Swing State Project burbles happily about Jon Tester’s stunning win in the the Montana Senatorial primary:
Wow. What a fantastic showing of broad support for Jon Tester tonight. From longshot to upstart to competitor to steamroller, Jon Tester has, without a doubt, scored an absolutely stunning victory in Montana tonight. On Dec. 31, 2004, when Swing State Project dropped his name for the first time, few could foresee that Tester, an organic farmer from Big Sandy, could absolutely wallop one of the most popular and well-funded Democrats in the state, Auditor John Morrison, and do so without slingling mud, without creating an intra-party rift, or without a massive warchest. Jon Tester accomplished what he did today by getting people to genuinely like him, which is a damn rare thing in politics these days. And that’s exactly how he’s going to convince Montana voters that he should be the next Senator from Montana.
The rebirth of the Democratic Party begins in Big Sky Country.
It may be a bit much, but the gist of it is right: if you could clone this approach the electoral map would look completely different.
Meanwhile, Tester faces incumbent Conrad Burns in the general election. Burns is the Senator most deeply implicated so far in the Abramoff scandal.