Montana Legend Rob Quist Befuddles DC Republicans
NRCC Entirely Unprepared for Dem Nominee in Statewide Special Election
Out here in Montana, the conversation has been a helluva lot different than back east. But just like in Washington, DC, everyone in Montana has spent the last 24 hours talking about the surprise nomination of rancher, musician, and Montana legend Rob Quist for US Congress.
The gulf between Montanans and DC is so expansive that the Republican congressional campaign arm has been furiously repeating the exact same message as the Democratic Party nominee.
Obviously, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) was caught off guard. I image every Republican operative in DC spent yesterday afternoon furiously screaming, “YOU SAID THEY’D NOMINATE CURTIS? WE WERE JUST GOING TO USE SAME FROM LAST TIME!”
When the NRCC had nothing tee’d up on Rob Quist, they panicked and made a huge blunder by accidentally reinforcing the other side’s storyline.
I get the panicking, but within 30 seconds of googling, one learns Rob Quist helped win the Guinness Book of World Records title for the world’s largest kegger. When oppo is in the Guinness Book of World Records, there’s really no excuse for compounding panic by also failing in the first minute of research.
The confusion has been absolutely hilarious. Montana really is a long way away from DC and seldom has that been more apparent.
Stand in just about any group of Montanans, mention the name of the Democratic Party nominee, and one is almost guaranteed to hear the words, “I have the best Rob Quist story, it was way back in …”
Today must have been a fascinating as DC Republicans finally googled the Mission Mountain Wood Band.
I grew up out here in Montana, but I’ve been unfortunate enough to live back east. While I’m not fluent, maybe I can successfully translate some of the necessary context for understand such a bizarre political situation. Hopefully these answers will provide some insight into the questions everyone is wondering.
There Was A Tragic Plane Crash?
Unfortunately, yes. The thirty year anniversary is only weeks after election day. Rob Quist had left the Montana Band earlier, but his buddies were among the 10 who died. The plane failed to negotiate a flyby of the party the band had just played — the worst private plane crash in Montana history was visible to almost everyone enjoying Independence Day weekend on Flathead Lake. To this day, Montanans get choked up when discussing the tragedy. That this is the thirty year anniversary will add a layer to the campaign that is tough to describe, but will hang over the race. In a 2009 Montana PBS retrospective documentary the reverence was described as, “their rousing mix of music defied category, generations, social strata — even the contentious politics of the times.”
Aber Day Kegger and the Guinness Book of World Records?
Montana has always been a rowdy state, but the famous Aber Day Kegger is the undisputed title-holder when it comes to Montana parties. And yes, it did make Guinness Book of World Records. The thing about Rob Quist, most of the legends are actually true. There’s a different Montana PBS documentary just on this kegger. Imagine the logistics of getting over 1,000 kegs of beer to Missoula back in the 1970s. It was such a massive undertaking it caused a regional beer shortage that people who lived in neighboring states still complain about.
Is “M2WB” a Gang Sign?
Not exactly. The easiest way to understand #M2WB is to think of a hashtag, but in 1970s Montana. Throwing a 10,000 person kegger — in a town of 30,000 people — was no easy task back before the internet. Sure, a lot of the pickups had CBs, but the outreach was mainly phone and print (including graffiti). M2WB was basically an analog hashtag. The internet is no place to judge the old school methods they pioneered back in the day. The turnout model was so successful it set a world record…they did the right thing at the right time and it worked.
Can Rob Quist Win the Montana Special Election?
Rob Quist can put on a great show, he’s Rob Quist. So it’s worth watching even if it weren’t the only statewide congressional special election in 2017. It could be very interesting. The Mission Mountain Wood Band is renowned because they united everyone, everywhere they went. They bridged the cowboy-hippie divide in every town in Montana, year after year…decade after decade. Rob Quist isn’t just a musician, he’s a rancher. Crossing all the divides was the whole point — everyone came and put aside everything to have a great time with music that demanded movement.
They had a hashtag in the 1970s. The world’s largest kegger was small-dollar fundraising scaled all of the way up.
The organizing relationships go back decades, with amazing geographic distribution across Montana. Long-time Montana politics reporter Mike Dennison explained how the organizing relationships and geographic distribution helped win the congressional nomination, “Quist has never run for public office before, but has been barnstorming the state in recent weeks, encouraging local Democrats to form central committees in counties without one, and them urging those new members to come to the convention to support him.” Old school organizing in all the forgotten places.
No matter what, it’s going to be a race watched nationwide:
