Like the song lyrics “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down” the same can be said about politics and Mondays – especially after the clock change that made my alarm clock an enemy this morning…

Today I offer my commentary about some of the political happenings that caught my attention over the weekend.

Looking for Coverage:

Montana does not really have a political reporter in the state. Sure, there are those who masquerade as political reporters and they are mostly inept. More and more we see bloggers breaking the story and then the print or broadcast media picking up the ball and running with it.

I spent a few minutes on Sunday hoping to get a recap or read a story about Tammy Duckworth, the Assistant Secretary of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), speech on Saturday night at the Mansfield-Metcalf dinner. I mentioned in a previous column that she was speaking at the Democrats annual dinner Saturday night.

It wasn’t hard to find two reports about Senator Jon Tester’s speech – because he gave the “red meat” address to the Democratic faithful in Helena Saturday night. One story was written by the so-called political reporter for Lee Newspapers and the other story was written by a reporter from the Associated Press.

Since I could not find anything on the Duckworth speech, I figured there would be something on Monday. Well, it’s Monday and I still haven’t found anything, so the print reporters get the “incompetent” award…unless I, for some reason, missed it…then I will take the award!

Gave a Keynote?

I did happen to catch one sentence at the end of the Associated Press story on Tester that mentioned Duckworth: “Tester has made veterans’ issues a cornerstone of his first term, and gave Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, a former helicopter pilot from Illinois, the keynote speech of the evening.”

I don’t know how Tester “gave” Duckworth the keynote speech – maybe in a gift-wrapped box or in a bag…

Fact – I wrote a column a few weeks ago about Veterans being an issue in this race. Jon Tester will use Veterans to try and get re-elected. He never served. His opponent never served either, so Montana veterans probably won’t have a fellow veteran running.

So we are going to hear the “I’m more patriotic than you because I like veterans more” speeches throughout the campaign.

A candidate can talk about throwing money at an agency and wrap himself in the patriotic flag while doing so, but where the rubber meets the road is in the service – like the backlog of claims – waiting for an appointment, etc.

The Senator’s Speech:

I expected the coverage of Senator Jon Tester’s speech to get some ink because Rehberg was given some ink a couple of weeks ago when he made the announcement that he was running for Senate. Like I wrote in my highly-read column of November 5, 2010, Tester is one of 10 Most Vulnerable Senators and this race with Rehberg now as his opponent made it go to the top of the list.

I was not at the Mansfield-Metcalf event, but from what I have read in the two stories, the Rehberg campaign team is probably running around like a five-year old child on Christmas morning that has just seen all the “gifts” under the tree…as in talking points that the Rehberg team received from the Tester speech.

I see many angles that Tester’s opponent can capitalize on….

Tiny northeastern states:

Michele Bachmann has done some marvelous things in her personal life that I respect, but she needs some serious help with her speechwriting – or maybe she should just stop giving speeches.

While visiting New Hampshire she was quoted saying, “You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.”

That happened in Massachusetts, not New Hampshire. Those tiny northeastern states are so darn confusing…