So far the premiere political race for 2012 here in Montana is the Senator Jon Tester and Congressman Denny Rehberg matchup for Montana’s junior U.S. Senate seat.

It is fun to watch.

I know it’s early in the race, but this is like the beginning of a big boxing match with each boxer throwing a few jabs and sizing up their opponent. If one would compare the two opponents to boxers, one might say that Rehberg is Thomas “Hitman” Hearns and Tester is playing the part of “Butterbean.”

Before the Tester fans start typing some nasty notes in the comment section, do a Google check about the boxer named “Butterbean” and his record. You will find that he won over 85% of his boxing matches and he was five-time World Toughman Heavyweight Champion.

(Besides, you can’t hurt me because I am an “unemployed winner”….now back to the matchup…)

Rehberg, like Hitman, stays on the outside and tears opponents apart with jabs and then comes inside to finish the job. Tester, like Butterbean, wants to get up close and keep his opponent on the ropes and wear them down with his weight…

A story by Tim Leeds in Friday’s Havre Daily News lays out the back and forth that we’ll see for the next 20 or so months. (Note to political reporters: People want to read things like this, so use Leeds’ story as your guide to better political journalism…)

The headline of the story “Tester fires back over Rehberg comments” kind of got my attention because I did not think we were allowed to use any words that might signify firing a gun…

Here are my favorite parts of the story (with my comments):

“When you don’t have anything on somebody you have to drum things up,” Tester said Thursday.

That tactic seemed to work for Tester in 2006…

We saw Tester try to deliver a haymaker…

Tester called Rehberg…Dennis…as in “Dennis has voted against…”

Now it is getting nasty. Maybe it’s time for Rehberg to bring out “Raymond” as in Jon Tester’s full name is Raymond Jon Tester. I don’t know if he goes by “R.J.” for short.

Now when we visit Tester’s campaign site, we’ll probably hear the theme song from “Everybody loves Raymond” playing since the cat is out of the bag…

Another quote from Tester about his Forest Bill, “If he wasn’t running against me, he would probably be cosponsoring it,” Tester said.

That’s a good one from RJ…maybe it’s just you Rehberg does not like….

Tester also said the bill has about a 70-percent approval rating in Montana.

Polling about bills in Congress – that can get a little dangerous, Ray….

In one of his speeches, Rehberg said that Tester and Baucus vote with Obama about 97% of the time in the U.S. Senate. That’s a harmful stat for Tester in 2012…The Rehberg team should put that “fact” on about 800 billboards around the state of Montana for this spring and summer season and then go on vacation until September 2011.

So it’s the Hitman versus Butterbean…Raymond versus Dennis…Democrat versus Republican….

Are you all ready for this?