Montana proving a head scratcher.

The Republic Square Senate handicap returns this week as we preview another fiercely contested Senate Race: Montana. Incumbent Republican Conrad Burns faces a strong challenge from State Senate President Jon Tester. Burns is no stranger to close races, having barely bested now-Governor Brian Schweitzer in 2000.

To be perfectly frank, the minds here at TRS are having a hard time pegging the nature of this race. Burns has been tainted by his connections to Jack Abramoff, his several verbal gaffes, the perception that he might becoming too old and disinterested to represent the state. Tester leads in virtually all polls to date, but there has not been much movement either way.

Montana is quite possibly the reddest of the red states, a state, while being the setting for Brokeback Mountain, did not buy many tickets to actually see the film. President Bush is still popular with Montanans who gave him one of his largest margins of victory in 2004. Burns has recently become more vocal in his support for the current policy in Iraq. This kind of tactic flies in the face of virtually every other Republican candidate in the country this year, which leads us at TRS to believe that internally the Burns people view this a good strategy. Without a strong base of support for the war in Montana, in the estimation of the incumbent's campaign, such a strong endorsement of the war would be nearly suicidal.

Tester's plan for victory seems to mirror that which sent Schweitzer to Helena in 2004. Schweitzer ran as a non-partisan good guy (with a GOP Lt. Governor, no less) in the wake of a disastrously unpopular Judy Martz. Schweitzer was widely seen as a known quantity due to his aforementioned loss to Burns in 2000, a strength that Tester does not share. It is certain though that Tester will receive plenty of support from Schweitzer throughout the campaign.

Montana has forgiven Burns many times for his tendency to be, ahem, less than sensitive. Tester has to overcome a vast numerical disadvantage as well as Bush's lingering popularity in Montana. It will be interesting to see if this race becomes a proxy battle between Bush's popularity and Schweitzer's, or whether or not Burns has one last comeback in him. The most striking characteristic in this race from the TRS perspective is the virtual lack of movement in the polls to this point. It would seem that this is a race where one event could change the dynamics so much that the campaign becomes a slam dunk.

Until that dynamic shifts, TRS maintains that Montana remains a tossup.