2 August 2016

Steve Bullock’s issues free campaign website is an outlier

Update, 19 August. Bullock’s website now has an issues section with 16 headings, something for almost everyone. Twelve states elect governors this November. Only two major party candidates, Steve Bullock (D-MT) and Eric Holcomb (R-IN), have campaign websites lacking a page listing the issues the candidate wants to address.

That page goes by various names: Issues, Positions, Priorities, Platform. Usually there is a primary page to which there is a prominent link on the home and all other pages, but sometimes, as on Greg Gianforte’s website, the page is buried (Gianforte’s issues page is under the About Greg menu heading).

For Democratic gubernatorial candidates, the median number of issue headings is 6; for Republicans, 5.5; for Libertarians, 7.

2015 Gubernatorial Candidate Websites

State	Dem	Dem Issues	GOP	GOP Issues	3rd Party	3rd Issues
Delaware	Primary is 13 September.
Indiana	John Gregg	6	Eric Holcomb	0	Rex Bell (L)	8
Missouri	Primary is 2 August.
Montana	Steve Bullock	update 16	Greg Gianforte	5	Ted Dunlap (L)	(a)
New Hampshire	Primary is 13 September.
North Carolina	Roy Cooper	5	Pat McCrory	6	Lon Cecil (L)	12
North Dakota	Marvin Nelson	7	Doug Burgum	3	Marty Riske (L)	4
Oregon	Kate Brown	6	Bud Pierce	9	None
Utah	Mike Weinholtz	9	Gary Herbert	7	Brian Kamerath (L)	7
Vermont	Primary is 9 August.
Washington (c)	Jay Inslee	10	Bill Bryant	6	None
West Virginia	Jim Justice	5	Bill Cole	4	David Moran (L)	0

Notes
(a) Dunlap’s website is such a mess that trying to count issue headings is not a useful exercise.
(b) Bold indicates incumbent running for re-election.
(c) Washington’s 2 August primary is uncontested.
(d) Prepared 31 July 2016, by James Conner.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has 37 issue headings; Republican Donald Trump has 7; Libertarian Gary Johnson has 13; the Green Party’s Jill Stein has 12, plus a more detailed platform. Trump’s website uses “Positions.” The others use the traditional term, “Issues.” None of these pages is buried.

Issues matter. Writing at New York, Ed Kilgore observed:

In one of the passages of her acceptance speech contrasting her point of view with Donald Trump’s, Hillary Clinton made an interesting boast:

[Trump] offered zero solutions. But we already know he doesn’t believe these things. No wonder he doesn’t like talking about his plans. You might have noticed I love talking about mine.

As the Washington Post’s James Downie noted, this was normal pol-talk:

“I love talking about [plans]” functions superficially as a laugh line. But underneath it is an uncommonly — in the public space at least — frank defense of wonkiness. Confronted with an idea-less opponent, Clinton could have simply noted that he had “zero solutions” and then listed her own. But she went beyond that to make an affirmative case for love of policy. A presidential candidate is suggesting you vote for her because, unlike her opponent, she believes legislation is not boring, that thinking should be celebrated, that governing — especially the presidency — is not for amateurs.

That’s probably true. But I think there is another political argument embedded in this wonkiness. A candidate with a “plan” can be held accountable for what she or he ultimately proposes or disposes of in office, and has at least gone to the trouble of sketching out an agenda — a sign of respect for voters.

This election is a referendum on whether Steve Bullock should be retained or replaced as governor. He needs to tell us what he has done, what he will try to do if re-elected, and why that would be better for Montana than what Greg Gianforte wants to do. By flaunting an issues free campaign website, Steve Bullock disrespects Montana’s voters.