< Ethics Questions, Quips Dog Montana's Sen. Burns

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Heard on Day to Day

October 24, 2006 - ALEX CHADWICK, host:

Each Tuesday on DAY TO DAY, we're profiling Western political races. Today Montana, where Republican Senator Conrad Burns is running against Democratic state senator Jon Tester. NPR's Mike Pesca traveled to Montana for this report.

MIKE PESCA: Billings, Montana last week: Jon Tester is once again bedeviling Conrad Burns with criticism. Tester - 280 pounds, flattop haircut, missing three fingers on his left hand from a tractor accident - has thrown in Burns' face the charge that Democrats are using, to great effect in races across the country, that the Republicans have no plan for winning the war in Iraq. The 71-year-old Burns looks incredulous, takes a half step from the podium, balls his hands up and fires back at the man trying to unseat him.

Senator CONRAD BURNS (Republican, Montana): He says there's no plan. There is a plan. We're not going to tell you, Jon.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Sen. BURNS: We're not going to tell you what our plan is because you'll just go out there and blow it.

Mr. JON TESTER (Democrat Congressional Candidate, Montana): I just want to say one thing…

Sen. BURNS: Wait a minute, hold the…

Mr. TESTER: Okay.

PESCA: Then the candidates bicker a bit on if Tester gets a chance to respond. As has been the case throughout this debate, Tester seems up on the rules. But Burns seems affable enough about who gets to talk.

Mr. TESTER: Mike asked me a question, I answered. You get to answer, I get to answer. That's the way it works.

Sen. BURNS: Oh really? Like checkers?

Mr. TESTER: Yeah, that's the way it works. Well, it's interesting, Senator Burns, because I listened to some of your comrades on TV just last week that came back from Iraq. I guess they don't know the plan, either. Chairman of the Armed Service Committee doesn't know the plan, but you do.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. TESTER: Because the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee said if things don't change, we're going to change things.

PESCA: There are things in Burns' record that he can't change. Chief among them, the fact that of all one hundred senators, he accepted the most money from convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates. Burns points out that he hasn't been charged with a crime, but it's one of the issues clearly weighing on the minds of voters, including this sampling from the Rimrock Mall.

Mr. COREY TURWILLIS(ph): He's just seems to be out of touch with Montana, and he has that, you know, those buy-offs and all that stuff with Abramoff. It just seems - it's just time for some new blood.

Mr. SCOTT WALTHON(ph): I don't have anything personal against Conrad. I played golf with him out Beloa(ph) Golf Course. But I don't go along with the political views that he garners.

Mr. JIM ESPY(ph): Well, I've known Conrad for 20, 30, 40 years. Yeah, he's a little rough around the edges. That comment that he made to the firefighters, he shouldn't have made it to that bunch.

PESCA: Corey Turwillis, Scott Walthon, and Jim Espy represent some common themes in this election. First, people in Montana have personal interactions with their senator. Second, the election has become a referendum on the incumbent, and third, the firefighters. This summer Burns was reported to have lashed out at firefighters he came across at the airport, saying they did a, quote, “piss poor job” of combating the summer's blazes. Burns is silver-tongued as a former auctioneer.

Mr. BURNS: Twenty-five, 25, now 30, thirty dollar (unintelligible) 30 now five. Give me 35 (unintelligible) 35.

PESCA: More often, the erstwhile cattleman suffers from foot in mouth disease. He's called Arabs ragheads, referred to holding a slave auction. Said terrorists drive taxis by day and kill at night. Well, Burns admits to and has apologized for his lapses. It's gotten to the point where every time he mentions anyone's ethnicity - like his little Guatemalan handy man, Hugo - it makes national news. But what isn't reported much outside of Montana is the everyday projects Burns brings back to the state. Last week, he was at Billings International Airport talking up an infusion of federal cash to upgrade the control tower.

Sen. BURNS: And then we got another appropriation that we did that will change the traffic pattern out here. We've got the money already appropriated for that. It's in the planning stages now.

PESCA: Then from the heights of the control tower, Burns takes the opportunity to point out a local landmark.

Sen. BURNS: See that road that comes up right up there?

PESCA: His house.

Sen. BURNS: It comes out of Alkali Creek like it's headed right down the Yellowstone Valley. And I'm on the east end of that.

PESCA: Burns has lived in Billings for almost 50 years and has earned over two million frequent flyer miles returning home every other weekend that the Senate is in session. Still, Jon Tester looks at the money Burns has taken from lobbyists and comes up with this conclusion.

Mr. TESTER: He really has gone Washington, D.C., and it's changed him. You know, Montanans expect their representatives, their U.S. Senators to go out back there and bring Montana values back to Washington, D.C. And I think in the end, it's the other way around with Conrad.

PESCA: Tester is a third generation farmer - organic farmer, it's whispered suspiciously among the old cattle families. But still, he's authentic Montanan enough to be leading by a little bit in all the polls. Maybe after 18 years and, by his own estimation, 2 billion dollars brought back to Montana, it's time for Conrad Burns to go. But he's been in close races before, warring from behind to win his last Senate election. And you know that if Burns does have a plan for winning this race, he won't be out there telling everyone about it. Mike Pesca, NPR News.

CHADWICK: NPR Political editor Ken Rudin is following the election battles all across the nation at our Web site, npr.org.

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