Photo credit: Greg Nash
Republican voters in Montana are clearly saying that the conservative alternative in the GOP primary is far more to their liking than businessman Tim Sheehy, the squish who is being pushed hard by establishment twerps like Steve Daines and Mitch McConnell.
This greatly upsets the GOPe, or at least forces them to work harder to rig the primary, because the establishment will always insist that a more liberal candidate has greater "electability" than a conservative one, and they spare no expense in fulfilling that prophecy anytime the voters defy them and select a conservative nominee instead of the officially-anointed moderate. Their backstabbing of conservatives doesn't always work, otherwise Liz Cheney would still be in office, and J.D. Vance would have lost in Ohio. But it almost always works.
Sheehy served his country with honor, runs a successful business, and I'm sure he routinely performs CPR on wounded kittens too. It's possible for him to be a great guy but still be a moderate squish -- and one who is actually less electable than conservative Matt Rosendale.
Sheehy is already facing the typical attacks from the left. You can rely on the fact that anyone who runs a business and who runs for office as a Republican will be hysterically assaulted for being an evil "millionaire" who "wants to raise YOUR taxes" and who "outsources jobs to China!" In other words, they'll claim he fits the profile of a Democrat.
These attacks don't in any way imply that Sheehy is a feared conservative; they just mean that since the GOPe simps favor him, he is very likely to be the nominee so the haters are getting an early start.
Recall that the #1 and only real "stopper" against Rosendale when he ran against Jon Tester and narrowly lost in 2018 was that he was a carpetbagger who had committed the mortal sin of not being a lifelong Montana resident. Apparently the voters -- who in 2020 elected Rosendale statewide in a high-turnout presidential election year -- have forgiven him.
Sheehy OTOH hasn't even been in Montana for 10 years yet, so by all means let's make the Rats' task even easier in 2024 by letting them use the same playbook from 2018. Sheehy is also being attacked for allegedly "lewd" and "racist" posts he made on Facebook years ago, among other things.
Of course Rosendale, if he is somehow the nominee, will be similarly attacked by the media and other Democrats just like he was in 2018, 2020 and 2022. He won the last two of those races anyway, and he has a good conservative political track record on which to run.
The difference is that, if Rosendale is the nominee, he will face not only a lack of support but actual oppostion from the squishes on his own side as well. The ones (like Daines & McConnell for example) who would rather Tester get another term & Democrats keep Senate control than risk some unwashed conservative taking that seat.
This race may be reminiscent of 2022's Senate campaign in Pennsylvania, where we were assured that Electable Dr. Oz was a much better option for the GOP than surging conservative Kathy Barnette who was criticized as inexperienced and as a loser -- even though she outperformed Donald Trump by 3 points in Pennsylvania in 2020 in the district in which she ran (CD-4); a performance which is overlooked or misunderstood by dolts who don't know how to read election results.
It's also a parallel to the 2022 gubernatorial race in Wisconsin, where a weak liberal Democrat incumbent (a la Tester in Montana) was quite vulnerable.... until the GOP primary was decided by Trump's blundering endorsement of empty-suit businessman Tim Michels (similar to Sheehy) over decently conservative former Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, who had been elected statewide (similar to Rosendale) as running-mate for Governor Scott Walker and had a good record on which to run.
Yet we're told that the GOPe is so much better at picking candidates than conservative voters are. It's a lie.
Tags:
Montana
Senate
2024
Matt Rosendale
Tim Sheehy
"Electability"
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