Here we are a couple weeks out from election day and Montanans find themselves struggling with red haze, blue smoke and a candidate finding out money can’t buy you love. 

The haze and smoke are not coming from the wildfire started by Governor Gianforte’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and Department of Natural Resources and Conservation when their prescribed burn became a wildfire on the Nevada Lake Wildlife Management Area this week.  With tinder dry grass and trees, both wound up burned to a crisp under their “management.” 

But no, the red haze is coming from Gianforte, who claims he brought “prosperity” to Montana in his debate with challenger Ryan Busse.  Yet, while lauding “prosperity,” apparently mega-millionaire Gianforte is completely unaware of the fact that most Montanans are not feeling prosperous these days.  In fact, far too many are struggling just to pay their taxes, keep a roof over their head, and their families fed. 

So let’s check the record.  Pyramid Timber in Seeley Lake shut down because their employees cannot afford housing on the wages Pyramid can afford to pay.  Nor can new “affordable” housing be built because the area’s groundwater is already polluting Seeley Lake and the Clearwater River with septic tank effluent.  

Likewise, Roseburg’s White Pine mill in Missoula closed because normal Montana workers cannot afford to live here on the non-prosperous Montana wages.

And then there are the 1,300 teachers who “left the profession altogether this past summer, as did one-third of all first-year teachers after their first year” according to the Democrat candidate for the Office of Public Instruction, Shannon O’Brien.  Why?  The wages don’t cover the cost of living in Montana nowadays.

While Gianforte’s “prosperity” certainly exists for the very wealthy in-migrants who have flooded the state and brought their money with them. But for most Montanans, prosperity remains well out of reach in their struggle to just get by.

The blue smoke is coming from the Democrats who somehow expect us to believe they are magically going to lower property taxes while increasing education funding, which is primarily derived from property taxes.  Moreover, they want to shift even more spending decisions to local government, which has shown no inclination to reduce spending — and in fact is increasing spending and raising costs for basic services such as water and sewer.  That they’re going to somehow get this magically done with their minority status in the Legislature is, well, cough, cough, blue smoke. 

But hey, what about “money can’t buy you love?”  Well, you’d have to ask Sen. Jon Tester about that.  Being the last Democrat to hold statewide office Tester has raised an astounding $32 million between July and September and a whopping $76 million so far.

Yet, despite running against the GOP’s  scandal-plagued MAGA extremist Tim Sheehy, he remains 7 points down in the polls, an almost impossible gap to expect to close in the last weeks of the campaign, no matter how many dollars you throw at it. And throwing dollars may just be part of Tester’s problem.

As noted in the Washington Post, Wylie Gustafson, “a 63-year-old rancher and musician, has voted for Tester for years, sticking with him even as Montana turned redder and redder. But this year, he ‘will be voting for Tester’s Republican challenger, Tim Sheehy.'”  Why?  “He turned away from Tester after he voted for a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill and Democratic climate change legislation.”

So fellow Montanans, don’t get lost in the red haze, choke on the blue smoke, or forget, as Jon Tester appears to be learning, money can’t buy you love.