I was born in Red Lodge. I have made my living in this state for more than 30 years, and I have spent enough days on Montana rivers to know the difference between a caddis hatch that is real and a rise that is only a splash at the end of the pool. That does not make me wise. It means I have learned to watch the river instead of the crowd on the bank.
This year Montana is being asked to hand its Senate seat to a candidate chosen before the campaign began. Steve Daines became an important name in the Senate but withdrew from his own reelection minutes before the filing deadline, and Kurt Alme filed in his place. Not because he made the case to you. Because a party apparatus decided he was next, and a great many of us have been trained to treat that decision as our own. That is the splash.
The true hatch is a man standing in front of you making an argument you can test. His name is Seth Bodnar, and he is running as an independent. He graduated first in his class at West Point, went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, served as a Green Beret, and spent eight years as president of the University of Montana.
Last week, in a Missoula living room, I heard him explain why he left a job he loved. He said he was watching what was happening to this state, and that he has children who will live in whatever Montana we hand them. Trying to positively change their future was a road he had to walk. You may disagree with where he wants to take the state. You cannot say he was handed the road.
This is not about a party. It is about the habit that built this state: look a person in the eye, hear him speak, ask him hard questions and then decide. Lately we have been invited to outsource it, to consultants who write the lines and donors who rent the air. Alme has yet to share a stage with the other candidates; he declined the one debate held so far, citing its sponsor. A man who does not have to earn the room does not spend much time in it. Send him to Washington and he will be counted, not consulted. The grand tradition of Montana having impactful senators will disappear.
There is another way to use this seat. Bodnar has said he will not join either caucus. Republicans hold 53 seats today, and forecasters are split on who controls the chamber in January. Whatever the count, a senator neither leader can count on is the senator both leaders have to call. Every contested vote in a close Senate comes down to the two or three members who are not on anybody’s list, and for six years one of them would be Montana’s. He can withhold his vote until Montana is in the deal. He can say no to both sides when both are wrong. Committee seats are part of what a majority pays for a vote it cannot take for granted. That is not romance. That is arithmetic.
You will hear that a vote for him is wasted. With four names on the ballot, the winner needs the most votes, not a majority, and the only wasted vote in Montana this fall is the one cast out of fear. One vote in a race like this is not a gesture. It is a lever.
Do not take my word for any of this. Give him an hour. If the argument does not land, walk away. That is an honorable use of a free mind. What is not honorable is refusing the hour because a mailer already told you how the story ends.
A mailer is a splash. A man in a Missoula living room, making his case face to face, is a true Montana hatch. I know which one the wild trout that live in our state will rise to. True Montanans are smart, independent and wise. The wrong fly and a bad cast will never fool any fish – or anyone.
Ask yourself one question before you mark the ballot. How will you feel a year from now if Montana sent a true independent to Washington, and Washington had to deal with him because it could not deal around him? And how will you feel if you sent a man who never had to earn your vote into a chamber where he will never have to earn anyone’s?
The parties will survive either result. What does not survive is the habit of giving away the one decision that is still entirely yours. I was born in this state. I intend to die in it. I am not handing my vote to a coronation.
Hear the man out. Then vote like the river is watching.
John Barrett was born in Red Lodge and lives in Missoula. He is a member of the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame and spent 25 years producing award-winning national outdoor and sports television.