Posted on 11/08/2006 7:37:28 AM PST by pissant
HELENA, Mont. (AP) - Senator Conrad Burns and Democrat Jon Tester were locked in a tight contest early Wednesday as the Republican struggled to return to Washington for a fourth term.
Tester had a slight lead of less than 1,600 votes in one of two Senate races still undecided in Tuesday's midterm elections. The other was in Virginia. the Democrats must win both if they are to wrest control of the Senate from the Republicans.
With 99 per cent of precincts reported early Wednesday, Tester had 190,486 votes, or 48.9 per cent, and Burns had 188,900 votes, or 48.5 per cent.
A candidate in Montana can request a recount at his own expense if the margin is within half of a per cent, which would be roughly 2,000 votes. If the margin is less than one-quarter of a per cent, the state and counties pick up the tab.
Burns, 71, first elected in 1988 as a folksy, backslapping outsider, was under siege because of his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and because of his own gaffes - including an incident in which he cursed at firefighters.
Tester, the state senate president and a farmer, hammered Burns for his ties to Abramoff and what Tester called the "culture of corruption" in Washington. Burns was a top recipient of campaign contributions from Abramoff, who pleaded guilty in January to corruption. He has since returned or donated about US$150,000, and has maintained he did nothing wrong and was never influenced by Abramoff.
Tester resisted help from the national party, saying he wanted to run his campaign his way, out of Montana. He brought in few national party figures, instead relying on rallies with popular Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Senator Max Baucus.
Burns, meanwhile, was joined on the trail over the past few weeks by Republican luminaries, including President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Tester, 50, surprised many in the state when he beat a better-financed and better-known Democrat in the June primary.
This time around, it was Tester who portrayed himself as the Washington outsider - a western moderate Democrat who owns guns, opposes gay marriage and has a libertarian's suspicion of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act.
"It really is proof positive that Montanans are ready for a change," told CBS' "The Early Show" Wednesday while the race was still too narrow to call. "We need to take some Montana values back to Washington."
Tester stood out, with his scuffed cowboy boots and flat-top haircut. One of his hands lacks three fingers, lost long ago in an accident with a meat grinder.
Burns focused his campaign on his ability as a veteran senator to bring federal money to the state, and portrayed Tester as a liberal who wants to raise taxes and "cut and run" from Iraq.
Burns took heat after confronting members of a wildfire-fighting team at the Billings airport in late July and saying they had done a poor job, according to a state report and the U.S. Forest Service. The Hotshot crew had travelled from Virginia to help dig lines around a fire east of Billings.
I'm not a Frist fan, but I don't think we can blame this on him.
I have said it many, many times here...our side does a TERRIBLE JOB of getting the truth out there.
If Democrats run conservative whites who mostly stay silent, they will continue to win.
Agreed, however, I'd rather that the dems have a good year in 2006 and (hopefully) a bad year in 2008.
That was just a symptom, not the cause. The guy wasn't ready for primetime, period.
"I have said it many, many times here...our side does a TERRIBLE JOB of getting the truth out there."
ASBOLUTLY!
I don't understand WHY that IS.
Why don't you direct your anger at the people you should be pissed at.
Links for Sec of State site?
"Bush can call a news conference any time he wants. Bush can rip those lies and distortions apart any time he wants. He didn't. He thought he was too good for that. He thought he could just ignore them and thumb his nose at them while toting the book, Liberal Bias under his arm. It didn't work. You have to FIGHT BACK. NOW, we get to literally suffer the consequences."
Well I didn't see Clinton not "lie" now did we? How could we trust a President that had lied to us about what he did, especially Clinton. At least Bush told America the truth about our future, now that the enemy is thinking we're weak cuz of the Demons being selected, now it's the waiting game to see what happens to our wonderous country.
Since Bush isn't taking calls from someone so lowly ... I'm forced to vent in the open at FR. New here? Venting and showing utter disgust are common. I suspect even YOU have done that.
That is not the point.
