Oh…the long weekend has come to an end – and Christmas break seems so far away!

Rest easy, The Western Word is on duty today bringing you the latest and greatest political stories from the past weekend!  Today we look at the nine, Jesus, the Montana PSC, Brian and Rush, the Chamber and much more!

The Nine:

Associated Press reporter Matt Gouras should receive some sort of prize for writing a story and using the name of every Montana GOP Governor candidate.

Gouras was able to show (in an almost 1200-word report) that although there are nine candidates running on the GOP ticket there are a lot of differences between them.  You can read the story HERE.

The nine folks running are kind of in a pickle – just like the GOP Presidential candidates.  They probably need the far-right wing votes to get out of the primary, but they don’t want to look too crazy and not get the all-important independent vote in the General Election.

Leave Jesus Alone:

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) apparently does not like the land swap proposed by Congressman Denny Rehberg regarding the statue of Jesus on a mountain in Montana.  Jesus is on Forest Service property and has been since 1953.

Jesus has been around a lot longer than that…and Jesus will be OK.

It’s a Secret:

Lee Newspapers published a story about the failure of the Supercommittee to reach a decision saying it is really hard to know why it failed because their meetings were conducted in secret.

I’m all for openness and transparency – I also know that many of the elected folks in Washington, D.C., have never seen a camera they would not knock their own mother down to get to – if they thought they could get a few votes.

Basically, the 12 members of the supercommittee failed to reach a decision because they did not want to break with their political party – and that is the bottom line.  The Democratic and Republican Parties come before the people.

With a budget as big as the Federal Government’s, it’s really an enormous failure that the 12 could not find even a few dollars to cut.  Shame on them.

Montana PSC:

Lee Newspapers takes a look at the Montana Public Service Commission (PSC) HERE and HERE and HERE.

Besides writing about the fighting, they also write about the five members, who make about $94,500 per year – a pretty good salary for Montana – and they look at the reasons some may not be sitting in their Helena offices five days a week.

This is 2011 – you don’t need to be handcuffed to a desk to get the job done.  In regards to the fighting, there’s one real jerk on the commission that causes most of it, IMHO.

Watch Out Rush:

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle’s Political Notebook talked about Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer being a guest host on a radio show in Colorado last week.

Imagine that – Brian Schweitzer on talk radio – move over Rush Limbaugh…

U.S. Chamber and Spelling:

Apparently spelling is not a strong point for the U.S. Chamber.  In a campaign ad against U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) they tell viewers to “Call John Tester.”

I would imagine the local Chambers in Montana are receiving some calls about the ad even before it was discovered that they misspelled Tester’s first name.  Of course, the local folks are distancing themselves from the U.S. Chamber’s political arm – they probably have talking points next to the telephone to help answer the complaints.

By the way, the local Chamber’s committee from Great Falls (MT), the Central Montana Defense Alliance, met with Tester a few days ago.  I bet that was an interesting meeting…

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