Morrison Finished; Burns, Majority Safe
Writing for the Missoula News, John Adams has an excellent piece discussing Montana Auditor John Morrison’s conflict of interest scandal. In short, it is not a bimbo eruption but rather a more serious charge that Morrison’s affair interfered with his investigation of David Tacke, whom federal prosecutors put in jail for nine years. Running a campaign focused on the ethics of incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns has now been made impossible for Morrison, who it now appears at the very least violated the public trust of the people of Montana and at worst committed felonies of his own in allowing his affair to interfere with the official duties of his office.
With the scandal now brewing, either of two things can happen. Democrats would rather not think about either of them. The first is that the full details of the scandal will come out in the open before the primary. This will sink Morrison’s campaign and leave the Democrats to nominate Jon Tester, a man who would better represent Massachusetts than Montana. If this happens, Burns will easily paint as someone in the mold of Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer and, in spite of the still unproven allegations about his ethics, will coast to reelection.
The other, even more beneficial outcome would be that the scandal festers, but not to the point that it destroys the Morrison candidacy before the primary. Should the Democrats nominate Morrison, the GOP will have the opportunity to flesh out the story for all the country to see while Democrats throughout the country attempt to run on a platform of weeding out corruption in government. Along with forced resignation of Rep. Alan Mollohan from the House ethics panel, this scandal will neutralize the ethics issue and create the Democrats’ worst nightmare: an election about issues.
To be fair, Republicans have plenty of problems of their own on this front. The GOP Congress has accomplished little since the last elections, and the base has plenty to scream about. Where are the spending cuts? Where’s the cloning ban? Where’s the border security? Where’s the marriage amendment? Even so, the discussion of these issues will be much better than a scandal-plagued election.
In short, we owe a big “thank you” to John Morrison for being the single person most responsible for continued Republican control of Congress. He has done more than most Republican members of Congress to ensure that 2006 at the very least is not that bad. Hopefully now the actual members of Congress, especially those in the Senate, can now do their part.