Schweitzer revs 2016 presidential bid buzz with trip to Iowa

Brian Schweitzer speaks at the Harkin Steak Fry in 2008.

Former Gov. Brian Schweitzer doesn’t like to be out of the national headlines for very long.

For a guy who claims he’s simply content to run Stillwater Mining Co. and enjoy the view from his Georgetown Lake home, Schweitzer sure seems intent on fueling speculation that his sights are set on the White House.

In an interview published this week in the Weekly Standard, Schweitzer reiterated his fondness for the people of Iowa,  home to the nation’s first presidential primary contest, and he said he plans to visit all 99 counties there.

*Wink, wink.

The former governor also took shots at former First Lady, former Secretary of State, and 2008 Democratic presidential nominee runner-up Hillary Clinton, the presumptive front-runner for the party’s nomination in 2016.

Schweitzer speculated if Clinton were the Democratic Party’s nominee she  might “shift hard right on Day 1.”

“We can’t afford any more hard right,” Schweitzer said. “We had eight years of George Bush. Now we’ve had five years of Obama, [who], I would argue, in many cases has been a corporatist.”

Whew!

Calling Obama a “corporatist” and implying that Clinton would be a right-winger is one way to grab headlines in Iowa, where a recent Des Moines Register poll found that Schweitzer and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley “are little more than footnotes” to Iowa voters.

“At this time, they are simply fictitious names to most Iowa Democrats,” Republican strategist John Brabender told the Register. “You could make up names, and they would have roughly the same favorable/unfavorable scores as Schweitzer and O’Malley.”

If you’re former governor from a small conservative state in the Northern Rockies with ideas about pursuing the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2016, then generating headlines and the attention of Clinton and Obama supporters  might be the way to go.

The game is to create some buzz early, to generate grassroots momentum in places where it matters, and to show the party’s base that you’re the outsider who appeals to their core Democratic Party principles.

Schweitzer's actual record as governor probably means little to Democratic activists in Iowa. What he says about the establishment and how he appeals to their world view right now is what matters today.

Schweitzer may be a farmer and a soil scientist, but he ain’t no rube. This politics thing is a game Schweitzer knows well.

Schweitzer’s been honing his headline-grabbing prowess since he took on Republican Sen. Conrad Burns in the 2002 U.S. Senate race. Back then the political newbie dumped suitcases full of cash on the floor of the state Capitol to illustrate Burns’ ties to out-of-state corporate donors.

The tactic captured the imagination of voters across the state who liked his folksy, straight-talking brashness. Schweitzer, a previously unknown mint-farmer from the Flathead Valley, came within three points of unseating the incumbent Burns. He then parlayed that strong  campaign into a 2004 gubernatorial bid which earned him two terms as Montana’s chief executive.

Schweitzer, who twice spoke at the Democratic National Convention, decided against running for retiring Democratic U.S. Senator Max Baucus’ seat. But he has never said he doesn’t want to pursue higher office. 

Many of us who have watched Schweitzer closely over the years had difficulty imagining Schweitzer playing nice in the U.S. Senate as one member out of a hundred.

But the Presidency… that’s a different story.

It’s the ultimate challenge for a politician who loves to mix things up and who revels in the national spotlight. Even if he just toys around with the idea for a while, Schweitzer no-doubt loves the attention.

For me the bottom line is Schweitzer knows that if an insurgent campaign against a pillar of the Democratic establishment is even a remote possibility in his future, then Iowa’s the place to start and now’s probably the time to get started.

This week Schweitzer lobbed a few stones in Iowa’s political pond to see what kind of waves they would make. His comments are rippling through news feeds and Twittersphere of the the national political pundit class, which is probably exactly what he was hoping for.

Tonight the former Montana governor is scheduled to address the liberal grassroots group Progress Iowa. Follow @JennerJJacobs on Twitter for updates from that speech.

Opposing displays outside GOP convention

As Montana Republicans considered platform planks, elected delegates and speechified to loyal supporters, Bruce Russell, Sr. quietly paced back and forth outside Missoula’s Hilton Garden Inn holding a homemade sign that simply said: “Den of Thieves.”

Russell kept is vigil for nearly four hours Saturday morning, walking back and forth so he wouldn’t be ticketed by police for “loitering.”

“The party inside is responsible for the economic depression that befell this country in 2008,” Russell said.

Russell was also pretty peeved about the float parked in front of the hotel depicting the “Obama Presidential Library” as an bullet-hole-ridden outhouse known as “Out House One".”

Russell, an Army medic in Vietnam, said as a veteran he was appalled by the display.

“That makes me sick no matter who the president is,” he said.

The outhouse featured plenty of…well… let’s just say colorful “graffiti.”

Inside was a outhouse stool with a semi-circle hole with the words “Half Ass” and “Policies of the Left” written next to it and a framed Obama “birth certificate” hung above it.

A poster on the wall said “For a good time call: 1-800 Michelle Hillary Pelosi.”

An historic photograph an unidentified black man was tacked to the wall with the word “Dad” scrawled beneath it.

Here are a few more photos of the…display.

