Posted by Mark Silva at 2:01 pm CST
BILLINGS, Mont. — Standing alongside one of the Republican senators whom Democrats hope to topple in a bid for control of the Senate, President Bush implored Montanans today to reelect Sen. Conrad Burns despite a challenge that oppoents have mounted around Burns’ ties to the disgraced Washington lobbyist, Jack Abramoff.
There is a dusting of snow in the mountains of Montana, but the campaign is red-hot here in this Red State, the westernmost front of the Nov. 7 struggle for partisan control of the Senate.
(President Bush arrives in Billings, Mont. today for a campaign rally for congressional Republican candidates. Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) “I smell victory in the crisp Montana air,” Karl Rove, the chief political adviser for the president, exclaimed before the rally here.
“It’s just so simple,” Taylor Brown, a radio announcer here, told the Republicans filling the hall. “We have to get our people out to vote. That’s all.”
Several protestors assembled, bundled against the cold, across the street from the chilly arena where Bush stumped with Conrad.
“U.S. Out of Iraq,” one placard read. “Torture is terrorism,” declared another, and: “Declare Peace” and “Take Back America.”
Inside, “Mr. President, We Approve Your Message,” read the banner strung along the wall across from the president’s podium. With several thousand supporters assembled for a “Montana Victory” rally, the audience was led in prayer before Bush’s arrival.
“We’re not afraid to say, ‘One nation under God’ here,” Tammy Hall, the woman emceeing the rally, told the crowd with a rousing warmup. “I can tell you, I feel good that I have a president who gets down on his knees every day.”
“There is something we know in this crowd … That is that freedom isn’t free, and our military is made up of the smartest people in the world,” she said, with an apparent allusion to the “botched joke” that Democratic Sen. John Kerry made about getting “stuck in Iraq” for failing to study hard. She took another verbal shot later at Kerry by name, eliciting cheers as she called on all to support the troops at war.
Thus was a Big Sky stage set for the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem – and the president of the United States of America.
“When the people of Montana cast their vote on Tuesday, your vote will determine more than who represents you,” Bush told the crowd. “It will also determine what kind of federal judges sit on courts all across the United States,” said Bush, citing 50 vacancies on federal courts and calling it essential to keep a Republican Senate so that his nominees will be confirmed.
“The two issues are these,” Bush said of this campaign. “Which party is going to keep your taxes low and keep the economy growing and which party is going to take the necessary steps to protect you in this war on terror.”
Democrat Jon Tester, president of the state Senate, holds a slight advantage over Burns in opinion polls. Burns has grappled with a controversy over campaign contributions from Abramoff.
“I am ashamed of the attacks that have been made on Conrad and Phyllis Burns,” Hall told the crowd.
Today’s rally follows an editorial in the Billings Gazette that endorsed Tester – arguing that he “would bring welcome change” to the Senate. “Tester is the best choice.”
Some here see well beyond the boundaries of their own Senate race when they look at the contest between Burns and Tester.
Dallas Eidem, who manages apartments in Hardin, 45 miles from here, says he thinks about the impact of a Democratic takeover of the Senate when he thinks of his promised vote for Burns.
“I’m sort of a big-picture guy,” Eidem told me at the rally today.
“I start picturing gays getting married everywhere, more abortion rights, kids not needing parental consent for things,” said Eidem.
“I think of the world falling apart — morally, just a downward spiral, morally. I think of giving in to the terrorists. You know they’re all voting Democratic. They know they won’t fight as hard.”
(Dallas Eidem to the left, at rally today. Photo by Mark Silva)
Burns took the stage in an open-collared light blue dress shirt with a recollection of the day in the early 1980s when he entered this cement-floored, high-ceilinged arena riding the lead horse leading a stage coach that carried Ronald Reagan into the arena.
“Today,” Burns said of Bush, “you will hear from a man who knows what the economy is for, to grow the next generation.”
“Some might call him a plain-spoken fellow,” Bush said of Burns. “As a matter of fact, I’ve heard some say he is a little rough on the English language… Where have I heard that before?” He said to laughter. “We don’t need a lot of doublespeak in Washington…
“We’ll win because our values don’t shift with the latest opinion poll,” said Bush, who has taken to a crowd-pleasing exchange at his campaign-closing rallies.
When it comes to protecting the nation from terrorism, Bush says, the Democrats “just say no.”
“So when the Democrats ask for the vote on Nov. 7, what’s your answer?” Bush asked the Billings crowd. “Just say no!” They roared.
