Don't Freak Out If Jon Tester Is Named DSCC Chairman

Yesterday we listed the 6 Members of the U.S. Senate most likely to cross the aisle and help Mitch McConnell move his agenda. #6 was Montana's senior senator, Jon Tester. At the same moment, Politico broke the story that Harry Reid would probably appoint Tester to be the next DSCC chair. And he did.

I have mixed feelings on that one but I do want to say that I know Jon Tester and he is not some corrupt corporate conservative. His politics are populist and-- given the confines of his red-leaning state-- he's probably about as good as we're going to get from Montana. When ProgressivePunch figures out a score that takes account of the partisan nature of a member's constituency, Tester look pretty decent. He may vote with Republicans more frequently than I'd like him to but he's got the best score (+3.95) among Senate conservative types when they're rated with their respective state's tilts. Much worse on that scale are Claire McCaskill (-1.17), Mark Warner (-1.29), Dianne Feinstein (-3.37), Angus King (-5.32), Tom Carper (-7.68) and, of course, Joe Manchin-- way more conservative than West Virginia-- (-7.68).

I got to know Tester when he was the grassroots insurgent in 2006, fighting against the Establishment pick, John Morrison, who had the backing of a very anti-grassroots, Schumer-run DSCC. The winner of the primary would win the honor of dispatching bribe-taking Jack Abramoff crony Conrad Burns. When he first ran, Tester was a 48 year old organic wheat farmer from Big Sandy who was elected President of the Montana state Senate. He announced his populist, progressive candidacy driving his tractor-trailer rig around Montana and one of the first things he did was to endorse an Iraq withdrawal, a clean renewable energy policy (he had sponsored a renewable energy standard in Montana), and calling for expanded health care— including government funded health care for all children. He also endorsed a reasonable version of single-payer health insurance. He had a 100% pro-Choice voting record in the state senate, which he explained as a matter of privacy and of keeping Big Government from intruding on people's private lives. And he was just as good on LGBT equality... in 2006... in Montana.

Schumer, the DLC and the DSCC ran around trumpeting the inevitability of their puppet Morrison because he' had been scooping up lots of cash from wealthy, often out-of-state, donors, while Tester's strategy was to fund-raise from average voters inside the state. That worked well for Tester and eventually he overtook Morrison in fundraising, a result of more people in the state getting to know him. In the end, Tester and his grassroots brigade kicked the DSCC's ass, beating their scandal-tarred candidate 65,757 (70.77). The general was much closer. Tester spent $5,587,467 and Burns spent $9,167,154. Tester won with 199,845 (49.16%) to Burns' 196,283 (48.29%). Counting and recounting went on for nearly a week.

Tester is no Elizabeth Warren-- who was also interviewed by Reid for the DSCC job and who got a newly created Senate Dems' policy and outreach job today-- but neither is he a conservative like Joe Manchin. I don't see him disadvantaging grassroots and progressives candidates the way Schumer did to him and the way Reid and Michael Bennet did in South Dakota this cycle-- or the way they routinely do at the DCCC. He's not my first choice-- especially if Reid was really considering Warren-- but I'd want to give him a chance. He has a history and that has to mean something!