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Conservative voters have spoken

by Derek Skees
| June 14, 2020 1:00 AM

Here we are again, in a post-elective season where opinion is often offered as an explanation of results. We all know in this age of misinformation, that analysis is often derived from a conclusion the author wants you to come to, so they reverse engineer the results to support it. I have often said that folks who wish to misinform, use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination.

It takes just a little illumination to see some very telling truths. The solutions caucus lost five key incumbents (incumbents rarely lose), so what are some of the facts that could have led to this improbable outcome? I would offer that in every district where this occurred, the Republican electorate rejected I-185 by large margins. It is not a coincidence that the Legislators who just lost their jobs voted for Medicaid expansion. This fact was well publicized in the primary fight of all five districts, with their opponents against expansion, so it is fair to assume the electorate knew it well.

Once shown the fact that these incumbents demonstrated a lack of interest in voting how their constituents wanted them to on Medicaid, it was easy to prove this contempt continued on to some key issues for republican voters, like rejection of meaningful CPS reform, increased taxation, and even borrowing money to pay for projects that could have been funded by smart fiscal policy instead. I would suggest that these facts were more easily understood once it was further demonstrated that these Legislators answered to select lobbying groups in Helena who funded them, instead of working for citizens back home.

This illumination is further clarified when you look at how much money the solutions sycophants solicited from the Montana Chamber and other associations like the hospitals (estimated at more than $130K). These special interest lobbyists then participated in dozens of primaries across the state to elect their minions. Let’s recap these facts; republican voters are obviously fired up looking at total votes cast, that they were informed on the record of these incumbents, and that they weren’t swayed by slick expensive adds trying to smoke screen the truth. This is the illumination that is easily discovered.

Nationally we are fed up with the swamp and their constant war against our President, and I would suggest that June 2 many Montanans just said that we are fed up with the same in Helena. I think it is very obvious to the solutions oligarchs in the GOP the facts we have just illuminated, yet reading their analysis post-election, it’s clear that we can see they are still just leaning against that lamp post for support.

—Rep. Derek Skees, R-Kalispell