The point is direct your fire at the people you should be mad at - not Bush. Bush worked campaigned extremely hard to win this election. He is not the person you should be pissed at.
No, you are not the best spokesperson for yourself.
He blew it before this election? I don't think so.
1) He won the nomination six years ago.
2) He won the Presidency six years ago.
3) He has pushed and enacted conservative legislation for those six years.
4) He has pushed and enacted conservative judges for those six years.
5) He won re-election.
6) He has kept Republican majorities in both houses all that time.
7) He worked extremely hard this election to turn the tide.
Go point your verbal gun at the enemy and NOT AT OUR OWN TROOPS.
Your first message indicated that you were really pissed at the main stream media for twisting his message. Now go get them.
Thanks, to you boy, George Bush, THIS is now a REALITY.
I always like to see what the Demoncrats are up to. So I'm on their mailing list. Gloat over THIS, since you're so proud of what just HAPPENED. Yeah, ole George screwed up royally.
Forget PAST successes. THIS is reality:
Dear XXXXX,
This year will be remembered as another moment when Americans started another historic process -- one that will usher in a new sense of community and demands for a government that focuses on the common good.
That's the thing about America. Whenever our leaders have failed to meet the challenges of the day, whenever our government's priorities have narrowed to represent the few at the expense of the many, the American people have risen up as one and corrected our course.
It will also be remembered as the rebirth of a political party devoted to ensuring that ordinary people not only have a voice, but real power at all levels of government.
Just 21 months ago we began the long process of breathing new life into our party with a 50-state strategy. After years of watching the playing field of "competitive" races dwindle and our operation disappear in many parts of the country, ordinary Democrats across the country demanded a truly national party.
Since then we've built the field organizing, communications, technological and financial infrastructure of a party that can and will compete everywhere. We've done it by growing our operation from the ground-up and empowering Democrats to take our party and our democracy into their own hands.
Here are just a few examples of how that work impacted this election:
Kansas: Our 50-state strategy organizers helped transform the Democratic Party in Kansas under the leadership of Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius. Strong leadership from the Democratic Party created a wave of party-switchers -- moderate Republicans fed-up with the right-wing stranglehold on their party. The reinvigorated state party knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors and elected Democrats up and down the ballot, including new Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Boyda in the 2nd Congressional district and new Attorney General Paul Morrison, who beat his opponent by over 134,000 votes.
Minnesota: Four DNC field organizers in Minnesota have created an unprecedented field program. Republican Mark Kennedy was supposed to have a lock on the open Senate seat, but with new technology by the DNC and 1.6 million voters contacted, Amy Klobuchar defied expectations and handily won the race after thousands of unlikely voters came to the polls. We're not stopping here -- this work will continue apace as we position our party to take back a Senate seat in 2008.
Ohio: Our field organizers in Ohio expanded the state party's infrastructure, making inroads deep into what has long been considered "Bush Country." A DNC-funded field director, four field organizers, and a voter database manager all helped run voter contact operations in parts of the state that hadn't heard from the Democratic Party in years. Take Butler county, for example, where Democratic performance improved by nearly 50% on our 2004 results as we elected a new Democratic Senator, Democratic Governor, Democratic Secretary of State, and more Democrats up and down the ballot.
South Dakota: The Democratic Party in South Dakota is now a powerful political operation. In 2002, Democrats recruited only 66 legislative candidates. This year we recruited 90. Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth was re-elected, and South Dakotans rejected a radical measure that denies the basic right of women, in consultation with their families and doctors, to make their own decisions about their reproductive health.
New Hampshire: In this crucial state we re-elected our Democratic governor and picked up House seats. In the course of our work we laid a permanent foundation for the party -- including a research and tracking operation that helped elect Democrats this cycle and will be the foundation of a tracking operation to hold Republican presidential candidates accountable as they crisscross the state.
