By Roger Koopman

I wonder if it ever dawns on all those well-paid, city-bred consultants who come in to run most of Montana’s major campaigns, that nobody is listening anymore?  Oh, sure.  There are the political junkies, left and right, who thrive on the junk food of campaign advertising, doused with the vinegar of vitriol.  But for most folks, the noise of the election season has reached a decibel level that so numbs the ears, that the messages are no longer getting through.  We just want to be left alone to contemplate real ideas and real truths.

Clearly, it’s time to turn off the politicians and listen to ourselves.

Sure.  It’s fair play for a campaign to point out – honestly – the relevant record of opponent.  Tester, Zinke and Gianforte, for example, all have records that voters should closely examine. Their challengers have records, too.  Candidates have a responsibility to bring out important facts, and draw valid contrasts between themselves and their opponents.  But how much is true, and how much is hyperbole, exaggeration or outright falsehood? 

Voters have a responsibility to do their own research, check the websites of each candidate and draw their own fact-based conclusions about qualifications and fundamental beliefs.  Then get in touch with yourself.  Forget about the “popular political culture” around you, think for yourself and ask in the quiet of your own conscience, what do I truly believe?

Meanwhile, the campaigns will continue to grow more strident and intelligence-insulting.  If we succumb to the sheer volume of political noise, we will just be handing elections over to the ones whose collection of interest groups are the largest and have the most money.  For many decades, this is exactly what has resulted in the election of leftist radicals to what I now call the Montana Extreme Court.  Trial lawyer money flooded the airwaves and mailboxes, and voters didn’t do their own due diligence.  If we aren’t careful, the same thing will happen this time around, where the message of the moderate-to-conservative justice candidates Corey Swanson and Dan Wilson threatens to be obliterated by the liberal legal establishment.  

Personally, I approach the voting booth relying very little on the canned messages of the political campaigns.  Instead, I listen to myself.  I ask these kinds of questions about each candidate:

*  Do they reflect humility and a servanthood attitude?

*  Do they understand that government has constitutional limits, and the human possibilities under freedom and free markets are unlimited?  That government itself creates nothing?  Free people do the creating.

*  Do they understand that government is not a Department of Happiness?  It is a minister of justice.  We create our own happiness when left free.  Not when dependent on the “generosity” of politicians, who can give us nothing that isn’t first taken from someone else.

*  Do they understand that rights are God-given, not government bestowed?  They are non-negotiable.  Not for sale.

Of course, maybe you don’t believe these things.  Perhaps you like being directed, planned and controlled by your government.  Maybe you prefer being pampered and fed by your government, at your neighbor’s expense, rather than asserting personal responsibility for your own life.  Maybe, but I don’t think so.  Not really.  And I suspect you really don’t accept the meaning of “reproductive freedom” as the right to kill the innocent, as if the “new morality” requires putting “body” on higher ground than life itself.  I think you’ve had enough of all that selfishness.  You’re not buying it.   

So when you fill out your ballot, stop and listen to what your heart is telling you.  I’m guessing it still beats in rythym with America’s founders, and is proclaiming life (all life, including the smallest among us), liberty (freedom from injustice and government control), and pursuit of happiness (personal effort and individual responsibility.)  If you can find a Democrat candidate who advances those fundamental principles, please let me know.  I haven’t found one yet.  And yes, some Republicans, once in office, fail that test too.

Turn off the political noise.  Stop looking to government to give you something you didn’t earn, by taking it from someone who did.  Trust yourself.  Trust your neighbor.  Trust your freedom.  And vote accordingly.

A former Bozeman small businessman, Roger Koopman is president of Montana Conservative Alliance.  He served four years in the Montana House of Representatives and eight years as a Montana Public Service commissioner.