“Whether it’s Montana Hunters and Anglers or (the conservative super PAC) American Crossroads, they are not responsive to the grassroots,” Greenwood said. “These are the professionals and the money men who are not responsive at all to people. The system as it is now does not reflect what people want.”
Besides picking between Tester and Rehberg, Montanans got a chance in this election to say how they want the system to work. On the ballot was an initiative u2014 largely symbolic in light of recent court decisions u2014 that declared that corporations are not human beings and banned corporate money in politics.
Gov. Schweitzer, a Democrat, and Bertelsen, the former Republican secretary of state, campaigned for the initiative. In a shocker for backers, almost 75 percent of voters supported it.
“I realized it absolutely didn’t have any legal basis to do anything dramatic,” said Bertelsen, who is 94. “But it’s a case of saying, ‘We don’t like it.’ I guess we could just sit down and not say a word. But the Supreme Court u2014 I think they made a mistake. Money isn’t speech, anyhow. It’s just money.”
Correction (12/27): This story originally said that the libertarian candidate Dan Cox picked up more votes than any other libertarian on the Montana ballot. He actually picked up more votes than any other libertarian in a competitive race on the Montana ballot.
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