Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) is hitting the airwaves early in his bid for a sixth term, with radio and TV ads highlighting his role as Senate Finance Committee chairman in the crafting of recent legislation to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), and criticizing President Bush for his expected veto of the bill:

The commercial features the image of Abigail Tuhy, one of "14,000 Montana kids who count on the Children's Health Insurance Program."

"I'm so disappointed that President Bush decided to veto my bill, because we can cover those 14,000 kids like Abigail for a year for what we spend in Iraq in a day," Baucus says.

Remember Mike Lange? He's perhaps best known for his rant against Dem Governor Brian Schweitzer during a GOP caucus meeting, an episode that got him pushed out as a State House leader in Montana. The expletive-filled speech turned Lange into a blogosphere and YouTube phenomenon.

Well, guess what -- Mike Lange is back! And this time, he may be running for the Senate!

From the Great Falls Tribune:

HELENA — Ousted House Majority Leader Mike Lange apparently has no intention of going quietly into the good night.

Lange, whose obscenity-laced screed against Gov. Brian Schweitzer during the legislative session is a YouTube feature, has apologized once again for his outburst — not at all coincidentally just before the state Republican Party convention here, where he expects to announce that he's running either for governor or U.S. Senate.

For good time's sake, here's the YouTube of his tirade:

Incidentally, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has already released a statement with a short history of his "bizarre" career.

CQ has the rundown on the GOP's travails in Montana, where one after another of the viable GOP challengers to Dem Senator Max Baucus are proving unable or unwilling to make the race:

* Republican Michael Lange, the former majority leader of the Montana House, was considered a choice to go afer Baucus -- until he unleashed a tirade about Montana Dem Governor Brian Schweitzer that got him bounced from the House leadership.

* Four-term at-large Rep. Denny Rehberg is another top potential GOP recruit because he ran a good race against Baucus in 1996, losing by just 5 points. But he is "said to be resisting GOP efforts to draft him into the race," CQ reports.

* Finally, two other GOPers who have been floated as potential challengers -- technology billionaire Thomas Siebel and tech executive Steve Daines -- both told CQ that they're not interested in the race.

Because Montana leans conservative and usually votes Republican, giving President Bush 59% of the vote in 2004, Baucus can never be declared completely safe. But right now he's looking pretty comfortable.

Dems will control both Houses of Congress. According to MSNBC, the Associated Press is reporting that Conrad Burns has conceded the Montana Senate race to Senator-elect Jon Tester. Virginia Senator George Allen is expected to do the same at 3 P.M. today. From the New York Times:

Senator George Allen is expected to concede his re-election campaign against his Democratic challenger, Jim Webb, later this afternoon, according to two Republicans connected to the Allen campaign...

Many election analysts concluded that Senator Allen was unlikely to close the roughly 7,000 vote margin separating him from Mr. Webb, who has already claimed victory. And the Associated Press, a widely accepted authority for calling elections, agreed on Wednesday with Mr. Webb, declaring Mr. Allen, a Republican, the loser. A Webb victory gives the Democrats control of the Senate, with 51 seats.

A senior Allen adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity said on Wednesday that if the margin did not narrow significantly, Mr. Allen would not challenge the result.

It's just about over.

And then there was one? The MSNBC, the Associated Press, and the Billings Gazette are all calling the Montana Senate race for Dem Jon Tester. Tester will give his victory speech at 11 a.m. Mountain Time, according to the Gazette. His current lead is now beyond even the 0.5% margin under which the Burns campaign could opt to pay for a recount. Burns hasn't conceded, but if and when he gives up and makes that difficult congratulatory call to Tester, that will leave one last GOP Senator — George Allen — between Dems and control of the Senate.

Update: The Times calls it for Tester, too.

Election Central just spoke with Bowen Greenwood, communications director for the Secretary of State's office in Montana, and we got a quick primer on Montana's recount law. If the margin is within 0.25% — Tester's current lead is higher than this, at 0.43% — the losing candidate can request a state-paid recount. If the gap is above 0.25% and less than 0.50%, as with Burns's current gap, the Burns campaign could post a bond to pay the full cost of a recount, which would be refunded if they won and forfeited if they lost.

According to the Washington Post, the recount law in Virginia is similar, but the threshholds are different — a state-paid recount is provided for a margin of less than 0.5%, while a candidate can post a bond and request a recount if the margin is less than 1%.

Here's a statement just out from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on the Montana and Virginia races:

Both Jon Tester and Jim Webb have won their races in Montana and Virginia but want to make sure that every vote is counted. We expect to have official results soon but can happily declare today that Democrats have taken the majority in the U.S. Senate.