Kavulla ousts PSC chairman in coup

In yet another bizarre twist at the Montana Public Service Commission, Commissioner Travis Kavulla, a Republican, sided with Democrats Gail Gutsche and John Vincent to remove fellow Republican commissioner Bill Gallagher from the chairmanship.

Kavulla then took over as chairman of the board that regulates the state's utilities by a 3-2 vote.

Citing a lack of confidence in leadership, Kavulla and Gutsche engaged in a bitter back and forth with Gallagher and Republican Vice chairman Brad Molnar over a bevy of issues. The "straw that broke the camel's back," said Gutsche and Kavulla, was what they described as an effort to conceal Molnar's publicly financed trip to a meeting in Washington, D.C.

Friday's meeting started as a discussion on how to reprimand Molnar and quickly devolved into heated bickering and a bubbling over of grievances and grudges.

Gutsche and Kavulla alleged that the commission did not authorize Molnar to travel to the nation's capitol for a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission settlement conference last month that Gallagher was attending. They said Molnar and Gallagher made a concerted effort to keep Molnar's participation in the trip a secret from the other three members of the commission.

Kavulla said the majority of the commission — himself and the two Democratic members — did not believe Molnar could be trusted to represent the commission at the conference, and they would have objected to his participation. Molnar knew that, which is why he kept the trip off his travel calendar and told Gallagher to keep it from the others, Gutsche said.

Molnar disputed those claims, saying that his trip was posted on the calendar and he made no effort to conceal his participation.

"What the hell did I do wrong? I went to a conference I was supposed to be at, as a majority member," he said during a break. "This is the harpy, partisan sniping that has brought this commission almost to a standstill."

A compromise had been worked out where Molnar would have paid about $800 in travel expenses out of his personal travel budget and he could keep his position as vice chairman.

But that deal fell apart when neither Molnar nor Gallagher expressed remorse or acknowledged wrongdoing, Kavulla said.

Kavulla dives into a great detail about his role in yesterday’s circus over at Electric City Weblog:

I do regret that this could not be solved through other means. But, sometimes, when you’re very clearly in the right—and others are very clearly in the wrong—you just need to draw a line. That’s just what happened here.

Click the link above and read the post. It has some good insight.

The current commission, of which Republicans gained a 3-2 majority with the November election, has suffered from hyper-partisanship and bickering from all sides since they convened in January. Republican commissioners Molnar and Gallagher accused Kavulla of making self-serving power plays behind closed doors with the Democrats on the panel in order to advance his own political career.

"Twenty years I have been doing this. In 20 years I have seen some of the biggest issues in the Legislature," said Molnar, a former legislator. "I have never, ever seen this level of infighting, back stabbing, self-aggrandizement, personal vendetta building. I have never seen anything like this in 20 years. If you want to have a partisan moment and say it's not a partisan moment, go right ahead."

Gallagher ascended to the chairmanship in January after a bitter two-day battle in which Kavulla, citing concerns about Molnar's "temperament and leadership abilities," refused to vote for Molnar as the chair. As a compromise, Gallagher agreed to serve as chairman only if Molnar would serve as vice chair. That arrangement was tenuous throughout the ensuing three months.

Gallagher said he never wanted to be chairman and never really had control of the body.

"I want it publically on the record the circumstance that I've been dealing with since day one, and that is your partisan politics, your joining with two (Democratic) members of the commission and playing party politics from the get go. I have not been in control of this commission since day one. You have been," Gallagher said. "It doesn't bother me to lose the chairmanship, with the exception in being disappointed that you didn't actually make the motion yourself."

Gallagher said Kavulla doesn't have the integrity, character or maturity to run the commission effectively.

Kavulla countered that Molnar and Gallagher have consistently put partisan politics and party loyalty above the work of the commission.

"This shouldn't be and isn't a partisan issue," Kavulla said. "Any Montanan would be outraged at the notion that one commissioner had asked another commissioner to keep their publically funded travel secret and that that had happened."

Kavulla said he's sick having the "party card played all over Helena."

"I'm happy to be a Republican. I'm proud to be a Republican. I will not run for office as anything else," Kavulla said. "But if you think party loyalty is going to keep me from speaking my conscience on an issue like this, Mr. Chairman, you really are sorely mistaken."

After removing Gallagher as chair, then vice-chairman Brad Molnar took the gavel and preempted an inevitable motion to remove him from that position and opted instead to resign from his leadership post.

The commission then elected Kavulla as chairman and Gutsche as vice chair by 3-2 votes, with Gutsche, Kavulla and Vincent voting "yes" and Molnar and Gallagher voting "no." Gutsche cast Vincent's vote by proxy as he was not at Friday's work session.

In an interview after the commission meeting, a visibly irritated Molnar called Kavulla a "sociopath" who gladly accepted Molnar's help during the election season and then stabbed him in the back.

"He was my creation," Molnar said. "Anybody could have beat (Democratic opponent) Don Ryan, but he never would have beat Jerry Black in the primary if it wasn't for me."

