Column By Pete Talbot

The Forgotten House Race: Lindeen vs. Rehberg

By Pete Talbot, 10-24-06

	Lindeen at the campaign office in Missoula.

Missed the Lindeen/Rehberg debate last Friday night in Poplar (pop. 881)? You're not alone. No major media outlet covered it.

That's the way under-the-radar Rehberg likes it. Because at two weeks out, the race for Montana's sole U.S. House seat has the potential to heat up. Blame it on other Congressmen's missteps but many once-secure Republican incumbents are starting to get nervous.

The Monica Lindeen (D) and Dennis Rehberg (R) contest pits a grassroots candidate against an incumbent going for his fourth term. The polls have Rep. Rehberg ahead 20 points, so Rehberg's strategy of staying out of the limelight seems to be working.

Here's what Lindeen said of the Rehberg campaign in her last swing through Missoula:

"He's keeping his head down, " she said. "He's not even making an effort."

She didn't really blame him. With his favorable ratings as the incumbent, keeping one's mouth shut and running a low-profile campaign is a decent strategy.

But she's still upset with her opponent's lack of a campaign because, she says, a Congressional race "should be like a job performance review and without meaningful dialog the voters can't make informed decisions."

Lindeen is starting to get some media, though. Print, radio and TV are talking to her, for a change. A lot of this has to do with Republican Congressmen Mark Foley and Dennis Hastert, and the page-emailing debacle, and Rep. Bob Ney's guilty plea in the ongoing Abramoff soap opera.

So the Senate scandals aren't grabbing all the headlines anymore and the Burns/Tester U.S. Senate race isn't the only ticket. The media aren't going to Poplar to cover debates but at least Lindeen's campaign is starting to make some ripples. Is it too little, too late? Perhaps.

The pundits see the Tester/Burns race as more exciting. After all, you've got the incumbent (Burns) with ties to the above-mentioned, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Sen. Burns also has some open mouth, insert foot issues that the press has jumped on.

And Rehberg is benefiting greatly from Montana's U.S. Senate race. He is every bit as entrenched in Republican policy, the leadership and the administration as Burns – from health care to social security to the environment – Rehberg's got George W's back. His few public comments have escaped criticism. For example, Rehberg told Lee State Bureau reporter Jennifer McKee that things are getting better for the U.S. in the Iraq War.

"Real progress is being made," Rehberg said.

Is there another Iraq War I haven't heard about?

Until recently, media attention has been focused elsewhere. As Montana State University political science professor Craig Wilson told the Great Falls Tribune back in June, it would behoove any incumbent to keep a low profile. And darned if Rehberg hasn't, he recently added.

"He's played it smart. He's kept his head down," thus affording his opponents little opportunity to take shots, Wilson said last week.

Meanwhile, the low budget, grassroots Lindeen campaign has been working the state, driving from town -to-town in the bright green, bio-diesel school bus, and trying to draw Rehberg out.

Jon Tester's campaign is considered to be about as grassroots as a Senate race could be, which is to say: not very. Big-bucks national money pouring in, consultants, pollsters, TV producers – it's the nature of the beast if Tester wants to stay competitive against an incumbent with a $10 million dollar war chest.

Lindeen's campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives is another story. Fresh-faced youths are on the front lines. Donations come in the form of ten-and-twenty- dollar bills, not thousand-dollar checks.

So the huge upset on the national political scene isn't Tester over Burns, it's Lindeen over Rehberg. It would be the real story of a grassroots underdog beating an entrenched incumbent. Stranger things have happened, though not often.

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