Tester: 'Burns sold out'
By GWEN FLORIO
Tribune Capitol Bureau
LEWISTOWN U.S. Senate candidate Jon Tester sounded a familiar theme that his opponent, incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns has sold out to special interests Saturday at the state Democratic Party convention.
And he added a challenge:
"To listen to Sen. Burns and his buddies talk, somehow I'm the one that's gone Washington. If Sen. Burns wants to make this a debate about who's lost touch with Montana, all I have to say is, 'Bring it on.'"
Tester, who waltzed to victory in what was expected to be a tough primary race in June, predicted the same sort of results in November.
"The folks in Washington didn't know what to make of our primary campaign, but the people in Montana did," Tester said, adding, "of course, the haircut didn't hurt, either." Tester has turned his signature flattop into a campaign asset, using it as a theme for commercials.
Then Tester, a Big Sandy farmer, turned serious, telling the audience sitting at tables around the swimming pool in the Yogo Inn that "things are a mess out there, and Montana families are falling further and further behind."
He said that too many people, beset by problems like $3 a gallon gasoline prices and rising health care costs, are just one misfortune away from financial ruin.
He accused members of the Republican-dominated Congress of making policies "for those who write the biggest campaign checks."
Lest anyone miss the reference, Tester reiterated a fact that Democrats have used since last fall to spearhead their attack on Burns: that the senator accepted more money, about $150,000, from convicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates than any other member of Congress.
"He sold us out," Tester said.
Burns has since returned or donated the money.
"The Democrats continue with this 'Da Vinci Code'-like story. It makes for an interesting yarn, but it's a tall tale," Burns campaign spokesman Jason Klindt said Saturday evening, accusing Tester of "slinging mud."
"For Jon Tester and his liberal friends, it's just desperation talk," he said.
The mud-slinging accusation cut both ways, with Tester telling his supporters to expect the same from Burns' camp. Burns' recent campaign ads have taken Tester to task for his stance on taxes and veterans' issues, always with the "liberal" label appended before Tester's name.
"If you've got nothing on somebody, you just call 'em names," Tester shrugged Saturday.
Democrats have a new issue with which to needle Burns, though. Two separate proposed platform planks carried resolutions honoring firefighters, a direct result of a recent confrontation in the Billings airport between Burns and members of a Virginia hotshot crew that had been fighting fires in Montana. Burns accused the firefighters of not doing enough to help ranchers as grazing land burned.
He later apologized.
"When a U.S. senator from Montana insults the men and women who fight fires in this state, this party will be heard regarding the good work they do," said Jim Farrell, the state Democratic Party's executive director, referring to Burns' comments as "outrageous insults."
"It's not a surprise that the Democrats are trying to politicize any issue," Klindt said. "The fact is that Conrad Burns has done a lot for firefighters."
Throughout his speech, Tester repeated variations of his "real Montana, real change" campaign slogan, and often came back to the fact that he's a farmer.
He's waved his mangled left hand he lost the three middle fingers in a meat-cutting accident so often that supporters now routinely waggle "Hang 10" signals as he enters a room. He frequently eschews a tie, as he did Saturday.
"I may not look like a guy from Washington, D.C., but isn't it time Washington started to look a little like Montana?" he asked.
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