Who’s electable, and who isn’t? Compare the life experiences and platforms of the Republican, Democrat and Libertarian candidates:
Ron Ehli (R) has been a member of the Hamilton Volunteer Fire Department for 23 years, and a small business owner for 28 years. He’s been married to his wife Laura for 30 years. He’s a solid Republican, a member of the community who wants to help reign in out of control spending and work to bring jobs back to Montana by reducing the tax burden.
Terry Moran (D) is a fourth-generation Montanan. She was a health educator for 14 years, teaching and advising individuals and families on health issues including smoking cessation, disease prevention, healthy lifestyle choices, babysitting and parenting classes. A stalwart Democrat, Terry has been married to Michael Moran, M.D., a family doctor at the Bitterroot Clinic, for 26 years.
James Pearson (L) is a recent transplant from southern California with no public service experience or apparent interest in holding political office until recently. A studio musician by trade, he claims to have worked with musicians such as Isaac Hayes and Edgar Winter, among others.
Here’s a man who, in the span of a few years living here, now believes all wolves in the Bitterroot are “criminals” that should be shot on sight, and who believes that manufacturing “charcoal” for burning in woodstoves is clean renewable energy that will rid the skies of pollution and bring jobs and economic security to the Bitterroot valley. He also claims to know some things about forestry because he recently composed the soundtrack to a movie about Montana forests. Which is perhaps why his grasp of local and state issues seems to derive mainly from the ample backsides of the resident equines on his 20 acre property south of Darby.
Ravalli Republic Candidate Forums (Videos): Watch Pearson look down his nose at the psychiatric profession, call taxes “a theft of our freedoms” and accuse wolves of “stealing our economy” and more.
News for Mr. Pearson: Taxes are the price of freedom. To paraphrase George W. Bush: “Freedom is not free.”
In any community there will always be a range of behavioral decency. Some people prefer the word morality, but morality is rife with disputed meanings. Decency has a broader, more recognizable understanding. At the bottom end of the range of behavioral decency are people who not only act selfishly, but deceptively, in ways that are harmful or injurious to others who have done them no harm, and may even do so as a form of enjoyment.
After our tentative friendship of a few years ended badly in 2009 with a remarkably passive-aggressive display of contempt for me, and for the Golden Rule, by Mr. Pearson, I can honestly say that I no longer trust or respect this man or his social and political motives—especially as a representative of the people of Montana House District 88.
