There's An Open Montana Congressional Seat Waiting For A Progressive Democrat

There's a red hot 2020 race for Montana's one at-large congressional district to replace pugilistic multimillionaire Greg Gianforte. Last October we met up with Tom Winter, the progressive in the race. The DCCC and EMILY's List think they've found their very own next Jeff Van Drew-- Kathleen Williams-- and they will do anything to defeat Winter, if for no other reason, to own the libs. I asked Tom to write another guest post for us, one that will help us understand what's going on in Montana in regard to his race, one that the national media has been almost completely ignoring.





Democrats Must Take Back The Democratic Party
-by Tom Winter

Running for Congress as a Democrat out here in Montana can get lonely. But it is not because of the seven hour drives to fundraisers in Billings-- I like the road. It’s not the blizzards-- I like winter, after all. And it's certainly not Montana being unfriendly to Democrats-- I previously won a +11 point Trump district, and Democrats represent us in the Governor’s mansion and in the U.S. Senate.

No, it is lonely because within my own party it seems at times that I am one of the only voices fighting for Democratic principles at all. From impeachment to the climate crisis to workers’ rights to healthcare, I find myself battling against Republican talking points spouted by my establishment Democratic opponent. And I need help.

For months I have been the only Montana congressional candidate from either party loudly and cogently making the argument for impeachment. Any Democratic candidate that is not supporting the hard work of Congress on impeachment is running against the party and the values that make us who we are.

Just take a look at the statements from my primary opponent who refuses to acknowledge the President’s impeachable offenses compared to that of the reporter body-slamming Congressman we are running to replace:

• “I look forward to hearing what he has to say, and to Congress getting back to the work of the people.”
• "I will vote against this partisan impeachment sham. Let’s get back to the work the American people sent us here to do."

This is, word-for-word, a Republican talking point. How is protecting us from this lawless president not “the work of the people”? And how is agreeing with Republicans on this issue a Democratic value? The Montana GOP is already using my primary opponent’s waffling on impeachment to claim that the process lacks bipartisanship and proof that Montanans support the President over our Constitution. We cannot keep doing the Republicans’ work for them.

It gets worse. Montanans are already losing their towns and their jobs to the climate crisis. Our wildfire season grows longer every year. In the summers we evacuate pregnant women, children, and the elderly away from our valleys enveloped in smoke. Those who cannot leave face permanent lung damage. And our West Coast neighbors will no longer buy coal-fired power, so thousands of Montanans lose their jobs as our power plants and coal mines shut down. This is the politics of climate change in struggling rural communities-- lost jobs, lost towns, and permanent health damage for those who cannot afford to get to safety.

I spoke with a conservative wheat farmer up on the Hi-Line that lamented about the area’s (our bread basket) climate and weather patterns changing substantially. He said, “Up here we don’t have the luxury of debating climate change-- we are living in it and dealing with it every day.” Montanans know that we are on the front lines of climate change. Three of our biggest economic sectors-- agriculture, outdoor recreation, and natural resource extraction-- are under imminent threat as the political class refuses to take action. If a Democrat is too afraid to fight for climate change action here then we have no chance of winning on this issue across rural America.

Amidst all of this, my primary opponent continues to accept fossil fuel money, and refuses to speak to the crisis except in the most abstract of terms. It is like it is all happening to someone else-- and of course it is. It happens to those of us who cannot afford to evacuate when the smoke gets chokingly thick, to those those whose parents lose their jobs and are immediately underwater on their mortgage in a town where the only employer is a coal-fired power plant that abruptly shut down last month.

I am proud to be part of a campaign that was the first to unionize in Montana history. It wasn’t some gimmick, it was because I and, most importantly, our staff, had seen how poorly campaign workers were treated on other Montana campaigns. Yet we were mocked by establishment Democrats. They said that we would come to regret it, that treating workers with dignity was a laughable exercise in wishful thinking and it would bankrupt our campaign. So we encouraged organized labor to seek out the Montana Democratic Party workers themselves-- and they finally unionized last month. Throughout this fight, I heard nothing from my primary opponent, whose workers remain unprotected, and who simply does not speak about the rights of workers or the importance of organizing.

And in healthcare, our campaign is the only voice fighting for healthcare for all. We need drastic changes to our healthcare system. And we Montanans need a voice in Congress that realizes just what it means to be sick and not get care. Unlike other parts of the country, many of us go without healthcare because there is simply none around. The nearest hospital can be hundreds of miles away. An appointment with a specialist can take months. If you are Native American, until recently your IHS hospital operated under “life or limb” protocols: You would not get care unless you are under imminent threat of death. And in the state with the highest suicide rate in the nation there is only one psychiatrist between Billings and North Dakota-- that is 75,000 square miles served by one mental health professional.

Amidst all this suffering, I simply cannot believe that I am the only Democrat calling for healthcare to be treated as a human right. The current system is a disservice to us all, yet my primary opponent believes it can be fixed by allowing rich 60 year olds to buy into Medicare. That is the actual plan (and only) their campaign is putting forth. This is a slap in the face of people like my sister, a 29 year-old suffering from a chronic illness. She can’t afford to wait 15 years to buy into a system that could be even more unaffordable by then. It negates the suffering of thousands of people in need of a psychiatrist, many of them veterans. Of everything I have mentioned-- the acceptance of this lawless President, the silence on the climate crisis-- this is the cruelest cut, the one I do not forgive, because you cannot be a Montanan and not have known the suffering of people without healthcare.

But what worries me, and my fellow progressives-- and shit, just mainline Democratic voters-- is that we are told that our values are not Democratic. We are the people that believe the President threatens our safety, that the climate crisis is an ongoing catastrophe, that organized labor is the natural backbone of the party, and that everyone deserves healthcare as a human right. Some of our Republican neighbors disagree with us. That makes sense, because these are Democratic values. But to have a serious contender for our nomination stay silent-- or worse yet, parrot Republican talking points back at us on these very issues? It beggars belief. And yet here we are.

We need help. We cannot call ourselves the party of the people if we do not win the confidence of working families in places like Montana. And we cannot call ourselves progressives if we allow the party to nominate candidates that do not stand against this President, who will not speak about the climate crisis, who do not stand for workers’ rights, and whose idea of a healthcare plan is to allow rich 60 year olds to buy into Medicare. Montana Democrats deserve a candidate who will stand with them, not with Republicans. My voters knows where I stand-- with them.


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So how about helping Tom Winter's campaign? He and his team are trying to lead the Democratic Party back to truly Democratic values. All the Montanans I've spoken to are on their side, but all the Montanans I know are progressives and they can't do this alone. Any amount of grassroot contributions will help them in this fight. That's what the Blue America ActBlue 2020 congressional page is for. Just click it and contribute what you can. Trump is not popular in the state, despite having beaten Hilary handily. In 2016, Montana Democrats chose Bernie over Hillary 63,168 (51.1%) to 55,194 (44.6%) but a corrupt system gave Hillary 15 DNC votes and Bernie just 12. Last year, virtually the entire Montana press was acquired by either Lee or Sinclair. Tom told me "There really is no one to hold anyone to account." BUT, since inauguration day, Trump's job approval in the state has crashed by 21 points. His approval/disapproval has been in a very narrow range, with nearly as many people disapproving as approving. Tom can win this seat, just the way Jon Tester won one of the state's Senate seats: first by beating the establishment's corporate Democrat and then by beating the establishment Republican, not with a Republican-lite message but by fighting a populist-progressive campaign directed at real working people, not imaginary centrists.