Indiana: Over a year ago, Democrats in Indiana started planning for Election Day. They focused on a strategy that initiated a new media campaign to hold Republicans accountable for their actions, and worked to drive the Democratic message using grassroots support. The state party was able to hire a communications director, and because the executive director no longer had to focus on working with the media, he was able to concentrate on fundraising - raising enough money to hire an organizer to work in the 2nd congressional district, another Democratic pickup, where Democrat Joe Donnelly gained more than 17,000 votes than the Democrat had in 2002.
And in other states, Democrats gained new majorities in eight state legislative chambers. We now have majorities in 55 state chambers - the largest shift since 1994.
Next week will mark one year of organizing for 2006 -- we began in earnest just a week after 2005 elections that yielded new Democratic governors in Virginia and New Jersey. Across the country, at over 1,000 venues in all 50 states, ordinary Democrats came together to organize for elections nearly a year away.
Those nationwide events built over time -- the 50-State Canvass, the Democratic Reunion, the 50-State Turnout Kickoff -- bringing more and more ordinary people into the Democratic operation in every state across the country.
That process will continue, and soon you're going to have more opportunities to participate meaningfully than ever before.
For the first time in a generation, after a national election our party operation will not disintegrate. Our growing party operation in the states will support newly elected Democrats and educate the public about the common sense solutions we'll be pursuing, and hold Republicans accountable for their corruption and continued failures of leadership.
A special group of people make that possible. Nearly 35,000 Americans have been invested in this victory for months -- many for over a year. They give a small amount every month in the form of a Democracy Bond. Democracy Bond holders are a community of people committed to providing the long-term financial backbone necessary to pursue this kind of 50-state operation.
You can commemorate these historic wins and lay the groundwork for a generation of victories ahead of us by joining the Democracy Bond community now:
http://www.democrats.org/2006victorybonds
It's been a big Election Day, and every Democrat has earned the right to celebrate today. We won elections up and down the ballot tonight because Democrats are ready to lead.
There's one more thing anyone watching the Democratic Party should know today:
We're only getting started.
Thank you.
Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
George did that? I don't think so.
DEMOCRATS did that. They didn't like their defeat from the last two elections and they got energized and organized.
The only way you can say 'George did that', is by blaming him for winning the Presidency the 2 years ago and 6 years ago.
So rather than shooting down our best banner carrier for the last six years, get motivated and organized and win the day back in 2008.
It's not up to the 'Roves' and the 'Bushes' of this world. It's up to US.
WE LET BUSH DOWN, not the other way around.
Now get out there and make a difference instead of shooting at your own side. If you don't like the Media bias, as we all don't, work on changing it. There are Democratic cheerleaders in all the major anchor positions.
One of the FEW strokes of genius was moving the war on terror to Iraq rather than on OUR SOIL. Gather them there and keep them busy - THERE. He could have made comments on that but NO, as usual he was quiet. The GOP simply doesn't know how to MARKET their solutions, ideas or ideology. It's PATHETIC.
GWB is a horrible communicator and a horrible leader. Hopefully the latest cronie from his Dad's era, Gates will help bolster him.
That a lot of name calling all rolled up into one rant. I reported your post.
It is inappropriate to call Bush a 'neocon'. He is not. Furthermore, this is a defamatory term used by libs.
It is inappropriate to call Bush 'stupid'. He clearly is not.
It is inappropriate to denigrate other Republicans as 'cronies'. Who do you expect him to appoint - Progressives? People without experience?
I completely disagree with your assessment of GWB as a "horrible communicator and a horrible leader". He has done a magnificent job through very difficult times.
You regret helping to elect Bush? Why? You would much rather have had Al. Gore or John Kerry as President? Your taxes raised rather than lowered? An immediate surrender to the islamists rather than 6 years of fighting them? Bill Clinton and friends on the U.S. Supreme Court and in all the lower courts?
I certainly don't think that the GOP 'sat on its laurels' for this election. I saw a lot of hard working people putting in a lot of extremely good effort. One of the stars of the campaign was George Bush. He was out there every day pushing our position. He did a great job of explaining it too.
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