Rosendale says Senate bid is not just about beating Tester

Eric Dietrich

Montana Free Press

U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale's gleeful Maryland twang cut through a Helena ballroom Friday evening, bringing a speech by fellow Congressman Ryan Zinke to a momentary, laughing halt.

Zinke was taking his turn at the podium during the state GOP's winter kickoff event, addressing the party faithful gathered to gear up for an election season that could see Republicans win the only statewide office not currently under their control: Democrat Jon Tester's seat in the U.S. Senate.

The interjection came midway through an otherwise run-of-the-mill campaign speech, with Zinke joking derisively about President Joe Biden's age, touting his own background as a Navy SEAL, and airing assorted frustrations with the federal government.

"I wouldn't do this job if I didn't know it was fixable," Zinke said. "In many cases, it's a lot easier being a SEAL, because as a SEAL if someone really, you know, pissed me off then I'd take them out. In Congress, you - "

"In Congress you can do that too!" interjected Rosendale, seated at a nearby table, drawing scattered chuckles from the audience. "Ask Kevin McCarthy!"

Zinke, seemingly unbothered, forged ahead with a football metaphor. But the brief exchange, followed by Rosendale's own convention speech the next morning, underscored the message Rosendale hopes to put at the center of his newly declared bid for Tester's seat: He's running to upend the establishment.

Rosendale's conception of the political establishment, he made clear, encompasses not just incumbent Democrats like Biden and Tester, but also Republicans who have found their way into his political no-fly zones over their willingness to strike bipartisan compromises. That's a list that includes former Speaker of the U.S. House McCarthy, forced from the role last year after a hardline Republican contingent including Rosendale moved to oust him. And if Rosendale makes it to the Senate, he said, he'd work to push out GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell too.

McCarthy's dismissal, the first time in U.S. history a speaker was voted out of the job, ushered in a wave of congressional chaos that saw Republicans struggle to pick a replacement speaker and stymied efforts to negotiate routine budget bills, including a new farm bill, with the Biden administration and a Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate.

The current makeup of the U.S. House, where Republicans hold a seven-seat majority, gives Rosendale and his compatriots disproportionate leverage because their relatively small group can deprive the Republican caucus of the voting power necessary to pass bills - or elect a speaker - without at least a semblance of support from Democrats.

In his remarks to Montana Republicans this weekend, Rosendale touted his involvement in McCarthy's ouster, saying he and his compatriots led a successful effort to shake up the Washington, D.C. establishment.

"The very first thing we did was drag the conference kicking and screaming over to the right. Because that is the proper place to be, over on the right," he said.

As Rosendale tells it, the national capital is a broken place where mainstream Democrats and Republicans alike constitute an establishment "uniparty" working to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the country.

Rosendale and his allies, including Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, have been particularly vocal about issues like border security and the national debt. They've also demonstrated a willingness to use fiscal brinkmanship as leverage to advance hardline priorities - for example: opposing funding bills required to keep the federal government operating and a debt ceiling expansion measure that passed with bipartisan support last summer to keep the nation from making a first-ever default on its debt. The group turned on McCarthy last fall after the then-speaker chose to support a short-term funding bill necessary to avoid a government shutdown.

"The only way we're going to push back on that is to have another small group of individuals in the United States Senate that will work with the ones in the House to turn this around," Rosendale said at the winter kickoff event. "And that's why I'm running for the United States Senate."

That line produced a standing ovation from the convention crowd's contingent of true-believer Republicans. But whether it's enough to win over GOP primary voters across the state as Rosendale campaigns against rival Republican Tim Sheehy remains to be seen.

Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL originally from Minnesota who has built a successful Bozeman-based aerial firefighting company, was recruited to the race by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is led by Montana's other U.S. senator, Steve Daines.

