Preview: A Tight Senate Race in Montana

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MADELEINE BRAND, host:

And you heard Ron mention that very tight Montana Senate race. NPR's Mike Pesca joins me now. And Mike, last week you were in Montana covering this story, and we'll be hearing your full report tomorrow.

Can you give us just a sneak peak?

MIKE PESCA: It's a really interesting race for a couple of reasons. The first is when you listen to those list of states that Ron Elving talked about where Republicans are in real danger of losing, Democrats usually do pretty well in presidential elections in those states. They either - in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island they won them, and in Ohio last year, they didn't but came close.

Montana overwhelmingly backed President Bush. So why is Conrad Burns, the incumbent, trailing by a little bit in almost all the polls? This brings us to the other reason why the race is so interesting - that the candidates have really interesting personalities.

Here's a glimpse. This is three-term incumbent Conrad Burns responding to his challenger's accusation that the Republicans don't have a plan for winning the war in Iraq.

Senator CONRAD BURNS (Republican, Montana): He says our president don't have a plan. If - I think he's got one. But he's not going to tell everybody in the whole world. And if you want to go out and spar for a fight, are you going to tell your enemy what your plan is? I don't think so.

PESCA: It's a tight race. As you can hear, interesting candidates. And there are, of course, serious consequences. It'll be a good story out of Montana tomorrow.

BRAND: And we look forward to hearing that story from Montana on tomorrow's program. NPR's Mike Pesca, thank you.

PESCA: Welcome.

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