Who needs enemies?  But wait, what friends are we talking about?  Why your own friends within the Democratic Party.  Specifically, two Daves: Dave Hunter and Dave Wanzenried.  Scratching your chin through your mask trying to figure it out?  Let’s break it down.

The Wanzenried story is easy.  This Dave’s history goes way, way back to the mid 80’s when he was the Commissioner of Labor for the state of Montana and was a long time legislator serving in both chambers.  In one sense you could call him a career politician with his terms in the House running from 1990 to 2004 and then the Senate from 2007 to 2015.  Add to that several runs for higher office to include Governor and US Senate, you might even go so far as to say that he has served well as a placeholder while the real candidate prepared their announcement. But wait, there’s more!  He was also the author of the now defunct blog ‘Logicosity’.

So what’s the beef with Wanz?  Well, during the most recent primary he threw his weight behind the second place pony, Kim Dudik in the Attorney General race on the D side of the ballot.  Great, so did a lot of other boomers.  But in this Dave’s case, he went so far as to file a complaint that alleged that the winning candidate, Raph Graybill, was not qualified, by law, to be on the ballot.  OK, so a primary can be almost as important as the general election so Dave was just doing his work in trying to take Graybill out, except that he bet on the wrong horse and his horse dung complaint has now been scooped up by the MTGOP in their effort to put far right wing whacko Austin Knudson in the corner office at the DOJ.  Great work Dave, this is on you and Kim.

Now this other Dave, Dave Hunter, is not quite so simple or transparent.  Hunter has been snorkeling around Montana politics for quite some time, albeit with limited success and certainly none in the last couple decades.  Like the other Dave, he’s fed face down in the public trough with stints in state government to include Deputy Director of Montana’s tax agency. Among the old school democrats who like to remind us often of their glory days when they were running the show, he continues to insert himself in party politics as well as attempting to influence new comers on the scene with his political prowess.  Still asking what this is about?

Once again, go back to the primary when the GOP filed a complaint against the now Democratic Governor candidate Mike Cooney for using state resources and facilities to campaign. In his response to the complaint, Cooney readily admits to ‘attending’ a meeting from his office in the state capital- not allowed.  Now the behind the scenes details.  The meeting Cooney attended was with other democrats hosted by the party and included team members from both the Cooney and Williams  campaigns.  This Dave was reportedly there too. The unsubstantiated rumor is that he grabbed a screenshot of Cooney in his official office and started spreading it around with the threat of a complaint from the Williams campaign.  Tick away a little time and suddenly it’s in the hands of the Montana Republican Party.  You could call this an approach to solving problems with a greasy bipartisan approach.  As a result of Hunter’s alleged work, Cooney is now labeled by the GOP as more of a criminal than Greg ‘The Body Slammer’ Gianforte.  That worked out well, thank you Dave.

Of course this is nothing new during a primary, but the slop over into the general is where the problems really come to fruition.  If Montana ends up with a Gianforte Governor and a Knudson AG we can thank these guys and their friends as team members to the victors.  With enemies like these, who needs friends like the Dave’s?

TGTJ

‘Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of.’