By DAVID REESE

They say a golf course is a great place to learn about a person.

Maybe that’s why golfing is popular among business men. On a golf course, where your score is left mostly to your own honesty, you do learn about the other people you’re golfing with. But I’ve felt that elk hunting would be a better place to learn about a person. In the cold, wild frontier of the forest you are left to your own devices and creativity.

That’s why when I learned Monday that potential Montana gubernatorial candidate Greg Gianforte was coming by the Bigfork Eagle office, I thought about elk hunting. Because, you see, I figured that Gianforte was another one of those wealthy out of staters (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) who made it big in Montana and now wanted to turn his wealth, attention and expertise toward leading our state government. So I figured I would see if he could pass my elk camp litmus test. 

In case you didn’t know, Gianforte built his former company, RightNow Technologies, from the ground up, “in a second bedroom office” in Bozeman, then sold it to behemoth Oracle for $2 billion. I figured Gianforte was Montana’s version of The Donald, who would lead us from our own ignorance toward a state of bliss and prosperity, and from 49th in the nation in wages. I figured if this guy Gianforte was someone I could hang out with in elk camp for a week, maybe I could learn to like him — or vote for him.

So, he showed up at my office at the Eagle, and we had a nice chat.

Employment, wages, the tribal water compact, stuff like that. I didn’t ask about the flap over his stance against the anti-discrimination policy in Bozeman, or his comment that “retirement was never mentioned in the Bible.”

It was clear that Gianforte knew very little about the water compact passed last year between the Legislature and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. He said he likes to put “smart people” around him to help him make tough decisions, and he was honest enough to tell me he really was not up to speed on the compact, saying that it was a policy decision he didn’t have to make.

Oh, Greg.

But you will. That compact issue, and the issue of tribal sovereignty, as well as Kerr Dam management, are not going away, and Montana’s top politician is certainly going to need to form an opinion on these critical issues.

Gianforte has not thrown his entire hat into the ring for the Montana governor’s race. He’s only signed on so far as an “exploratory candidate,” but he’ll have to decide in the next two months if he’s going to mount a full-fledged campaign. Meanwhile, he’s touring the state to promote his “Boostrapping Your Business” book, as well as his “Come Home to Montana” campaign in which he’s trying to entice Montana expatriates to return to Montana, and bring their high-paying jobs with them. I think if Gianforte is going to run his campaign on a “more jobs less taxes” platform, he’s going to have to do more than mail out 18,000 colorful brochures to former Montana State University grads (U of M wouldn’t give him their mailing list). His idea does have merit. But it’s not going to bring Montana back to the heydays of the 1970s when mills and mines were flush and Montana actually had an economy.

After an hour of shooting the breeze with Gianforte I realized he just might have the backbone to be governor. Or at least run for it. He’s got charisma, good ideas, and seems to be willing to listen to others’ ideas. Then came the $20,000 gotcha question. “So did you get your elk this year?” I asked him, wondering where this would go.

“Did I,” he said, and showed me a photo on his phone of the bull elk he shot (on private land) near Clyde Park, Mont., this fall. He also told me he has eight species of game meat in his freezer right at this moment. 

Now I don’t know what it would be like to hang out with Gianforte in elk camp, but at least he has his priorities in the right place.