by Travis Mateer
The high point for Montana Democrats last year appeared to be finding some beta males to “protect” the bench Zooey Zephyr was relegated to after the culture war smoke cleared from equally pathetic Montana Republican antics. Housing? Property taxes? A clean environment? No, it was the Zooey Zephyr show ALL session, and this year Montana Democrats will pay the price.
A group of Helena professionals who work in tech made their way to the Capitol on Tuesday to join a revolving crew of people protecting the bench where Rep. Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula, has been representing her constituents.
“I don’t do well with bullying, and I decided instead of just kind of staying at home and fuming about this, that I was going to come in and at the very least, just tell Zooey that I support her and admire her bravery,” said Kurt Fehlig, one of three people holding down the bench around noon Tuesday.
“We’re keeping the bench for Zooey. So we can’t move,” said Tom Snell.
A party of the people supporting my liberty and pursuit of happiness? Um, are we just going to gloss over the fact that four years ago a pandemic of fear turned a majority of citizens who identify as liberal into a terrifying collective of mindless snitches frothing at the mouth when people like me said NO to the insane tactics of coercion designed to convince me to take medical injections I didn’t agree with?
The revisionism coming from pieces of shit like the Cuomo brothers SHOULD be proof enough that the “party of the people” is now desperately scrambling to rebrand their collective insanity into something more palatable for their shrinking constituency. Is it going to work?
Because Democrats rely on people with a truncated sense of recent history, and because our media is no help when it comes to historical context, we get stories like this one from the Missoula Current (run by a former Democrat spokesperson) about the AG race in Montana. From the link:
Earlier this week, the Daily Montanan reported that at an event last Saturday, an audio recording obtained by the news organization appeared to capture Knudsen calling Montana’s campaign finance laws “ridiculous” and saying that he asked a friend to run against him in the partisan primary as a way to raise more money.
Logan Olson, a Republican who appears on the ballot, is also the Daniels County Attorney. Olson appears to have done little in the way of campaigning. Prior to the complaints being filed, the COPP said recruiting a candidate to run under false premises could be a campaign violation.
Why do I find this complaint so pathetic and also a bit funny? It goes back many years, to a time when the Montana blogosphere had more going on than a lone blogger (me) keeping the lights on; bloggers like “Pogie”, for example, penned “Intelligent Discontent” before rebranding it to sound more like conventional media, then fleeing the entire state for Hawaii and shuttering the site for good.
Before trying to influence Montana voters with his condescending style, Don “Pogie” Pogreba helped out Governor Brian Schweitzer with a performative candidacy for Governor that, per Montana state law, allowed our Governor to keep his political donations AFTER the primary, which is what Austin Knudsen is now being accused of.
Here’s an article showing how little money Pogreba raised, raising the question of whether or not he was ever a serious candidate in the first place. From the link (emphasis mine):
Candidates challenging Schweitzer and Brown in Montana’s June 3 primary election have not raised much campaign money, according to campaign-finance reports.
Through May 17, Schweitzer had raised nearly $1.4 million to Brown’s $352,328.
Democratic challenger Don Pogreba of Helena had raised $2,210. Democrat Bill Fischer did not submit a financial report to the state political practices commissioner. Republican Larry H. Steele of Great Falls raised $2,043.
If Montana Democrats want some REAL firepower to figuratively aim at Austin, there’s plenty available, but they won’t use it because it’s TOO DANGEROUS to some of their own political creatures, like Missoula’s former Sheriff, T.J. McDermott. Are you beginning to see why I find Democrats MUCH MORE odious than Montana Republicans?
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Thanks for reading!
