Statistically, the majority of Montana farmers and ranchers vote Republican. The Montana Senate race presents a challenge for the agricultural community.
It is well known that Sen. Jon Tester is farming ground homesteaded by his grandparents. Farming is in Sen. Tester’s blood. Sen. Tester is the only true farmer in the U.S. Senate. Ninety-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley owns some farm ground, but is not hands-on as Sen. Tester. Sen. Tester knows more about the Farm Bill than any Montanan, while his opponent could not explain the difference between a chisel plow and a harrow, a barley kernel and wheat kernel, a plow shovel from a grain shovel, etc., etc.
Jon Tester knows what the acronyms FSA, SCS and ASCS stand for without looking to a dictionary. Sen. Tester sits on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, and on the Senate Agriculture Committee, while if elected, Sen. Tester’s opponent will be without any seniority when it comes to committee assignments.
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Sen. Tester is on record as pro second amendment, and was correctly described by the New York Times as an anti-big-business prairie pragmatist whose life is defined by a treeless patch of hard Montana dirt that has been in the family since homesteaded by his grandparents.
So bottom line, do Republican farmers and ranchers want to toe the party line or vote their pocketbooks? The choice seems so very distinctly self-evident.
