by William Skink
Another special election, another Democrat loss. Apparently no amount of money can get Democrats across the finish line.
In Montana the party that lost the special election is really sticking it to Gianforte by, wait for it, sending him an orange jump suit on his first day of work.
This stupid stunt is one of the first media splashes under the new spokesman for Montana Democrats, New Yorker Roy Loewenstein. It’s important to note Roy is from New York because he’s now speaking for the party that made New Jersey a campaign issue. Here your new spokesman, Montana Democrats:
“As a convicted criminal, he will be hidden by his Leadership and not given any position of influence in Washington,” Roy Loewenstein, the spokesman for the Montana Democratic Party, said in a statement about the newest member of the House.
“So, we got Mr. Gianforte a welcome gift to help his new colleagues identify him.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) slammed the prank in a statement, saying the Montana Democrats’ move is “sad and petty behavior.”
The sad and petty Democrats in this state are going to squeeze anything they can from Gianforte’s misdemeanor assault. At Cowgirl (the once hotspot blog trying to stay relevant) this post shows how partisanship can blind one to the reality of how the criminal justice system functions. The problem begins with the title of the post: Why did the Bozeman prosecutor roll over for Gianforte? and continues with this:
A crucial question was tweeted by the MTPR news director yesterday:: Had Ben Jacobs been the body slammer and the candidate the body slam-ee, would Jacobs have avoided jail time altogether? The answer is almost certainly No.
And yet at Gianforte’s court hearing on Monday, Marty Lambert, the Republican Bozeman prosecutor who must run for election every four years, sought no jail time for Gianforte and put up little resistance to Gianforte’s defense team’s maneuvers. Lambert never even requested that Gianforte perform community service or anger counseling, as the Judge ultimately ordered. Lambert sought only a deferred sentence and a $385 fine. A traffic ticket, in essence.
The question leading into this event was whether power and wealth get Gianforte less punishment than an ordinary citizen would receive, and the answer is now certainly YES. First, Gianforte was not arrested initially for having body slammed Ben Jacobs. He was instead written a citation and allowed to walk, despite several credible witnesses telling cops that Gianforte violently attacked him unprovoked. Lambert praised this police decision.
Anyone familiar with how overloaded municipal courts function can see how ignorant this perspective is. Using myself as an example, when I was assaulted by a mentally unstable person on meth, my assailant was not arrested and taken to jail. After a few hours in court, he was released on his own recognizance.
Montana Democrats should probably avoid this line of attack on Gianforte. Why? They don’t want to hear it, but I’ll say it: Hillary Clinton. As distasteful as the Hillary cultists found the lock her up chants during the campaign, the reality is that Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information and subsequent destruction of evidence would have landed a less-politically-connected individual in jail.
Unfortunately I don’t expect Democrats to adapt and change their losing ways any time soon. They just keep doing the same thing expecting different results. The definition of insanity.