Guest opinion: Party loyalty is not the same as principle

In his farewell address, George Washington warned that political factionalism was among the gravest threats to the republic. Parties, he said, tend to make loyalty to the group override the public good. Now, on the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, that warning has never felt more urgent — and nowhere more relevant than right here in Montana.

I am a lifelong Democrat and will remain so. I say that not as a badge but as context, because my position here does not come easily. After weighing the candidates, the political realities of this state and my basic principles, I am endorsing and will vote for Seth Bodnar for U.S. Senate.

Our Democratic nominee, Alani Bankhead, deserves genuine respect. She is a retired Air Force special agent who answered the call to serve once and is now answering it again. That commitment is admirable and she should be honored for it. She deserves and has earned every vote she will get. But Montana has voted for President Donald Trump three times by wide margins and supported deep-red candidates throughout much of the state for a decade. Honest assessment matters: a Democratic statewide candidate in this environment faces an extraordinarily steep climb. Wishing otherwise does not make it so.

The Republican nominee, Kurt Alme, has limited legislative experience. He has never run for election and how he came to be on this ballot speaks volumes. In the final minutes before the filing deadline incumbent Sen. Steve Daines withdrew and Alme stepped in simultaneously, with endorsements from Daines and Trump already written. Clearly, the Washington D.C. fix was in. Montana Republicans be damned; they were given no choice in this rigged process. Alme’s campaign now runs advertisements portraying him as a champion of public lands and health care — the very things the party and administration to whom he pledges total allegiance has weakened or threatened. Montanans are not easily fooled by that kind of D.C. manipulation.

Then there is Bodnar. West Point graduate. Rhodes Scholar. Army Special Forces veteran. Successful business leader. Eight years as president of the University of Montana. He is running as an independent because he believes — as Washington did — that Montana deserves a senator whose first loyalty is to this state, not to party bosses in Washington. He is a centrist who can work across the aisle, attract Republicans who resent the East Coast fix, and speak to the independent streak that has always defined Montana at its best. He is running as an independent because Montana deserves a senator whose first loyalty is to this state, not to party bosses.

When Alme’s loyalties are put to the test, to whom will he turn? The answer is clear from how he got here. He was placed on the ballot through the maneuvering of Daines, pre-endorsed by the president, beholden before he’s even elected.

Bodnar answers that question differently. He is appealing not to a party, only to the people of Montana. To whom will he owe his loyalty? Exactly them, and no one else.

Few Montanans believe that elected officials should vote a party line while ignoring the people they are to represent. Bodnar provides Montanans a concrete chance to do something different. A vote for Bodnar is not a vote against your party. It is a vote for your state — and for the idea that we are still capable of choosing leaders based on character and competence. Please make that choice.

Steve Barrett has practiced law in Montana for fifty years and served seven years on the Montana Board of Regents with two as chair.