Molnar said Kavulla's actions Friday took control of the board away from conservative Republicans and handed it over to "liberal environmentalists" on the panel.

Gutsche, who along with Vincent refused to vote for Kavulla as chairman in January when the battle over control of the PSC first ignited, said she has faith in Kavulla's ability to lead the board going forward. She said Friday's events demonstrated that the panel can work together in a bipartisan way.

"We need to move this commissioner forward," Gutsche said. "We need to get down to doing the people's work instead of wasting time dealing with one rogue commissioner who never should have been in a leadership position in the first place."

Gutsche praised Kavulla's work ethic and tenacity in the job and said he will help the PSC "turn the corner."

"His work ethic is solid," Gutsche said. "He is the hardest worker, most studied, understands and asks highly technical questions of staff and legal questions of attorneys and he is always prepared."

Jim Messina, Obama’s Fixer

Ari Berman, of The Nation, just published a scathing 3,700-word analysis on the role Montana’s own Jim Messina plays in driving President Barack Obama’s political agenda and reelection campaign.

Messina, of course, was Sen. Max Baucus’ chief of staff until he left to help run Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign.

Berman paints a picture of a tough political enforcer intolerant of dissent and fiercely loyal to his boss. It is not a flattering picture of “the most powerful person in Washington that you haven’t heard of.”

Messina, who has served as Obama’s deputy chief of staff under Rahm Emmanuel, is now running Obama’s reelection campaign. The article portrays Messina as the man responsible for turning the Obama ‘08 campaign of  “hope and change” into the Obama administration of “legislative compromises and political timidity.”

“Under Messina, Obama ‘12 could more closely resemble the electoral strategy of Baucus or Bill and Hillary Clinton—cautious, controlling, top-down in structure and devoted to small-bore issues that blur differences between the parties—than Obama ‘08, a grassroots effort on a scale modern politics had never seen.”

The article chronicles Messina’s rise in politics from an organizer in Missoula, to working for Democrats in the Montana Legislature, to working as chief of staff for Sen.Max Baucus.

According to Berman, Messina’s devotion to Baucus played a major role in the Obama administration’s mishandling of the 2009 health care debate:

The administration gave Baucus and his handpicked “gang of six” senators nearly unlimited time to secretly craft a bill, which proved to be one of its most glaring strategic missteps during the healthcare debate. “Some of the difficulty that healthcare is in today is Max’s fault,” says former Montana Democratic Congressman Pat Williams. “He took too long, he tried to satisfy too many—including people that were going to vote against it from the onset—and he gave the opposition time to regroup. That was a bad political decision on his part, and many people out here believe, rightly or wrongly, that Messina was part of that foot-dragging and vacillation.”

Berman digs in to Messina’s Montana past quite a bit. He writes that with Messina as the enforcer, Baucus’ inner-circle was known as “the Montana mafia” for the way they played hard-ball with Montana’s grass-roots Democratic base. Berman chronicles how shortly after Baucus sailed to reelection in 2002 Messina visited Montana Democratic Party chair Bob Ream and demanded that he fire executive director Brad Martin.

The Baucus camp regarded the state party as too grassroots and insufficiently loyal to Baucus. Ream resisted and his executive board unanimously recommended that Martin be retained. Then Baucus insisted that Ream resign. He refused. When Ream ran for re-election in 2004, Messina tried to find somebody to run against him, but could not.

It’s a lengthy piece but well worth the read.

GOP candidates lining up for 2012

Former Republican Congressman Rick Hill on Monday announced his bid for Montana Governor at a kickoff event in Clancy.

Hill, who served two terms in the U.S. House in the late 1990s before a problem with his eyes kept him from running again in 2000, said revitalizing Montana’s economy tops his agenda.

Hill joins former state Sens. Ken Miller of Laurel and Corey Stapleton of Billings in the race for the GOP nomination for the post currently held by two-term Democrat Gov. Brian Schweitzer. Schweitzer cannot run again in 2012 due to term limits.

In other news, sources told me on Monday that Bozeman businessman Steve Daines, who ran on Republican state Sen. Roy Brown’s gubernatorial ticket in 2008, intends to announce his bid for the U.S. Senate in the coming days.

Daines was traveling in Australia on Monday and unavailable for comment.

According to one Montana GOP insider, Daines is prepared to step aside from the senate race if Rep. Denny Rehberg decides to throw his hat in the ring to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. In that scenario Daines would then run for Rehberg’s House seat, the source said.

Rehberg has long been rumored to be gearing up to take on Tester and has been vocal in his criticisms of Montana’s junior senator. According to Politico, Rehberg was spotted exiting the National Republican Senatorial Committee's Capitol Hill headquarters just two days after Republicans’ huge showing in last Tuesday’s midterm elections.

CORRECTION: The Politico story I referenced was published in November 2009, not last week as I stated in my post. So the rumors of Rehberg’s alleged 2012 senate have been circulating for at least a year. Regardless, I regret the error.

Montana’s Senior Senator, Democrat Max Baucus, weighed in on subject, saying:

"I don't think it would be wise" to challenge him, Baucus said.