"The Green Party earned access to Montana’s ballot after turning in thousands of signatures just before a critical deadline.
Montana Democrats are crying foul and want the Green Party booted from the ballot.
They suspect a GOP firm is behind the petition drive, and have filed a complaint with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices alleging that a Nevada-based GOP firm violated state law by failing to report its spending on behalf of the Green Party.
The Montana Democratic Party says at least two of the signature gatherers identified themselves in social media postings as employees of Advanced Micro Targeting, a political consulting firm in Nevada that usually works with Republicans. Six of the 13 signature gatherers for the Green Party effort live in states other than Montana.
“The evidence suggests that the Republican-linked Nevada firm Advanced Micro Targeting, which has a history of shoddy and unethical petition-gathering practices, was behind this effort,” Nancy Keenan, the executive director of the Montana Democratic Party, said in a statement . . .
. . . Republicans see a case of just desserts.
Tester, they say, has benefitted from third-party candidates pulling votes away from his GOP rivals. In both of Tester’s previous races, the Libertarian candidate has won a higher percentage of the vote than the margin by which Tester won.
In 2012,
Tester allies went so far as to spend money to bolster the Libertarian. That year, a super PAC funded by labor and environmental groups backing Tester spent $500,000 on a television ad campaign calling the Libertarian candidate, Dan Cox, “the real conservative.” Cox took almost 32,000 votes that year. Tester beat then-Rep. Denny Rehberg (R) by a margin of just 18,000 votes.
“Nobody had ever heard of Dan Cox when he filed in 2012,” said Erik Iverson, the longtime Montana Republican strategist who ran Rehberg’s campaign that year. “For sure, the Republican Party here is all too willing to help out the Green Party in any way they can, much like Tester did for the Libertarian.”
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Wow, play dirty and get mad when it is done to you.
