Political Notebook - By Laura Lundquist

Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.

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Laura Lundquist is starting to become a regular on these pages. She is reliably skewed to the Left, and as such, when one reads her "news" reporting, the first question one must ask is, "Wow, I wonder if this is true?" Her writing has arrived at the point where whenever I see her byline, I automatically scan for whoppers, interpretive comments, and bias. Unfortunately, I am rarely disappointed.)
The biggest political happening locally last week was the state Republican convention, where simmering internal resentment was predicted to express itself in a struggle for party leadership.

Even if the divide in the state GOP hasn’t widened, it has deepened as moderates have strengthened their challenge to the more hard-line conservatives. (Her choice of words belies her personal position. Hard line means: Adamant, hard-boiled, hard-core, hard-nosed, inflexible, militant, stand pat, staunch, steadfast, stern, stiff, strict, unbending, uncompromising, ungiving, unyielding. So Ms. Lundquist shapes the presentation by her use of words in order to plant preconceptions in her readership.)
That hard-line faction usurped control during the 2013 Legislature, putting Art Wittich, Jeff Essman, Mark Blasdel and Gordon Vance in leadership positions formerly held by more moderate Republicans. (That is. Those moderate Republicans are more like normal people... you know, liberals. They' re more thoughtful, nuanced, flexible, accommodating. So, the reporter is conveying very specific information, which tells us more about her than it does about the story she's reporting. We know from a prior "news report" of hers that she, like most liberals, loves the moderate Republicans. And we know from editorials that her employers at the Bozeman Chronicle share similar predilections about the virtuous moderates.)

Moderates held onto some party leadership spots, but they too were challenged over the weekend.

Between the end of the Legislative session and the convention, both sides targeted each other in the media. They have also chosen labels to distinguish themselves from each other. The moderate group is the “Responsible Republicans,” while the hard-liners are the “True Republicans.”

Moderates tend to be “big-tent” Republicans, more tolerant of a range of views and more willing to give ground on some issues to gain on others. The hard-liners are less compromising on what they define as Republican ideals. (Ahh, see? Terms that she has assigned ["moderate," "hardliners"] are assumed to be accurate monikers and as such now receive their definitions. This is how supposed "straight news" gets manipulated. Implicit in this view is the idea that compromise is a good and desirable thing. We can see how these kinds of underlying assumptions color the presentation. It just so happens that Ms. Lundquist is a little less elegant in her obfuscation than the more practiced national media.)

For example, in an “either you’re with us or against us” vein, (Oooh, a reference to the statement of George W. Bush which was roundly mocked by the Left, and even by Star Wars. It's a self-evident trope of the left that demonstrates narrow-mindedness, unthinking conformity, and lack of intelligence.) former Whitefish representative Derrick Skees recently suggested that Republicans who don’t uphold “party principles” should receive no support in elections and should even be targeted for defeat, according to the Billings Gazette. He said party members should rate each other on their adherence to principles, although he offered no suggestions for deciding which principles should rule. (This little caveat carved out by Ms. Lundquist is negated by her previous sentence. Mr. Skees was just quoted as saying "party principles." Does not Ms. Lundquist read what she writes? Those principles are not hard to locate. If you have political aspirations and you do not agree to the principles of the party you wish to associate with, then you are not that party. Seems simple enough.)

Party moderates, such as Bruce Tutvedt of Kalispell and Llew Jones of Conrad, said Skees’ proposal amounts to a “purity list” that would divide and harm the Republican Party, the Gazette reported. (Ms. Lundquist, since you seemed to have talked to these two moderates, did you happen to ask them which Republican party principles they disagreed with? Did they offer "no suggestions for which principles" should be abandoned?)

Aware that their battles are playing out in the public eye, Republicans may have negotiated an agreement on who should lead before the convention election, for when the dust settled, incumbent Chairman Will Deschamps kept his job, having received more than 50 percent of the vote.

Laura Lundquist can be reached at llundquist@dailychronicle.com or 582-2638.