For all the talk about the new Democrats swept into office on Tuesday, the senator-elect from Montana truly is your grandfather’s Democrat — a pro-gun, anti-big-business prairie pragmatist whose life is defined by the treeless patch of hard Montana dirt that has been in the family since 1916.I've always been of the mind that the roots of the Democratic Party have been better defined by this sort of common-sense populism than the latte-sipping Volvo-driving stereotype we've let the right wing get away with. The Democrats that I grew up with in northwest Ohio were as much blue-collar as Archie Bunker, who loved their hunting and guns as much as any member of the NRA (and were often members), and who had to make a hard living, either on the farm or in the factory, and knew that when it came to taking care of them, it had been the Democrats who had stood up for them.
It is a place with 105-degree summer days and winter chills of 30 below zero, where his grandparents are buried, where his two children learned to grow crops in a dry land entirely dependent on rainfall, and where, he says, he earned barely $20,000 a year farming over the last decade.
“It’s always been tight, trying to make a living on that farm,” said Mr. Tester, still looking dazed and bloodshot-eyed after defeating Senator Conrad Burns, a three-term incumbent, by fewer than 3,000 votes.
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“You think of the Senate as a millionaire’s club — well, Jon is going to be the blue-collar guy who brings an old-fashioned, Jeffersonian ideal about being tied to the land,” said Steve Doherty, a friend of Mr. Tester’s for 20 years. “He’s a small farmer from the homestead. That’s absolutely who he is. That place defines him.”
[...]
But with his trademark flattop — refreshed every three weeks for $8 at the Riverview barber shop here in Great Falls — Mr. Tester was a tough target for Republicans to stereotype as “just another Washington insider,” as one radio attack ad put it.
Republicans have kept their hold on the intermountain West in part by promoting issues known as the three G’s: gays, guns and God.
On gays, Mr. Tester says the “sacred document” of the Constitution should not be amended to outlaw same-sex marriage, though he favored a state ban that voters passed in 2004. On guns, Mr. Tester is quite proficient in their use, and says anyone — Republican or Democrat — who tries to take his away will run into trouble. On God, Mr. Tester says simply that he is a churchgoer, and notes that he met his wife when he spotted her in a pew.
Guys like Jon Tester aren't a throw-back; they've been there all along. It's just that someone like him -- someone who truly represents his state -- ran for the Senate and won. I have a feeling we're going to see more of this in the coming years.
Update: Paul Krugman has his own take on the Tester election:
Last week’s populist wave, among other things, vindicates the populist direction that Al Gore took in the closing months of the 2000 campaign. But will this wave be reflected in the actual direction of the Democratic Party?
Not necessarily. Quite a few sitting Democrats have shown themselves nearly as willing as Republicans to bow to corporate interests. Consider the vote on last year’s draconian bankruptcy bill. Mr. Lieberman voted for cloture, cutting off debate and ensuring the bill’s passage; then he voted against the bill, a meaningless gesture that let him have it both ways. Thirteen other Democratic senators also voted for cloture, including Joe Biden, who has just announced his candidacy for president.
The first big test of the new Democratic populism will come over reform of the 2003 prescription drug law. Democrats have pledged to repeal the clause in that law preventing Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices. But the fine print of how they do that is crucial: Medicare reform could be a mere symbolic gesture, or it could be a real reform that eliminates the huge implicit subsidies the program currently gives drug and insurance companies.
Are the newly invigorated Democrats ready to offer a real change in this country’s direction? We’ll know in a few months.
