Rediscovering home: Of mice and elections

No one reports enjoying the campaign flyers, mostly generated out of state, flooding our mail boxes.

“Will the real Curtis Cochran please stand up?”  The line comes from the old game show, “What’s My Line?” If State Rep. Curtis Cochran, who is running for re-election here, was on the show, he would sit on a panel along with two impostors claiming the same name. Celebrities would, after hearing a short story about him, question him and two impostors on a panel, trying to determine the real Curtis Cochran. At the end of the show, the moderator asks the real person to please stand up. 

As is typical with nearly all races, the mail box is littered with flyers both pro and con about Cochran. So, when I saw Cochran recently, I teased that I did not know the real Curtis Cochran. The mailers depict him as either the devil or an angel. 

Cochran retorted, “And that wasn’t even me. It’s a doctor out of California.” 

He was referring to the attack ads by the School Freedom Fund, which lists a Washington, D.C. address. Such ads normally include a dark, black-and-white photograph, with high contrast to bring out the lines creasing the candidate’s face.   

When one of the mailers arrived, I noticed the photo of Cochran looked odd, but I thought, “That is what they do with these dark photos.” I then followed my practice of tossing the mailer in the recycle bin. Others were more observant. Rep. Cochran said he has “heard from quite a few folks that know me and obviously recognized that the photo in those flyers was not me. “ 

The internet revealed that Dr. Curtis Cochran of California is not a medical doctor, but has a PhD and is a business consultant and motivational speaker. The photograph of California Cochran used in the flyers appears to be one from his Facebook page.  

I called California Cochran, left a message and he called back immediately. He had not known about the use of his photograph. He was astounded. I sent him a picture of one of the ads. He thanked me for notifying him and said he would have his attorney look into it. He indicated he planned to direct the Fund to stop using his photograph.   

The first photo of the flyer I sent him had only half his face. Then I noticed there had been a second flyer chucked in the recycling.  It had California Cochran’s full face. His response to the second flyer, “Wow!”  And a third mailer with his face appeared in the mailbox Saturday. I did not send that one to him. I can understand his consternation about the use of his photograph to make the Montana Cochran look sinister.  

The School Freedom Fund is a so-called Political Committee under federal law. They cannot be affiliated or coordinated with campaigns or candidates. The Fund has been largely financed, at least recently, by Jim Yass, who contributed $15 million since June of 2025.  Yass is a “cofounder of Susquehanna International Group, one of Wall Street's largest and most successful trading firms,” according to Forbes Magazine. The firm “invested in hundreds of private companies globally, including TikTok parent ByteDance, its most valuable holding based on Forbes reporting.” Yass contributed the bulk of the fundraising by the Fund. 

Federal law does not require that entities like the Fund report their contributors, but their solicitations must include the following statement or another statement with the same information: “To comply with Federal law, we must use best efforts to obtain, maintain, and submit the name, mailing address, occupation and name of employer of individuals whose contributions exceed $200 per calendar year.”

If the informaion is not provided with a contribution, the entity has 30 days to request it again. The entities are required to provide the information if they or related organization has acquired it in other ways.

Because contributors are free not to provide the information, so-called “dark money” can become involved in an election. The tactics have seeped down to state legislative races, even in less populated states like Montana. 

Apparently, the designers of the ads were not familiar enough with the Montana Cochran to even know they used a photograph of the wrong Cochran. In Montana and Mineral County, we can get to know our representatives personally.  We can gauge them ourselves. 

These mailers are about as welcome as the mice that have pestered our home this spring. We need an old barn cat like our family’s “Tiger,” while I was young. (Yes, given the Moats propensity to use obvious names, he was a yellow tabby.) He lived a long time and caught many mice between trips to the old dump across the highway to fight other toms. We could hear the screeches at night. He came back one morning with his left front paw hanging by a thread. The paw was a goner for sure, but his amazing recuperative powers proved otherwise. 

Well, we have to be our own “Tigers” when it comes to elections. We must not let the mice roam free, but, instead, do the work to get to know these local candidates. Read their information, attend their gatherings, send emails, ask questions, attend debates. Democracies depend on an informed and active citizenry.  

As Benjamin Franklin said when asked what kind of government the Constitution established, “A Republic, if we can keep it.”