Straight Shooters
A couple of blunt talkers face off in a key Senate race
The tobacco-chewing Burns also has an uncanny knack for putting his foot in his mouth. In July, the senator told firefighters they had a done a "poor job" fighting a wildfire-this in a state indebted to firefighters for quenching abundant blazes. Burns later apologized. While Burns's verbal gaffes have long been a part of his supposedly straight-talking character-seven years ago in a speech about energy he called Arabs "rag heads," apologized, and was re-elected-there's a sense that voters may be growing weary. Burns himself acknowledges that he is fighting his own tongue. "I can self-destruct in one sentence," he said a few months ago.
Burns's strategy now is to appeal to those who voted for Bush and paint Tester as too liberal for Montana. A current television advertisement sponsored by Burns points out that Tester wants to eventually withdraw from Iraq and opposed the Patriot Act. "We are going to define Jon Tester," Burns told supporters at a recent campaign barbecue. "What he stands for will not sit well with the people of Montana."
Burns, a former marine and livestock auctioneer, is also getting a lot of help from his GOP friends. First lady Laura Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist all came to Montana in August to raise campaign funds for him.
Tester, on the other hand, has not had any big Washington Democrats come and stump for him. That would contradict his image as a Washington outsider. But Tester does appear in a number of his ads with popular local Democrat Gov. Brian Schweitzer. Many see Tester as a folksy variation of Schweitzer, who lost to Burns by 4 percentage points in the last Senate race. Both tout a populist vision that appeals to Montanans-calling for the promotion of more alternative fuels, particularly ethanol, lower gas prices, and more investment in education and healthcare.
The main challenge to Tester's campaign is simply getting out to meet as many people as possible across the large, sparsely populated state before November. "I need to do more like what I'm doing today," he says at the tailgating party in Missoula. "People just need to meet me to know what this third-generation Montana farmer is all about."
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