Matt Rosendale Drops MT Senate Bid Right After Announcing Candidacy; Clarifies Billie Jean Not His Lover
The kid is not his son. Or daughter. If there even is a kid.
The US Senate race in Montana looked like it was going to heat up considerably earlier this month when we learned that rightwing Congressman Matt Rosendale had jumped into the Republican primary, making it a real contest for the chance to challenge Jon Tester, who’s probably the most vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbent this year. Mind you, that was the weekend before I caught a nasty cold that sidelined me for a while, so I completely missed the news when Rosendale just as suddenly dropped out of the race less than a week after getting in.
Matt Who?
This was the second Senate run for Rosendale. In 2018, when he was state auditor, he challenged Tester and lost, then went and got himself elected to Congress in 2020 when the state had just one House seat, just in time to vote for treason on January 6, 2021. When reapportionment gave Montana a second House district, he was elected to that seat in ‘22.
Rosendale, whom your Editrix has previously described as “a slimy wormy gob of racist shit,” claimed when he dropped his Senate bid on February 15 that he just didn’t think he’d make any headway against political first-timer Tim Sheehy, a rich asshole who was endorsed by Donald Trump the very day Rosendale announced his own candidacy.
Rosendale said in a statement that he’d talked it over with Montana’s junior senator, Republican Steve Daines, and “we both agree that this is the best path forward for Republicans to regain the majority in the U.S. Senate.”
Aerospace businessman Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, already received the endorsement of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is chaired by Daines, so you might think the topic might have come up in previous chats. Sheehy also has the endorsements of other top Montana Republicans like Gov. Greg Gianforte and Rep. Ryan (vomit) Zinke.
Of course, there might have been another reason Rosendale threw in the towel, at least according to former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who said Monday on the “Talking Feds with Harry Litman” podcast,
“Just to gossip a little bit, there’s a reason why Rosendale backed out of that Senate race. […] The rumor is that he impregnated a 20-year-old staff person.”
Heitkamp went on to suggest that Rosendale might not stop at dropping his Senate bid, either, saying, “I think [the Republican] caucus might lose a member in the next couple days. Might be the congressman from Montana.”
Oh my! What a BESMIRCH STATEMENT!
Rosendale quickly denied the rumor, and Rosendale spokesperson Ron Kovach threatened legal action, saying in a statement, “This is 100% false and defamatory and former Senator Heitkamp will be hearing from our lawyers soon.”
No word yet of any actual legal action, and it looks like Heitkamp hasn’t said anything more about that rumor, so as Rachel Maddow says, “Watch this space.” The Daily Montanan reported Saturday that Rosendale filed paperwork to run for reelection to the House this fall, where he can continue being a useless far-right shitsack. Unless another shoe, or GOP House seat, drops.
Good Ol’ Cussy Jon Tester
Now, let’s get to the real story, which is the matchup between Jon Tester, who’s fighting for a fourth term in the increasingly wingnutty state — where he’s the only Democrat Montana has elected statewide since the days when they used to do that a lot — and Tim Sheehy, whose top qualifications according to his website are being a “Navy SEAL, Aerial Firefighter, and Conservative Outsider,” which is what you say when you have money and rightwing beliefs but know fuck-all about governing.
Tester has managed to win three previous terms in Montana by building personal connections with voters and doing all the things a red-state Democrat needs to do: shaking every hand he possibly can at local events, passing agriculture bills, and generally being an agreeable, authentic guy. He’s a third-generation Montana farmer (and actually farming, not just talking about it), a former high school band teacher, and maintains strong connections with labor, ranchers, and veterans. He cultivates a reputation for being a moderate, but when Republicans go all Republican, he can also get salty, as he did in September 2021 when a government shutdown was looming:
“We always do this fucking dance. […] I don’t know if people are going to put their sane minds on and do what needs to be done, or shut it down. This is just a ridiculous exercise ... I can’t even compare it to anything I do on the farm that’s this stupid.”
That was good enough to get him a follow-up profile in which Politico called him the “foul-mouthed farmer sticking his neck out for” Biden and the Democratic agenda, so that was fun, including this bit of pre-2024 speculation about whether he might want to avoid trying for a fourth term.
And as for whether Tester’s alignment with Biden and relatively liberal voting record is a clue about whether he’ll retire rather than run again … well, throw another quarter in the swear jar: “Oh, no, fuck that. That’s not my style.”
Obviously, Yr Wonkette likes Jon Tester a lot.
