Local Democrats in West fear impact of unpopular ticket leader

[ariesgem]

BOZEMAN, MONT. -- Election day was still more than a year off when Sen. Max Baucus recently stopped by the new Boys & Girls Club along a creek outside this fast-growing city in the shadow of southwestern Montana's jagged Bridger Mountains.

But the silver-haired Democrat looked every bit a candidate in a nail-biter as he finger-painted with children at the log-cabin clubhouse and then raced 100 miles down the Missouri River to the state capital to talk up what he was doing for the state in Washington.

Baucus is the longest-serving senator in Montana history. As chairman of the finance committee, he writes the nation's tax laws. He is one of the most popular politicians in the state. And his party, which controls the governor's office, the Legislature and the state's two Senate seats, is on a roll.

Yet, as he prepares to run for a fifth term next year, Baucus is entering treacherous territory. Despite recent gains by Democrats in the Rocky Mountain West, party officials across the region are increasingly anxious that their congressional candidates may get dragged under by Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign.

The New York senator and Democratic front-runner was by a wide margin the most unpopular of 13 potential presidential candidates in Montana, according to a June survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research for the Billings Gazette; 61% said they would not consider voting for her, compared with 49% who would not vote for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and 45% who would not vote for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. The most unpopular Republican candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, was rejected by 51%.

Recent polls in Colorado, Nevada and Arizona have found similar distaste for Clinton.

"She's carrying huge negatives out here," said Floyd Ciruli, an independent Colorado pollster who said Democratic congressional candidates would have to highlight their differences with the national party to be successful next year. "It's that liberal East Coast image that is so hard to sell in the West."

One key advisor to a prominent Democratic congressional candidate, who asked not be to identified discussing tensions within the party, went even further. "It's a disaster for Western Democrats," he said. "It keeps me up at night."

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In Arizona, where Democrats hope to pick up at least one congressional seat next year, 37% of the respondents in a recent Cronkite/Eight Poll said they would never vote for Clinton; 3% said they would never vote for Obama. Opposition to Clinton was strongest among Republicans, but a third of independents, who were crucial to many Democratic congressional victories in 2006, said they would never vote for the former first lady. Clinton's unfavorable ratings also far outpaced other Democratic candidates in recent polls in Nevada and Colorado, two states where Democrats hope to make gains next year.

In the past, some Democratic congressional candidates in the Mountain West have kept their distance from their party's presidential pick to underscore their independence. In 2004, Colorado Democrat Ken Salazar, a former prosecutor who won the state's open Senate seat that year, almost never appeared in public with Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, the party's presidential nominee.This campaign season will probably be no different.

Pollster Ciruli and others familiar with Colorado politics expect Rep. Mark Udall, the leading Democratic contender for the state's open Senate seat, to distance himself from Clinton, if she wins the nomination.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-montana30sep30,0,3323088,full.story?coll=la-home-center

[depakid]

1. And well they should-

Hillary would devastate us on the state and local level.

Oregon and Washington would kiss their democratic legislatures goodbye- and god only knows what far right ballot measures would end up passing.

[muntrv]

2. This is why I think the Democratic party should nominate Bill Richardson.

He's from New Mexico. Yeah, he's got flaws, but who doesn't?

[mitchtv]

3. Ooohhhh then I guess I'd better not

vote for Hillary???????

[Captain Hilts]

4. Dems will lose all three of MT's electoral college votes. Who needs NY? nt

[gateley]

5. The Hillary Factor. Again. It's so interesting to see polls vs polls -- many

with differing results.

I wonder how the race would be going if no polls were taken and comments such as these weren't published (pro or con) and just we the people could make up our minds based on our own reactions to the candidates rather than being influenced by outside sources.

[SimoneIA]

6. Hum

Sounds like we need to open up the Democratic primaries so Independents and Republicans can help select our candidates so they aren't so objectionable. Maybe even require that our candidates tote guns, hunt, speak with a southern accent, and have sex change operations if they are women.