A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

29 April 2016

Notes on the death of Conrad Burns

Former Sen. Conrad Burns died this week. He was 81. Burns, born in Missouri, won the first of three senate terms in 1988, defeating two-term incumbent Democrat John Melcher, born in Iowa, 51.9–48.1 percent. George H.W. Bush carried Montana 52.1–46.2 percent. Burns received a boost when President Ronald Reagan vetoed the wilderness bill that Melcher had moved through Congress.

Eighteen years later, Burns lost to Jon Tester 49.2–48.3 percent in a three-way election in which Libertarian Stan Jones, the blue-faced man, received 2.6 percent of the vote. Jones skin color resulted from argyria, which he developed from ingesting colloidal silver, apparently to protect himself against the day when a civil apocalypse made antibiotics unavailable.

During Burns’ last campaign, Montana’s Democratic Party tried to link him to crooked lobbyist Jack Abramoff. No wrongdoing by Burns was ever established, but the guilt by association campaign against him probably didn’t put any votes in his column.

But what hurt Burns most in 2006, I believe, were indications that at 71, his fastball was slowing. He dozed off at meetings, and was video recorded awkwardly interrupting an outdoor speech at Polson to take a cellphone call — “I’m awful busy here” — from the handyman at his home in Washington, D.C. Voters who asked how sharp Burns would be at 77, at the end of his term, would have received an answer they didn’t like. His time had come, and not so gently he was shoved into retirement. A few years later, in what would have been mid-term, he suffered a serious stroke.

John Melcher, now 91, was the last of a breed for Montana’s Democrats, a statewide politician who immigrated to Montana from the midwest, yet was enthusiastically supported by the party. Today he would be rejected as an outsider, reviled as not being a “real Montanan,” and told by the party to stick to doctoring horses (he’s a veterinarian); to keep his mouth shut and his wallet open.