Montana Democrats clearly think they can hurt Republican gubernatorial candidate GregGianforte'schances by exploiting a dispute he had with the state over a fishing access on his Bozeman property in 2009.
They’ve been hammeringGianforteover it since May, and on Friday they brought out popular former Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer to step up their attack.
At a made-for-TV event at McCormick Park in Missoula, Schweitzer stood in front of a large metal gate propped up against a picnic table along the Clark Fork River. It had 'no trespassing' and 'private property' signs taped to it, completing the backdrop.
"Are we going to allow a out-of-state millionaires to come into Montana and buy the public land and put a gate like this?" Schweitzer asked the crowd of Democratic party supporters.
He pointed to his props, "This is the gate, and these are the signs that this fellow Gianforte put up in front of property owned by the state of Montana.”
Gianfortedisputes the Democrats characterizing him as putting a gate in front of public land. He says he was just trying to clean up an easement that was improperly recorded across property he bought.
It's true that he filed a lawsuit against Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to correct the easement, but he says those papers were never actually served against the agency, and the legal action was the only way he could get them to acknowledge his problem. Gianforte and Fish, Wildlife and Parks settled the matter out of court. Gianforte says public access across his property was never blocked, but Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks says he put a gate on the line of public access and there was a no trespassing sign on the gate.
((CORRECTION: The above paragraph originally read:
It's true that he filed a lawsuit against Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to correct the easement, but he says those papers were never actually served against the agency, and the legal action was the only way he could get them to acknowledge his problem. Gianforte and Fish, Wildlife and Parks settled the matter out of court, and at no time was public access to the East Gallatin river across his property ever blocked.))
Democrats say the lawsuit shows Gianforte doesn’t value public lands. A TV ad by a political action committee paints him as out of touch with Montana values.
The ad ends with the line: “And now Jersey Gianforte thinks he should be governor of Montana. Don’t buy it, hook, line or sinker.”
Aaron Flint, Gianforte’s communications director, says Democrats are misrepresenting Gianforte and his wife to distract voters from other issues.
“Greg and Susan have always been supporters of steam access," Flint says. "Always have supported stream access and always will and here we go again with the Bullock campaign and their one-trick pony. But luckily Montanans are already seeing through it.”
Gianforte’s camp is also portraying Schweitzer as hypocritical, sending the media a newspaper article from 2010 saying then-Governor Schweitzer put up gates blocking private land the public had formerly been able to use.
They also say that under Governor Bullock, two popular public fishing accesses at Ft. Peck reservoir and near Great Falls are in jeopardy of closing.
Lee Banville is a journalism professor at the University of Montana who is writing a book on how the media covers politics. He says, at first, the fishing access on Gianforte’s land really wasn’t that big an issue, but Banville says the Gianforte campaign has done a poor job responding to the Democrats' attacks.
“First of all he did come after them with an ad, which ran on radio and it was okay. It kind of tried to blow it off and say, 'well this is just silly,'" Banville says.
In the ad, released about a month after Democrats launched their attack, an actor portraying a fisherman talks to one playing a fly shop owner, saying, “I thought I heard Greg was some guy from Jersey who didn’t want us to fish."
The shop owner responds, "Nah. That’s a load of bull. Greg Gianforte is as Montana as they come. Our liberal governor is lying about him to stay in office, which is about as un-Montana as it gets.”
Professor Banville says Gianforte's campaign, "should just explain the legal back and forth they had with this. 'And this was done by lawyers and maybe they overstepped and maybe we shouldn’t have gone this far. But we were just trying to protect our land.' They’ve never just kind of boiled it down and to like, 'what if you were the guy who owned land next to a fishing access point and it kept getting stomped on and beer cans and all this stuff, and all you wanted to do was the state to fix it?'”
More recently, Gianforte released a second ad, this time on TV, trying to clarify the issue.
“Let me be clear," Gianforte says, addressing the camera, "I fully support Montana stream access laws and keeping public land public and always have. Montanans know it can be a real hassle dealing with bureaucrats. and the fact that we had to make a little noise to get them to listen is further proof that Helena is not working for any of us. And that is why I am running for governor.”
Ownership of public lands is a hot-button issue in Montana politics. Some Republicans advocate turning federal lands over to states to own and manage. Others, including Gianforte, go out of their way to say that public lands should stay public.
Democrats seem to be using Gianforte’s private property dispute to stoke Montanans’ anxiety over public lands ownership
Banville says the attack works on two levels. He says public land access is really a bipartisan issue because so many Montanans hunt and fish - so framing a candidate as anti-public access potentially picks off cross-over voters.
Secondly, he says, “You’ll hear them talk about how this is really un-Montanan and so the access story plays really well to that. I also think that they must be polling on this because they are still talking about this three months after this thing comes out. And they’ve been floating other issues. And you haven’t seen the sort of repeated, constant 'hammer this guy' on one thing, over and over and over again.”
Banville says Democrats bringing Brian Schweitzer into this narrative makes sense - he’s there to add drama. He’s a great speaker, he was a popular governor and this issue is right in his wheelhouse.
“Which is, 'Why you picking on the regular folk? Why are you denying regular folks their due,'” Banville says.
For their part, Gianforte and the Republicans are trying to stoke anger over Governor Bullock’s use of the state airplane, saying he flies in it to campaign events, or for personal use, like attending the Paul McCartney concert in Missoula in 2014. Bullock denies misusing the state plane but has reimbursed the state for use of the plane related to campaign events.
Banville argues that neither the state plane nor the stream access issues are really top line concerns for most Montanans.
“And it's, 'Greg Gianforte is upset about Steve Bullock’s use of the state plane,' which again affects very few people and really doesn’t affect your life. And this seven-year-old fight over how we should deal with this fishing access point on the East Gallatin River, again, it doesn’t really affect the broader things," Banville says.
Banville says campaigns often focus on symbolic issues because it’s tough to get voters fired up about more complicated issues like Medicaid expansion, or the impact of timber and forest management policy on the job market. It's hard to get a good sound bite out of those topics.
But bringing in a colorful former governor who’ll say an outsider is threatening Montanans' ability to hunt and fish, that's catchy.
Democratic partisans at Friday's event were clearly pleased with the way Schweitzer delivered zingers like these:
“Well I have a message for Mr. Gianforte and the Republican party," he said, "Access to public lands, the lands we own, is not negotiable in Montana. We will not negotiate! We will not stand down!”
Banville says voters might hear more substantive issues debated as the contest moves closer to Election Day - but don’t count on it.
“As they are talking to voters maybe we’ll see other issues come up," he says, "but I’m sure if they could they would love to keep it to, 'is Bullock using the plane appropriately?' and, 'is Gianforte going to let me go fish.'”
He says Montana’s candidates for governor might not need to raise more substantive issues to be elected.
All they might need to do is tell a good story, and hope their opponent sinks in it.
