MT-Sen: Burns trails Morrison, tied with Tester

[Alcon]

This assumes that neither Morrison or Tester have a blind spot on issues such as guns, taxes, or national security that Burns can turn to his advantage.  Baucus nearly lost in 1996 when Rehberg pinned him with the "liberal" label.  Montana is still a conservative/liberatarian state. 

Montana may be a libertarian-ish state, but it is not purely libertarian.  It is not a wealthy state by any means.  While there may be an anti-government aura to Montana's conservativism, it sure isn't a purely libertarian one.  Montanans are not necessarily completely friendly to big business because, well, there is very little of it in the state.  Taxes are not as huge of an issue, and at this point even a state like Montana is giving poor approvals to Bush on national security issues (I believe, but am not entirely certain).

You're right about guns, though.  Winning as an anti-gun candidate in Montana is next to impossible.  Then again, being anti-gun in the Democratic Party is pretty difficult by itself.  Everyone and their florist has a gun in MT.

[Alcon]

On a separate note: Alcon, why are you sporting a blue avatar?  Have you decided to follow nini into the abyss that is the GOP?

I'm angry with the third-party financing thing.  I'm not really in the GOP.  It's just to say "if you won't let me vote third party against you folks, then I'll have to vote GOP."

If you're going to become Republican because of this, then good riddance. It's not like you ever support the Democratic party in its struggles against the far-right who rules this control. Go support the far-right.

The avatar has nothing to do with my party registration, other than "I can't believe the Democrats propose stupid stuff like this."  I know it will never come to a vote, and I'm only keeping it for 24 hours.

I'd vote for most any Democrat (bar the far leftists) against a far-righter, so I'm not sure what to think of that comment.  I support whatever I feel is best for the country.

[Alcon]

c'mon Alcon, don't judge a whole group by a few members...you know that

I'm glad I'm changing it back tomorrow, because I'm kind of getting sick of explaining this. 

I changed it because the bill would just cause me to vote GOP before, maybe more than 50% of the time.  I don't judge the entire party based on it, and I'm not a Republican.