The second to last time that Pat Collins and I really communicated was on the escalator of the Gand Hyatt Hotel in Washington DC. We were looking out over a sea of white banquet tables, the result of  his handiwork. He laughingly called his venue, “The scene of the crime.” After being a devoted follower of Ronald Reagan, even serving as the staff person advising Reagan’s Kitchen Cabinet during their review of Presidential appointments, he had adjusted his politics a notch, downward in his view, to organize a major political fund-raising dinner for Republican Presidential candidate George H.W.Bush. That was in the Spring of 1992, when I had just decided to not run for my fourth 4-year term as a Democrat on the Montana Public Service Commission. On the escalator going up to the street level I told my friend of more than 30 years, “I’m getting out of politics.”

He didn’t laugh with an, “Oh, Sure,” but took me seriously and asked, “Why?”

“I’ve never understood the money.”

Then as a hardened manager of many Republican political campaigns he amazed me by saying, “You know, neither have I.”

We had our last conversation a few minutes later in the back of a DC cab. He was dropping me off at The Harrington Hotel. Our exchange was hard and true. “Pat, I think you’ve had a stroke.” Holding his right arm he asked, “You really think so?”

“You’d better see a doctor.” I read his obituary the next Spring.

During my tours of duty at the Pentagon, on some Memorial Days, I’d look up the name of Sergeant David Vallance, our Hamilton High School fullback, on the Vietnam Memorial Wall. I’d then cross the river to Arlington National Cemetery to visit Pat’s grave, there not because he served in Vietnam but because he served for a while as Secretary of Energy. I’d also stop at the plain marble headstone for Michael Joseph Mansfield, PFC USMC, Montana. Each in their respective year died on the same day. Even that seems more important than money.

Mike Mansfield’s last general election campaign cost $100,000. John Tester’s last general election campaign cost mind-boggling millions of dollars. Now there will be no primary contest to select a Republican challenger to John Tester because Matt Rosendale says he “lacks resources.” He really means that his hand-picked opponent, Tim Sheehy, has behind him both the bottomless coffers of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, led by Trump apologist Steve Daines, and the high plains grifter himself, Donald Trump. If Montana voters give their power to money, the next election of a U.S. Senator from Montana will be a mirage of a free election, vanished.

Today I feel a little wiser than I did that night on the escalator in the Grand Hyatt. As I see intelligent men and women of the Republicans Party crowd inexplicably together behind an American Fascist, I know the secret sauce that binds them  is the money, or rather the fear of not having enough money, or rather the fear of not having the power that generally seems to come with all the money. The one way to break that spell is to choose candidates, Republican or Democrat, who treat campaign money as irrelevant, rather than with reverence. Retain your personal power to discern candidates who retain their personal power to be able to serve the common good.

My wife and I have given our $100 to John Tester’s campaign because we feel he’s done a good job and we want to do our small part to help his effort. This young fellow, Tim Sheehy, seems interesting enough and I’m glad he and his family have settled in Montana. Our generation has taken good care of this place and hope theirs will, as well. Roight now, though, I think Mr. Sheehy has a lot to learn. I remember some people saying about me when I first ran for the U.S. Senate as a 31-year old House Speaker. They were right.

What really bugs me now is the entry about myself as an ancient political figure in Wikipedia. No matter how hard I’ve tried to convince the Wikipedia curators that I’m no longer a Republican, they refuse to change the entry. So, as far as posterity is concerned, I’m still a Republican, which at this point in my life’s voyage  I most certainly am not. Pat Collins used to joke and call me as a “Pinko Commie.” Well, I’m not kidding. Republicans in America, as devotees of Donald Trump, really are Fascists. To preserve my self-respect as an Anti-Fascist and my reputation among future generations, I may decide to file again for some high office as a Democrat.