From the Missoulian, U.S. Senate race: How often do Rehberg, Tester vote with the president?
• From the Billings Gazette, Tester voting record on Obama policies takes center stage in race with Rehberg
• From the Independent Record, Tester follows party lines

I guess supporting the ideological viewpoint of the publisher is more important than writing a headline that is either accurate or even logical.

Politico had a very interesting piece today regarding our senior Senator and K Street Lobbyists.

Democrats on K Street are warning their corporate clients: Give to Republican challengers in the 2012 election, and you’ll regret it come tax reform time.

Lobbyists are getting that message from allies of powerful Democrats such as Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is closely watching support for Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Republican challenging Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). Baucus supporters fear that if Rehberg ousts Tester, Baucus could be next to face a serious Republican challenge in the state.

One K-Streeter close to the Baucus operation said the senator considers a gift to Rehberg a contribution against him. Another Democratic lobbyist told a client to take his name off a Rehberg fundraising event because it would be hurtful to his company, according to sources.

The case K-Streeters are making to their clients: It will be a hard sell next year to get Baucus’s support on business-friendly tax perks set to expire or the Bush-era tax cuts that must get through his committee.

The game of hardball is a bold example of a powerful chairman willing to leverage his power to protect his party’s majority, his home-state colleague and potentially his own seat.

You can read the entire article here.  While many members of the Democratic Party may not always agree with Sen. Baucus and positions he has taken in the past, it’s ridiculous to argue that he is not whole-heartily dedicated the Montana Democratic Party.

Whether it’s bundling money for Democratic candidates in the state or using “hardball” tactics to protect Senator Tester from a tsunami of K Street money, one thing is clear: Sen. Baucus will go to bat for Montana’s Democrats.  And that should be applauded.

In his analysis of the funds raised in the 2012 Montana Senate race, Matt Gouras pointed out a detail that has to make Representative Rehberg nervous. It seems that he’s having an awfully hard time raising money from the people he ostensibly represents:

Tester has also been winning the money war in contributions collected from Montana _ by a large amount. Tester reeled in $840,000 from Montana individual contributors, while Rehberg collected $286,000, according to the reports.

While I get as tired as anyone about the focus on money rather than issues in modern political campaigns, this is the kind of number that shows a campaign is struggling to connect with voters. Of course, it’s hard to connect with voters when you’re dodging them at every opportunity–and make an embarrassing gaffe every time you do speak with them.

It’s almost as if Representative Rehberg has never run a real campaign before. Consider his latest stunt, in which he claimed he was offering a “made in Montana” solution to outside influence in Montana politics.

It turns out that Rehberg’s “Made in Montana” pledge was written by yet another Beltway insider, as ABC News reports:

But in both Montana and Massachusetts, the Republican candidates’ pledges to ban advertising from outside groups were written by the very type of outside group they were seeking to ban.

Sean Cairncross, a top election lawyer for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which helps elect Republican candidates to the Senate, is listed as the author in the electronic signature of the letters both Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg and Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown sent to their opponents.

Given how idiotic Rehberg’s counter-proposal was, it seemed possible that he had even written it himself, but true to form, even when calling for Montana solutions, Rehberg let his owners in Washington write his proposal.

Lest you think it’s just politics, Rehberg loses out when it comes to substance, too. Even the conservative Montana blog The Western World noticed that it’s Senators Tester and Baucus who are getting credit for helping ensure the future of Montana Air National Guard:

He (Central Montana Defense Alliance  Chairman David Weismann)  wrote, “Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester worked closely with…”  then said, “The Central Montana Defense Alliance would like to thank Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester for their tireless efforts in securing this new mission.”

But the biggest whack to Rehberg from Chairman Weissman was the part where he said, “…we reached out to our delegation and Baucus and Tester responded.”  Double ouch!

2012 is becoming more clear every day. If Rehberg can’t manage the task of running a campaign and his Congressional office, why would anyone think it’s a good idea to promote him to the Senate?

I’ve been thinking more about Erik Iverson’s response to Senator Tester’s proposal for a ceasefire to limit the amount of money spent by unaccountable third parties in the Montana Senate race.

Iverson, who has been running Rehberg’s campaigns and/or Congressional office for years, told The Hill:

“This is certainly an interesting proposal by Senator Tester,” Rehberg Campaign Manager Erik Iverson responded. “We are going to give it a close look and we will respond in due course.”

While I’d like to believe that Iverson’s quote means that the campaign has had a lengthy discussion about the merits of third party ads in  a representative democracy, another scenario seems far more likely: that Iverson has been calling up a lot of “uncoordinated” political groups like the one run by Karl Rove to find out just how much money they can expect to be spent attacking and distorting Senator Tester’s record.

Instead of looking for a way to improve the quality of our elections, I fear they’re looking for loopholes and evaluating the bottom line.

This shouldn’t be calculation based on dollars and cents; it should be an ethical calculation about the kind of political future Rehberg wants for Montana.

And the truth is that Rehberg shouldn’t need time to “respond in due course.”  As Tester pointed out in his letter, Representative Rehberg told the Flathead Beacon he was uncomfortable with third party ads and wanted full disclosure—and as a Montanan, he should know just how pernicious the influence of outside money has been on our political system.

Massachusetts also proves that even the most intensely partisan races can do better than to allow deceptive, unaccountable attack ads to decide elections.

Rehberg still has a few hours to do the right thing—not just for himself and Senator Tester, but for the state. There’s no reason that Montana, which is already leading the fight against undocumented expenditures in state races, can’t set a model for the rest of the nation in federal races.

Montanans expect—and deserve—a tough race between two candidates who clearly view the world quite differently from one another. Tester’s proposal offers the candidates the chance to win or lose this election on the merits of their ideas and their critiques of each other in a direct, tough, honest fight.

Isn’t that really the Montana way?

Senator Tester, on NPR’s All Things Considered, today:

“Well, I think corporations are a whole lot different than people. I don’t know corporations that can be put in prison. I do know people that can be put in prison. I mean, it’s a totally different entity. I don’t think the forefathers envisioned when this country was setup that we would have corporations that had the same rights or more rights than people…

“It’s ridiculous and it’s not what our forefathers sought and it really goes against our democracy. It goes against what this country is built upon.”

Representative Rehberg, after cashing his $10,000 check from the group that wants to turn multinational corporations into people:

Paints a pretty striking contrast, doesn’t it?

Surely Montana newspapers have to report that Rehberg took money from Citizens United, right?