10 January 2014

GOP candidates associated with hospital get primary challenges

Rewritten. The challenges are from the hard right in all three campaigns. Whether this is a coordinated attempt by tea party Republicans to block candidates who might be sympathetic to the notion that hospitals would benefit from federal dollars that teabagger Republicans don’t want Montana to accept is an open question, but whether or not it is, the effect is the same.

The hospital associated candidates are Frank Garner, HD-7; Tammi Fisher, SD-4; and Albert Olszewski, MD, HD-11. For more on Garner and Fisher, see my Meet the candidates from Kalispell Regional Medical Center post from 30 December 2013.

Here’s how the challenges break down:

House District 4. Garner is the security chief at KRMC, the son of a retired nurse, and thought not to be opposed to Montana’s accepting federal healthcare money.

Ronalee Skees is the wife of Derek, the tea party stalwart and former state representative from Whitefish’s district (HD-4), and fierce opponent of Obamacare. She works for the Immanuel Lutheran Communities’ skilled care nursing home facility in Kalispell. It’s possible Ronalee and Derek disagree on health care — bedfellows can make strange politics — but the probability that they do is vanishingly small.

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House District 11. Olszewski was the running mate of 2012 GOP gubernatorial hopeful Jim Lynch, who lost that primary to Rick Hill. A physician, Olszewski testified in favor of HB-590, Governor Bullock's health care bill that was killed by Republicans in the 2013 legislative session.

Michael Hebert ran for the Flathead Valley Community College board of trustees last spring on a tea party platform. Hebert’s treasurer is State Sen. Verdell Jackson, who introduced bills in the 2011 legislature to nullify the Affordable Care Act in Montana, and who opposes the Flathead water compact. Hebert will be the conservative in this contest.

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Senate District 4. SD-4 comprises house districts 7 and 8 (map). Tammi Fisher, who just completed a 4-year term as Kalispell’s mayor, works for KRMC as an attorney, evidently on a contract basis. Her opponent: Mark Blasdel, four times elected to represent HD-10, current speaker of the Montana house, and hard core opponent of Obamacare.

On her website, Fisher says:

The same people that were angling to cut employee health insurance benefits, law enforcement widows’ benefits, and women’s health care funding were collecting a Cadillac benefit package funded by the taxpayers. These were the same legislators that voted against government subsidized health insurance for Montanans all the while collecting government subsidized health insurance themselves.

Those are not the words tea party Republicans want to hear from a Republican candidate. What they want to hear is what Blasdel told the Flathead Beacon:

Blasdel said he would oppose the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, in Montana as well as the ratification of the current Confederated Salish and Kootenail Tribes Water Compact. “Both are bad for Flathead families and business,” he said.

Are these challenges a purge from the anti-Obamacare right? That’s one interpretation, and a fair one. It’s also possible the challenges are completely unrelated to healthcare. At this point, we don’t know. But if this is all coincidence, it’s a remarkable coincidence.