Tim Who? Oh, The Schmuck Running Against Tester
Republicans who want to flip the Senate this year hope they can overcome Tester’s long-established Montana Cred (he’s lived there all his life) by framing his biggest asset — his long record of service in the Senate — as a liability by portraying him as a “Washington insider” who’s too connected to “big-money Washington lobbyists” who aren’t Republicans. And with Joe Manchin’s announcement that he won’t seek reelection (or, now, the presidency), the GOP will be pouring money into Montana to try to build Sheehy into a credible candidate, even though Sheehy moved to the state in 2014 to start his aviation businesses.
As the Montana Free Press pointed out in a December profile, before Sheehy was anointed as the NRSC’s Chosen One, few Montanans had heard of him. But the right people had: He has connections with many of them, including Daines and Gianforte. And once he started donating to Montana Republicans by supporting Gianforte’s 2016 run for governor, it became a habit:
In 2018, he began donating regularly to Daines and continued his support for other Montana Republicans. According to state campaign finance records, he’s also donated almost $40,000 to various state and local committees affiliated with the state Republican Party.
If Sheehy had an opinion on Gianforte’s assault on reporter Ben Jacobs that year, we haven’t heard. Old news now!
Even some Montana Republican insiders had no idea who Sheehy was:
“For the grassroots movement, and people who knock doors and put up the signs and are busy for conservative Republican candidates, we have no idea who Tim Sheehy is — it’s ‘Sheehy who?’” Dr. Al Olszewski, chairman of the Flathead County GOP, told the Daily Caller, a right-wing news site, in July. “He’s a ghost, he has not been involved in local politics or statewide politics.”
As for his life before his much-touted service as a Navy SEAL (did you hear? He was a Navy SEAL!), Sheehy was a bit of a cipher. The Free Press was able to track down some details at least:
In brief: He grew up in a multimillion dollar lake house, learned to fly under the tutelage of a neighbor, attended a private high school, graduated at the top of his U.S. Naval Academy and Army Ranger School classes, sustained multiple injuries while serving in the Navy, and ultimately was “medically separated” from the military in 2014. The next year, Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke — also a former SEAL — awarded Sheehy a Bronze Star and Purple Heart, the first time the two met, according to Sheehy’s campaign.
Sheehy’s campaign didn’t make the candidate available for an interview; we bet they were adjusting his algorithm.
“Family was, and remains, very important to the Sheehys. Sheehy was never interested in politics, but leading a life of mission-oriented service always motivated him,” the campaign said in a statement. “In the Summer of 2021, after watching the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, Sheehy heard the call of service again and decided to get involved in politics.”
Click, whirr. No big scandals in his background, but Sheehy seems to have come from money and then done quite well for himself after getting into the aerospace biz, with a net worth “between $74 million and $200 million, which would make him one of Congress’ wealthiest members if he is elected.” Hey, and when Gianforte was in Congress, he was its richest member for a while, too! Montana’s a happening place if you’re wealthy.
Democrats are hoping to use Sheehy’s wealth and relatively recent arrival against him in the campaign; a spokesperson for the state Democratic Party said that Tester “has farm equipment that’s been in Montana longer than Tim Sheehy,” which isn’t a bad line, although as Utah Valley University political science prof Kal Munis noted to the Free Press, it’s possible that with so many relatively new arrivals in Montana in recent years, “there are so many Montanans now that aren’t from Montana. And these messages don’t resonate with them.”
With control of the Senate on the line this year, Democrats are spending like crazy to protect the two incumbents Republicans are also spending like crazy to replace: Tester and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown. In January, Democrats said that they’d devoted an “eight figure” tranche of cash to defend the two seats. Tester, for his part, has been leaning into his status as “the Senate’s only working dirt farmer,” tweeting in January that
I lost three fingers in a meat grinding accident when I was younger. I get a $12 flattop haircut. Most of my shirts are stained with dirt.
And I'm sure as hell going to win this race.
He followed that up with a photo of himself preparing hamburger, with the very same meat grinder that did the deed (talk about bipartisan reconciliation!) and adding, “What?! It’s a good meat grinder!”
Well you certainly don’t want to get rid of something or someone who’s still doing a good job after many years. If you have some cash to help John Tester keep his Senate seat, we bet he’d be pretty grateful. Just watch your hands.
PREVIOUSLY!
[HuffPost / NBC News / Daily Montanan / Politico / Montana Free Press]
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We have no actual proof that Tim Sheehy is a robocandidate. But someone should definitely check intro that "Stepford Labs" line on his LinkedIn.
High school band teacher?
Nerves of steel then.