Posted on 09/25/2007 8:07:22 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Former Republican state lawmaker Bob Keenan of Bigfork is discussing a potential Senate bid with Republican Party leaders in Washington, D.C. this week. But he says he still doesn't know if he'll run.
Keenan has plans to meet tomorrow with Republican Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and John ensign of Nevada about a challenge to Democratic Senator Max Baucus. McConnell is Senate Republican leader and Ensign is in charge of the party's campaign efforts.
Keenan says he's also being pressured to run for governor.
Keenan ran for the Republican nomination in 2006, losing in the primary to former Senator Conrad Burns.
Former House Majority Leader Michael Lange has already announced he's seeking the Republican nomination for Senate.
Baucus, who began serving in the Senate in 1979, is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and his campaign had already raised 6 million dollars by the middle of this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at kxmc.com ...
Clearly, Republicans consider Mike Lange to be unelectable. Bob Keenan’s last bid didn’t go well, but many Republicans who stuck with Conrad Burns now have buyer’s remorse.
The fact that Burns nearly won last year proves that Montana isn’t trending DemocRATic. Notice I dind’t say trending blue, out of respect for some of my fellow Freepers (and you know who you are).
; )
ping
Having Hillarty on the ballot may give a little boost to the Republican Senate candidate. But in order to make it a competitive race, we need quality candidates. Keenan may have some potential. Alas the recruiting efforts in the Senate and the House are dismal. We can’t defeat someone with nothing. COnservatives often mock the Rodents for cut and running from terrorists. However lately it seems the GOP leadership wants to cut and run from making gains in Congress.
Lange got thrown out as Majority Leader (after barely 4 months on the job) after swearing at the Governor back in May.
I really hope he runs. If nothing else, we’ll have somebody in there that’s viable if Hillary proves to be a drag on Baucus. It seems Baucus keeps hanging in there, though.
Baucus keeps drawing second tier opponents. Dennis Rehberg was near-first tier when he ran in 1996, but would be even stronger today... but he won’t run. We just can’t move all these top notch Republicans to look beyond their narrow interests to do the right thing for party and country. :-(
Baucus won his last race by smearing his opponent (without a shred of proof) as a “gay hairdresser.” If a Republican had run a campaign like that, he’d have been denounced from Maine to Hawaii as a major league homophobe and gay basher, but because he’s a Watergate baby rodent, all is forgiven (and the article fails to cite that he has been in Congress not since 1979, but 1975, he was in the House before the Senate). Time for the trash to go (I mean, for heaven’s sake, he was in the Senate with Frank Church ! Frank f’ing Church ! Back when neighboring ID still sent Marxists to Congress).
...and he served with McGovern, too. How could I forget that ?
The Party poured millions into that dude, while ignoring far better candidates elsewhere. Oh well.
The only candidates that are “first tier” are real conservatives. Period.
Having all Rodent representation in the Senate in Montana might also be a drag on Baucus.
It was one thing when he was part of a split delegation but this is different.
I don’t know Keenan. But I don’t get how you can say because Burns lost, the state isn’t trending Dem? This should have been a “lock” race, pure and simple.
MT is a cheap state to run ads. You only need just enough funds to compete. Conrad Burns had much more funds than Tester. It was Burns’s own personal negatives that dragged him down. In the case of Baucus, he doesn’t have the negatives that Burns had. Baucus needs to have several Macaca moments in order for the GOP to win MT.
After a year and half of Burns-Abramoff commercials? After Burns's weekly gaffes? Pulease.... It's amazing that Burns almost won again.
In a state that red, Sopie the Talking Cow or the Dog-Faced Boy ought to be a lock if they run as a Republicans.
That’s not reality anywhere, well maybe a few gerrymandered House seats, maybe.
Because MT isn’t trending Democrat. In fact, it is Burns that was the rarity as a Republican Senator. MT has only elected two Republicans to the Senate since the popular vote began, once in 1946, and not again until Burns in 1988. The MT GOP has lost a string of achingly narrow Senate contests going back to the 1910s. Conversely, we’ve elected the bulk of Governors in the past half-century or so.
The legislature has usually been Republican in the past few decades, but was heavily gerrymandered after the 2002 elections to elect a rodent legislature, and it very narrowly did in 2004, but we won back the House in 2006 (one of the few gains we made anywhere) and are one seat away from the majority in the State Senate.
Schweitzer and Tester’s wins were entirely on the backs of troubled Republican incumbents.
That and the fact that there was a 3rd party to take enough votes to let the ‘rats win with 49%.
And it was the wildest stroke of luck for the Dems to have knocked off so many of ours (6) in Senate races last November. Even in the much vaunted 1994 elections, we only knocked off a paltry 2 Dem incumbents (in PA with a weak 3-year incumbent & my state of TN, where we sacked a horrible 18-year incumbent — I nearly broke the bed in my motel room in Bangor, Maine jumping up and down when CNN read the results that we took out Sasser ! My vote had finally mattered). We regained the Senate in ‘94 solely on the backs of retirements in 6 Dem seats (of which we swept them all).
Lol, jumping on the bed? I grew out of that, years ago...What were you doing in Maine, anyway? :D
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