Montana is unlikely front in battle for the Senate

BILLINGS, Mont. — You wouldn't know Republican Sen. Conrad Burns is in the toughest fight of his career as he shows off a new airport control tower he helped build with federal money.

The 71-year-old former cattle auctioneer is disparaged for his ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, plagued by headline-grabbing gaffes and, like all Republicans, hounded by the war in Iraq.

Democrats have targeted his seat as one of six they need to win the Senate. It's a key domino in their strategy to take control of both chambers in Congress for the first time since 1994.

Yet Burns shows no signs of being a beleaguered politician today. Wearing a rumpled tweed coat and cowboy boots, the senator acts like he's hanging out with friends, entertaining bystanders with cowboy tales and a patter of self-depreciating one-liners. About the requirement to remove shoes at airport security, he quips, "It cost me about six pairs of socks."

It's a disarming performance and may help explain why Montanans have voted to keep Burns in office for the past 18 years. But if pundits are right, he's in danger of losing his seat.

"He's in a great deal of trouble," says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

Others sense it, too. There's a frenzied air about the race.

Herds of reporters from New York to London follow Burns and his Democratic challenger Jon Tester across this vast state. Boisterous televised debates have drawn overflow crowds. Attack ads from both parties saturate the airwaves.

Tester, a big, beefy wheat farmer with a flat-top haircut, represents the type of "pickup-driving, gun-toting ... take-responsibility Democrat" who can put Republicans on the run not only in Montana but the rest of the West, says Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the first Democrat to hold the governor's office in Montana since 1989.

Democrats say defeating Burns would show their party is rapidly gaining ground in what used to be staunch Republican territory in the Intermountain West, a red swath stretching from Montana to Eastern Washington. Polls show the candidates neck and neck.

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Rick Hill, who represented Montana in Congress from 1997 to 2000, says he hasn't given up on Burns.

"A lot of politicians in his situation lose because they either won't work hard enough to win or they just don't believe that they can win," Hill says. "He's working hard. He obviously wants to keep his seat."

The Abramoff factor

If Burns loses, Abramoff will likely be a big factor.

The once high-profile Washington lobbyist, who pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges, channeled $150,000 in contributions to Burns' campaign, making Burns the top recipient in Congress of Abramoff's largess.

A Vanity Fair article earlier this year quotes Abramoff as saying: "Every appropriation we wanted [from Burns' committee] we got ... Our staffs were as close as they could be ... I mean, it's a little difficult for him to run from that record."

Burns gave all of Abramoff's money away to tribal colleges in Montana, and the senator maintains he's done nothing wrong and isn't under investigation.

His campaign pounds the theme that as an incumbent Burns can bring home federal money for Montana and warns that voters shouldn't change leadership in a time of war.

Still, the Abramoff issue won't go away. Democrats make sure of that with TV ads. And Tester brings up the subject every chance he gets, especially during televised debates like the one held in Billings recently.

About halfway through the debate, Tester asked about Abramoff.

The question evoked a grimace from Burns.

"You've dribbled this thing out for the last 18 months," he barked at Tester. "Every time I turn around you've got it dribbling out, and there's nothing there."

Craig Wilson, a Montana State University political-science professor, says the Abramoff controversy by itself probably isn't enough to knock Burns out of office. Many Montanans, he says, view it as "more of a political mistake rather than a personal ethical issue."

That's true for Chuck Hauptman, 84, a Billings geologist.

"Conrad wouldn't do something crooked, so how in the world this Abramoff slipped in some funny money, I don't know," he says, sipping a drink at the Montana Brewing Co. pub in Billings. "Conrad would not do something that devious or that crooked. He's a better man than that."

Supporters queried in diners and elsewhere around Billings say the same thing. They talk about Burns like a member of the family, never referring to him by his last name or title. They simply call him Conrad.

"What you see is what you get"

That familiarity is one of his chief assets, and an Achilles heel.

Burns' weathered looks and aw-shucks demeanor play well in Montana, a rural state that's twice the size of Washington with less than one-sixth the population.

"He's not the kind of guy who has been real guarded like a lot of political figures are," says Hill, the former Montana congressman. "He's kind of 'what you see is what you get.' And from time to time he's expressed himself in not the most sensitive way."

In July, Burns apologized after criticizing firefighters for their efforts battling local wildfires, saying they'd done a "piss-poor job."

In 2000, he apologized for querying a woman about a nose ring and asking, "What tribe are you from?"

In 1999, he apologized for referring to Arabs as "ragheads" during a speech while commenting on oil prices.

And in 1994 he apologized after saying that living with blacks in the nation's capital is "a hell of a challenge."

Democrats, knowing his tendency for gaffes, have someone following him around this election season hoping to tape a faux pas.

They even filmed him talking about how he can get himself into trouble. "I can self-destruct in one sentence. Sometimes in one word," Burns told a crowd.

At the Billings airport event, a showcase for how Burns brings home the bacon as a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, it's easy to see how he can get himself into trouble.

He spends much of his time talking about things other than the $8 million he secured for the airport. He veers from the love life of a daughter to the beauty of Montana and ends up commenting on how you could probably see right into his bedroom from the airport tower.

It appears spontaneous, and has the effect of setting people at ease, like they're all just good buddies. But his aides look a bit nervous at times.

Once the former radio broadcaster gets rolling, he can't stop.

A formidable foe

Burns' troubles don't end with Abramoff, the gaffes and the war. Tester is a formidable challenger as well.

Tester, who is president of the state Senate, runs an 1,800-acre organic farm several miles west of Big Sandy, Mont. He produces wheat, millet and peas, among other crops and farms the same land his grandfather homesteaded in 1916.

Like Burns, Tester talks in down-to-earth terms and stresses his rural roots. He's also self-effacing and has a quick wit.

At the Billings debate, for example, the moderator asked both candidates about their biggest mistakes. Tester replied, "It happened at a very young age and it has a lot to do with this," waving his left hand that's missing three middle fingers. He lost them in a meat-grinder accident as a boy.

A lot of the Democrat's television ads show Tester at the farm, driving around in a truck, or getting his flat-top haircut.

"Tester is saying [to Burns], 'You're not going to out-yokel me. I'm more of an authentic Montanan than you are. I look like people from Big Sandy,' " says Jerry Calvert, a political-science professor at Montana State University.

His campaign hammers the message that Republicans are mishandling the federal budget and the war in Iraq.

"If I heard one theme around the state of Montana, it's that people want to see a change," Tester says. "I'm a farmer. I always will be ... but you can't effect change 12 miles west of Big Sandy, at least not the kind of change I'm talking about."

The message resonates with many voters. "I think he [Tester] brings a fresh perspective and it's been years since we've gotten someone new in," says Heather Eggun, 26, a Billings resident who plans to vote for him.

Burns says he's come from behind in past campaigns and maintains he's still confident about this election.

Staring out the windows of the new airport tower in Billings, he remarks on how the city has grown since he arrived in the 1960s.

"Things are changing here," he says. "You can sense it."

Andrew Garber: 360-943-9882 or agarber@seattletimes.com