A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
They’re at it again, Montana Democratic Party Executive Director Nancy Keenan and her subordinates, calling Bozeman businessman and GOP gubernatorial hopeful Greg Gianforte a “New Jersey billionaire.”
That’s a scurrilous, baldfaced, lowdown lie.
Updated 27 January 2017. And Montanans know it. Gianforte’s lived, worked, and voted in Montana for the last 20 years. He was born in California, went to high school in Pennsylvania, received his college education in New Jersey, and made his first millions there, but he became a very rich man in Montana, the state he chose to make his home. Most of his millions were made in Montana, not in New Jersey.
So why are Montana’s Democrats calling him a New Jersey billionaire?
Surely most Democrats don’t believe that to be a true Montanan a man must have been born in a copper mine in Butte that he dug himself. Nor do most Democrats believe that being born in Montana endows one with special knowledge and privilege.
So why are Keenan, et al, employing “New Jersey billionaire” as a schoolyard taunt? Do they think their taunt will cause Montanans to associate Gianforte with Chris Christie and the infamous corruption of New Jersey’s politics? Or do they just feel so good and so righteous after uttering a phrase they know is a lie that they just can’t stop doing it?
Obviously, they’re having fun. But by lying, and lying so blatantly, by sending the message that the truth doesn’t matter, they undercut their credibility when they do manage to report the facts about Gianforte’s off-the-bell-curve ideas.
That’s political malpractice. It needs to stop. Now.