Notes on the situation and process below... 

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Some new numbers out of Montana this morning: With 96% of precincts in, Jon Tester is clinging to the narrowest of leads — 1,556 votes. Still remaining to be counted: About two-thirds of remaining ballots in Gallatin County, where Burns looks to have a slim to nonexistent lead, as well as a meager six percent of precincts in Yellowstone County, where Burns appears to be narrowly ahead. There is also one rural county, Meagher, which has not reported any ballots as of yet. In other words: We may be looking at a Montana recount. As if Virginia weren't enough.

Update: With 99% of precincts reporting, including all of Gallatin County, Tester's lead over Burns has now crept up to 1,586 votes.

A glance at PM election stories shows voters are coming out in record numbers, at least in states with tight races:

Virginia: "A state elections official says reports from around Virginia early Tuesday indicated an extraordinarily high turnout for a midterm election- with perhaps 65 percent of registered voters expected to cast ballots. That would double the midterm turnout in 2002." (AP)

Missouri: "Election officials raced across St. Louis to deliver additional voting machines as exceptionally high turnout at many polling places led to long lines and short tempers. . . . 'We've never had this kind of turnout -- ever,' St. Louis Board of Election Supervisors Matt Potter said[.]" (WSJ)

Montana: “'The line for late registration is a good hour wait,' Missoula County Clerk and Recorder Vickie Zeier said at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday. 'There are so many people, it’s unbelievable.' . . . Elsewhere in Missoula County, polling places were reporting heavy traffic." (Missoulian)

Tennessee : "Even in rainy Tennessee, officials are noting a nearly 50 percent jump in turnout over the 2002 midterms." (AP)

The campaign of GOP Senator Conrad Burns had a curious reaction to a local paper's decision to write an article about a poll showing Burns down: It lashed back at the newspaper, yanking its credentials to cover Burns' election night event. Making matters even stranger, the paper, the Great Falls Tribune, hadn't even comissioned the poll. It was done by U.S.A. Today and found Dem Jon Tester leading Burns 50%-41%. The paper simply wrote a story about it. But a Burns spokesman defended the punishment: ""Running a bogus poll on the day before an election to try and suppress Republican voter turnout is irresponsible," he said. More after the jump.

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Dem Jon Tester -- complete with flattop haircut, wide grin, and hunting gun -- offers his closer: "I'll always do my best to make Montana proud -- because the fact is, right here, right now, we need Washington to look a lot more like Montana. I ask for your vote on Tuesday."

Yesterday's Gallup poll shows Tester leading GOP incumbent Conrad Burns by nine points -- 50%-41% -- though the race has tightened considerably in recent days.

This one's a must-see: A new ad is running on local stations in Montana attacking Dem Jon Tester as a member of the "Brokebank Democrats." And just in case you missed the subtle implications of this tag, the ad continues: "They just can't fight their nature." The ad displays the opening credits to a mock movie version of "Brokebank Democrats," telling us that the flick stars "Jon `the taxer' Tester" and warns of higher taxes should "Brokebank Democrats" take over. The ad was paid for by the Free Enterprise Fund, which incidentally also produced this equally subtle ad recently "spoofing" Italian Americans. FEC filings show the FEF is bankrolled almost entirely by Swift Boat Vets funder and reclusive mogul Bob Perry. Don't miss it -- watch it here.

Update: We just checked in with FEF spokesperson Todd Schorle, and he told us that the "nature" the ad was referring to in "Brokebank Democrats" was Dems' tax-hiking proclivities: "They can’t help their nature of being high taxers," Schorle says.

With the battle for control of the Senate intensifying its focus on a handful of contests, CQ Politics has declared that the Montana race is now less a dead-heat and more a likely Dem pickup, changing its rating of the race between GOP incumbent Conrad Burns and Dem Jon Tester from "No Clear Favorite" to "Leans Democratic":

Tester, an organic farmer and president of the Montana Senate, leads Burns by 7 percentage points, 48 percent to 41 percent, in an average of the past five independent polls.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), meanwhile, was focusing a significant amount of money on the ad wars in the final weeks. The party’s national Senate campaign committee spent $2 million on the race over the election cycle, $1.5 million of which was spent just since Sept. 30.

The DSCC’s partisan counterpart, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, meanwhile, was staying out of the independent expenditures arena, although it donated $37,000 to Burns’ campaign in March 2005.

Republicans have made much of MoveOn’s intervention in an effort to portray Tester as out of the Montana mainstream. But Tester’s country-boy manner, complete with flattop haircut and big belly, have made it hard to portray him as a left-wing extremist.

