Column By Pete Talbot

The Forgotten House Race: Lindeen vs. Rehberg

By Pete Talbot, 10-24-06

	Caption: 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.
[End of article]

Fresh fruit always tastes the sweetiest..:)

Thanks Pete..Wait Poplar is the forgotten Counties...It's out of the Montana Boot...New West covered it..There is hope on the Horizon!! Gittup

Pete you're whistling through the graveyard. I haven't seen or heard a Lindeen campaign ad for weeks. The Party has conceded her race as unwinnable.

This campaign (WHAT campaign?) has been a huge disappointment. Perhaps both the Republicans AND the Democrats figure that Rehberg can't be unseated -- except from a horse in Kazakhstan. http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2004/06/24/news/mtregional/news07.txt

Rehberg has shown his contempt for the Common People by lying in our faces about the war in Iraq and by continuing to oppose a ban on gas/oil drilling on the Rocky Mtn. Front. He should be in the fight for his political life. Instead, there's no fight at all.

Too bad the Dems aren't willing to go after Rehberg, what a half ass party effort. Lindeen is a good choice too, but obviously Tester is the only thing on the Dem's minds.

I asked for info about Lindeen and state legislative candidates from a Dem canvasser in Billings and they told me they didn't work for anyone but Tester. Too bad they refuse to work for their own candidates.

I've already voted for Lindeen, but I doubt I'll volunteer for the Dems again since they wont even work for their own candidates.

When you look at the primary numbers from this race and recent polling data, you you have to wonder if Monica's fighting more than an entrenched incumbent. In the June primary, 30% of those who cast a Democratic ballot voted for her primary opponent (yes, she had one) who ran no campaign and whose name I can't even tell you. Meanwhile, Monica had been campaigning for more than a year. That opponent was a male. In a recent poll, 17% of those who identified themselves as Democrats said that they would vote for Rehberg, Mr. Rehberg. It appears that voters in this state think that Washington is no place for a woman, Jeannette Rankin notwithstanding. Coupled with the fact that less than 25% of our state legislators are women and 75% of the cases that come before the Montana Human Rights Commission are gender-related discrimination cases, it looks like the propects for women making significant gains in politics in this state are rather dim. Democrats, that big-tent Party, the Party of inclusiveness, should be ashamed. In the spirit of full disclosure, my wife ran in a legislative primary against a male who was hand-picked by our all-male legislative delegation and then supported by all 10 male Democratic elected officials in the county, despite the fact that she has been active and served in leadership roles in our local and the state Democratic Parties and had previously run for office. They all said gender wasn't an issue. She lost by 120 votes.

"Is there another Iraq War I haven't heard about?" Great line Pete, of course that's always been the problem since Bush got us in this war. It was a threat that only he could see, maybe he believes in those xray glasses that they advertised in the comic books when we were kids.

Anyway, the total focus of the Democratic party on Tester is interesting. And not hard to understand a Tester camapaign participant taking a "every man for himself" attitude. But you know in a state as small (population-wise) it might be interesting for a senate and representative to run together as a unified team. I know it wouldn't work in Illinois or other big states where you have 25 representatives, but here in Montana where you have only one rep. and of course two senators - hmmm? Might have been pretty impactful to have a Baucus, Tester, Lindeen team package marketed as one force.

Denny doesn't have the word "Abrahoff" associated with him. That's all the dems have to run on in the Senate campaign and it's totally ineffective vs Rehberg, hence the polling results. The millions of dollars of DNC advertising is completely ineffective for doing anything but negatively campaigning against Conrad. That doesn't help Lindeen at all.