Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful John Walsh was a no-show at a Yellowstone Democrats dinner last night, reports the Billings Gazette’s Tom Lutey. Walsh’s primary opponents, Dirk Adams and John Bohlinger, showed.
Walsh’s campaign manager spokesman, Aaron Murphy of Hilltop Strategies, told Lutey Walsh had a scheduling conflict. Adams claimed Walsh decided to raise money instead of attend the dinner, but provided no details.
My guess is that Walsh was avoiding a forum in which he might be asked questions he’d rather not answer. And he might have been at Hilltop with his campaign’s staff working on a strategy to contain the damage done by revelations he’d been reprimanded by the Army’s vice chief of staff and had failed to make flag rank.
If such a meeting occurred, events yesterday and today suggest Walsh is determined to stay the course and change the subject.
Yesterday, Walsh blasted out two press releases, one correctly arguing that Rep. Rep. Steve Daines is no friend of Montana’s Indian tribes, the other properly denouncing the Citizens United decision. Today, Walsh blasted out two more, both denouncing Daines’ vote on the farm bill (there is much about Daines’ voting record that can be justly denounced).
This is consistent with the campaign strategy Walsh has employed from the day he announced:
And now that Sen. Max Baucus is going to China, that strategy has a fifth item. The more ambitious than I initially realized Walsh wants to go to Washington as Montana’s appointed U.S. Senator. He hasn’t been shy about that, either, publicly announcing he wants the job, a maneuver intended to force Gov. Steve Bullock to appoint Walsh or look as though he lacks confidence in his Lt. Governor. A clever move, but not a smart one.
I now find myself wondering what else there is about Walsh that he doesn’t want to tell the voters but that I need to know before I enter the voting booth in June.