Miscellaneous

Matthew has put off the vote ’til Thursday to whip some votes.  This encourages me.  Apparently there are votes to whip.

Let’s get whipping.

So I’m sitting around thinking about the vote in Helena tomorrow, and being part of such votes when I was in the legislature, and watching the board light up, green and red, and how close it was, and how close to 51 you were.  And sometimes there’s a bit of drama, when you’re stuck at 50, and just a few haven’t voted.  Who will give you that 51st vote, and who won’t?  And I’m thinking about how the vote will go, and how it will break out.  And I realize, politics is like Hollywood.

Nobody knows anything

This debate in Helena tomorrow might decide the fate of the bill.  We’ll be attacked on two fronts:  the runaway, and the fear of potential cuts in state aid and social programs which might result from balancing the budget.  It’s the latter that concerns me, because it’s the one that will cost us Democrat votes.  The obvious rejoinder is that if this country goes belly up, which we are on course to do, there won’t be any money for anything, including Social Security.  In Tennessee and Louisiana this worked like a charm, other states not so well, others not at all.

I hope that debate comes first, because the runaway argument will, I think, get us Democrat votes.  It will be made by the most shrill hard right of the Republican Caucus, by people the Democrats despise.  In my dreams Rep. Ellie Hill gets up and cuts these dopes into mincemeat.  That would make an impression, and make clear to the rest of her caucus that voting with these whack jobs, against our bill, is doing them a favor they don’t deserve.

I really don’t know who will make the Bircher case.  The three we lost in committee, Bennett, Doane and Manzella, didn’t seem the type to get up and make much of a speech.  Maybe they won’t talk much at all, figuring they’ve got the votes.  It will be Matthew’s job to provoke them.  Since he’ll be laying in to the Birch Society, that should come natural.

If we get South Dakota tomorrow it’s a big deal.  Especially if Hal Wick can get on the Mark Levin Show, and Kasich is able to trumpet the news.  Not because we’ll get much coverage, which we won’t, but because we’ll be laying the groundwork for a repeat performance when we get 26, which should be in the next two weeks.  And again with 27, a week later.   And so on.  Eventually this becomes a story, a horse race political story.

The way I look at it every time we get a chance to frame the story it’s us vs. the John Birch Society. Those are the two contestants, and amending the Constitution, or not, is the prize.  It might work.

Because it’s true.

I’ll be on the Chris Griffin Show KMMS 1450 AM Bozeman at 7:00 a.m. MST, and the Michael Dukes Show KBYR 700 AM Anchorage at 7:30 a.m. AST.

It should be fun.  It’s been a while.

It will be at 1:00 p.m.  MST tomorrow, available for viewing or listening via the Montana Legislature website.  When there’s a close vote, with an uncertain outcome, a good speech can swing a vote or two.  Not in Congress, but it does happen in state legislatures.

It helps being a lawyer, like Matthew Monforton.  You’re accustomed to addressing judges, and juries.  And good lawyers, like Matthew, speak well extemporaneously, and are skilled in rebuttal.

He plans on taking on the Birch Society.  Not the individual Birchers, but the organization.  It’s fertile ground.  As I’ve argued previously, the Democrats whose votes we need have good reason to want to crush the Birch Society in Montana.  It’s a malign influence in the politics of the state.  If Montana passes an Article V Resolution, their irrelevancy will have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

So, go Matthew.  I made a few such speeches myself, back in the day.

They were fun.