The most recent polls on the race are here.

The Weekly Standard, a DC-based neoconservative magazine, published an early political obituary for GOP Senator Conrad Burns this week, in the form of a glowing profile of Democratic opponent Jon Tester. The piece confirms speculation that beltway Republicans are very pessimistic about the chances that Burns can stage a comeback, given his deficit in the polls. Tester dons the cover of the magazine in a dirty t-shirt shoveling into a huge truck over the headline: "The New Face of the Democratic Party?" (Details after the break.)

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It looks like national Republicans may be giving up on both GOP Senate candidate Mike McGavick and GOP Senator Conrad Burns. McClatchy Newspapers reports today that neither the NRSC nor the RNC have booked any ad time for McGavick. Meanwhile, today's Montana Missoulian says that the NRSC hasn't spent a cent on ads for Burns since August 7. Not surprisingly, the NRSC in both cases denied giving up on its candidates.

GOP Senator Conrad Burns is claiming that President Bush has a plan for Iraq but that he isn't willing to reveal it. The Billings-Gazette reports today that Burns made the remark at a debate with Dem challenger Jon Tester yesterday. The paper says that Burns said of Tester (emphasis added): “He says our president don’t have a plan. I think he’s got one. He’s not going to tell everyone in the world." And when Tester observed that there was no plan, Burns replied: "We’re not going to tell you what our plan is, Jon, because you’re just going to go out and blow it." More after the jump.

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Check out the latest attack ad from sinking GOP Senator Conrad Burns: It slams Dem challenger Jon Tester for his ties to "radicals" and "extremists." Who are these radicals and extremists? For one thing, the ad attacks Tester for taking campaign donations steered his way by...the people at Daily Kos. It also attacks Tester for being supported by the "radicals" at the Council for a Livable World, a think tank opposed to the Iraq war which regularly supports Republicans and whose board includes former national security officials and military officers.

The Billings Gazette has a bracing fact-check of the ad here. More after the jump.

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Dem Senate candidate Jon Tester has just released a blistering, must-see new ad blasting GOP Senator Conrad Burns for criticizing his call for a repeal of the Patriot Act. It's noteworthy because Tester's unabashedly slamming the Act, in complete defiance of all the pundits who have told us again and again that Dems will suffer severe political setbacks if they dare question it. The ad notes that the Act allows the government to search "our" bank accounts and medical records, then concludes: "When you see Senator Burns attack Jon Tester, ask him: `Why do you think we're the enemy? Where's Osama Bin Laden? And when did you get so out of touch with Montana?'" Don't miss this one -- view it here.

At a debate last weekend, Dem Senate candidate Jon Tester flatly declared that he wanted to "repeal" the Patriot Act -- a sign of how much things have shifted in Montana, which Bush carried by a sizeable majority in 2004. Now GOP Senator Conrad Burns has released an attack ad blasting his position. While throbbing and scary music plays in the background, the ad shows images of wanted posters of terrorists alternating with Tester saying "repeal" again and again. We'll see how it plays in a state where the legislature passed a resolution with overwhelming bipartisan support criticizing the act. View the ad here.

Democratic candidate Jon Tester was unapologetic in his opposition to the Patriot Act during a debate yesterday with Montana Senator Conrad Burns on Sunday. Responding to Burns' accusation that he would "weaken" the Act, Tester declared: "Let me be clear, I don't want to weaken the Patriot Act, I want to repeal it." When Burns tried to tie Tester to pro-gun control DSCC Chair Charles Schumer, Tester snapped back: "With things like the Patriot Act, we'd damn well better keep our guns."

Tester offered a vigorous defense of civil liberties at a time of war that shouldn't be missed. Watch the video below (starting at minutes six), or read the text below the fold.

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Care of Intelligent Discontent, a great Montana blog, you can watch the entirety of yesterday's Montana Senate debate on YouTube.

FIX YOUTUBE

Intelligent Discontent has linked to the Montana Senate Debate that occured between GOP incumbent Conrand Burns and Democratic challenger Jon Tester in Butte yesterday. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube.

In an "Ad Watch" feature on Friday, the Montana Billings Gazette pointed out that the DSCC's new ad attacking Burns for corruption actually understates its own case. The ad notes that Burns has taken "almost $500,000 from Bil Oil and Gas" while voting in their favor. In fact, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, he's taken $551,000.

A candidate so corrupt that even the opposition understates the problem? I bet that doesn't happen much.

Watch the ad below. [Tip from 4&20 Blackbirds]