Know Your Democratic Candidates: Jon Tester Running for US Senate from Montana

Maybe it's due to my family's generations-long love of the great American west, but my favorite political ad of the 2006 election season is this one HERE for Jon Tester, Democratic candidate for the US Senate from Montana.

Tester's opponent is 3-term Republican Senator Conrad Burns, an Iraq War supporter who has the distinction of taking more ($150,000) from jailed felon Jack Abramoff than any other member of Congress.

Jon Tester, President of the Montana state Senate, is a natural leader with terrific, homegrown political skills honed in almost a decade of state politics. But don't let his modest decency and the country-trappings fool you: Tester is one smart leader and policy wonk, and an expert on renewable energy resources. He's adamant that the US must develop energy independence, and he calls the Iraq War "a mistake."

And the best news of all: internal Democratic Party polling out this morning shows Jon Tester leading incumbent Senator Conrad Burns by a margin of 49% to 42%.

Jon Tester is an intriguing person (he holds a music degree) who is variously described as a transformational leader... or as a slick populist farmboy and a liberal in a hayseed facade. (File that cliche under the "Real Farmers are Republicans" myth.)

Judge for yourself at my new article, Inside Profile of Jon Tester, 2006 Montana Democratic Candidate for US Senate.