Sheehy's backers typically promote him as likely to have an easier time raising campaign dollars and prying swing votes away from Tester in a competitive general election than would a hardliner like Rosendale, who previously lost to Tester in Montana's 2018 U.S. Senate race. Former President Donald Trump, for example, endorsed Sheehy shortly after Rosendale made his candidacy official last week, noting Daines' support for Sheehy in a Truth Social post and writing that "in this instance, Tim is the candidate who is currently best-positioned to DEFEAT Lazy Jon Tester, and Regain the Republican Majority in the United States Senate."

Rosendale responded on X, formerly Twitter, by criticizing Sheehy as "Mitch McConnell's hand pick," a reference to the U.S. Senate's top Republican leader. "I love President Trump," Rosendale wrote. "But he needs actual fighters in the U.S. Senate to enact his Agenda 47 - and that's me."

Agenda 47 refers to the prospect of a re-elected Trump becoming the nation's 47th president. Among other provisions, Trump's Agenda 47 announcements have called for ending birthright citizenship for people who aren't in the country legally, deploying the U.S. military against Mexican drug cartels, and imposing "universal baseline tariffs" that would try to promote domestic manufacturing by placing taxes on most imported products.

At the state Republican convention, Rosendale argued that McConnell and other national GOP leaders are opposing his Senate bid to punish him for his congressional activism. He also promoted his track record as an elected officeholder - an implicit dig at Sheehy's recent entry into Montana's political scene.

"McConnell knows I won't follow his orders. He's fixing to find out the people of Montana won't follow his orders either," Rosendale said in a campaign video played before his conference speech.

Sheehy, for his part, tried to shrug off his political inexperience with a self-deprecating joke during his convention address Friday night.

"I've been criticized by a lot of people - some in this room. Who the hell is this guy? He's never been in office before. What does he think he's doing running for Senate?" Sheehy said.

"That's a fair criticism. I wake up every day wondering what the hell I'm doing," he continued, before pivoting into a rapid-fire rundown of his and his wife's twin military careers, his post-discharge move to Montana and ultimately his entry into the firefighting business.

Sheehy also talked up what he said was a shift in Montana's business climate after Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte took office in 2021 following 16 years of Democratic governors.

"As a business owner, it was immensely powerful. It was immensely powerful. We unleashed the power of the free market here in Montana," Sheehy said to applause. "We've been a shining example of what the true American form of republic government is. And it's free market. It's Republican principles. It's decentralized government. It's empowering government by the people, of the people, for the people. And it's the people holding the government accountable. And that's why we've been successful here in Montana."

Democrats are counting on a bruising and expensive primary between Rosendale and Sheehy to damage whichever Republican wins the party's nomination, improving Tester's odds of securing his fourth Senate term in the November general election.

Already, Sheehy has taken aim at Rosendale's native Marylander accent on social media, posting a video mocking the congressman's habitual "Mawntana" pronunciation of Montana - an echo of the "Maryland Matt" label that Tester employed against Rosendale in 2018.

Rosendale, who was first elected to the Montana Legislature in 2010, fired back that he's held public office in Montana longer than Sheehy has lived in the state.

Rosendale moved to Montana in 2002, settling on a ranch property near Glendive. Sheehy moved to the state in 2014.

Gaetz, among the most prominent of the House's hardline activists, traveled to Montana last month to stump for Rosendale.

"This is the most important Republican primary in the country because it does pit an America First movement conservative against someone who is a shill of the establishment," he said at a Helena event on Jan. 27.

In the meantime, though, the official line from Montana Republicans is that the party will coalesce around its chosen U.S. Senate candidate on the far side of the June 4 primary election, building on the gains it's made in past election cycles to end Tester's Senate career.

"Things are going our way," party chairman Don "K" Kaltschmidt said in his own convention speech. "There are more Republicans moving into the state, and we're going to take advantage of that even more in 2024."

"We need to be united," Kaltschmidt said. "Better together, on the same team, so the right candidates win."

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https://montanafreepress.org/2024/02/13/for-rosendale-senate-bid-is-not-just-about-beating-tester .