SOUTH OF ROUNDUP - Four hundred feet underground and three miles horizontally into Signal Peak Energy's coal mine, a top executive summons miners to meet Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
The miners gather around, clad in hardhats, jumpsuits and boots.
With workers' headlamps shining on him in the pitch-dark mine, Schweitzer tells them he's spent the past three and a half years traveling the country trying to interest a company in developing what's been the struggling Bull Mountain underground coal mine. It's had a long history of fits and starts, plagued with financial and environmental problems.
Many of the nation's major coal companies knew “this mine has the potential to become the most productive longwall mine in the country,” Schweitzer says. Yet they all passed on it because of the dispute over who owns what was formerly called the Bull Mountain Coal Mine.
Fortunately, Schweitzer says he was able to interest Wayne Boich Sr. and Wayne Boich Jr., who run Boich Cos., coal marketing and production businesses in Columbus, Ohio. They were able to figure it out.
Boich Cos. and FirstEnergy, an Ohio utility, have said they will invest
$450 million in this project, including construction of a 35-mile rail spur to link the coal mine with the BNSF Railway. Signal Peak Energy mine eventually will produce 13 million tons a year.
Schweitzer praises the Boich father and son and tells the miners, “So if you're a person who says a prayer, say a prayer for the Boich family.”
Earlier in the day, both Boichs meet up with Schweitzer.
On the drive to the mine, Wayne Boich Jr. lauds the governor. He tells how Schweitzer first met with his father and him in Los Angeles, then at his father's house in Columbus, Ohio. They talked about environmental and regulatory issues in Montana, and Schweitzer addressed them.
“With the governor's help, it turned into a good deal,” Boich Jr. says.
Schweitzer's opponent, Republican state Sen. Roy Brown, has accused the Democratic governor of talking a good game about energy development, while his anti-growth appointees to environmental boards and agencies devise ways to stop projects.
“I think that's absolutely untrue,” Boich Jr. says.
He says Boich Cos. wouldn't have invested in the coal mine here without the Schweitzer administration's assistance.
“They've been good to work with,” Boich Jr. says. “Everybody's very responsive. They're open, upfront and honest, and that's all you can ask for.”
As for Schweitzer, Boich Jr. says, “He's got a great personal touch. You really feel like you're welcome with open arms.”
Above all, Schweitzer is Montana's premier salesman. Never a desk jockey who enjoys refereeing bureaucratic turf wars, Schweitzer instead crisscrosses the country to lure energy and other businesses here.
“It's a little like when I've been in the bull business,” he tells a news conference in September releasing a Labor Day report on the economy. “You show a bull to somebody and you go through the record. You tell them, ‘Imagine the calves that you'll get from this bull.'
“That's the way you sell things. You've got to go out and make personal relationships with people. And sometimes you call them once, twice, three times, and you can't even get in the front door to see them. After you call them four and five times, you get in the front door to see them. After some more prodding, you get them to come out and take a look at your product. In our case, the product is Montana.”
To his critics, Schweitzer often grabs credit for others' accomplishments. They say he inherited an economy ready to boom because of tax cuts passed by Republicans.
“He likes to take credit for everything that happens,” Brown says. “The sun comes up this morning, and he takes credit.”
But Schweitzer points to a number of accomplishments, including a strong economy, with high growth rates for jobs and average wages, higher spending on education at all levels and $400-per-household property tax rebates.
“Montana's on the move,” Schweitzer often says, repeating his campaign slogan.
Running for his second and final term as governor, Schweitzer is vague about specific plans for the next four years if he's re-elected.
“More of the same,” he says.
He holds a big lead over Brown in fundraising. A Rasmussen Reports poll last week showed Schweitzer ahead of Brown, 56 percent to 41 percent. The race has narrowed since a July 29 Rasmussen poll that showed Schweitzer leading Brown
56 percent to 32 percent.
Brown may have picked up some support since news reports surfaced about Schweitzer's much-criticized July speech at a national trial lawyers' convention in Philadelphia, where he boasted that he had tampered with the November 2006 election in Montana. Schweitzer has since said he was “just joking around” and did not influence the election outcome.
Still, by any standards, Schweitzer is a formidable candidate.
As a political unknown from Whitefish in 2000, Schweitzer lost by only 14,000 votes to then-Republican U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns in a three-way race. Schweitzer drew national attention by taking busloads of senior citizens to Canada, where they could buy prescription drugs for much cheaper than in Montana.
Four years later, Schweitzer teamed up with a Republican businessman, state Sen. John Bohlinger, and ran for governor and lieutenant governor.
Schweitzer defeated Secretary of State Bob Brown, also of Whitefish, by 20,000 votes, or by 50 percent to
46 percent, with two minor-party candidates dividing the other votes.
The two candidates debated seven or eight times, recalls Bob Brown, a Republican now stationed at the University of Montana's Center for the Rocky Mountain West.
“I was impressed with his intelligence,” he says. “He had a flair for showmanship. I joked with people several times that debating Brian Schweitzer was like debating Buffalo Bill Cody, because he was big and kind of grand.”
A day traveling with Schweitzer, the candidate, is not much different than a day accompanying Schweitzer, the governor. On this Friday in September, a pilot from Bozeman flies Schweitzer around in his private plane.
Schweitzer speaks to no big crowds. He shakes few hands. It amounts to another day on the road for the governor. As Schweitzer has put it, he is governor 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The first stop is Lewistown, where some supporters drive him to the Central Agricultural Research Center in Moccasin. Schweitzer looks out at farms along the way.
Montana agriculture is experiencing a once-a-generation combination of outstanding crop yields and high prices in the same year.
“Well, it was a good crop this year,” he says. “Good crop. Good prices. It ought to be reflected on Main Street. “Farmers don't pay (income) taxes, but they feed Main Street.”
Farmers can average their income over three years on their income taxes.
“If they have too many good years, they buy tractors and grain bins,” he says. “Any farmer who's paying too many taxes should fire their accountant. The point is, they are an (economic) engine.”
Schweitzer, who has owned and run farms and ranches in four counties, knows agriculture.
He has a bachelor's degree in international agronomy from Colorado State and a master's in soil science from Montana State University. He built irrigation systems and dairy farms in the Middle East for six years before he and his wife, Nancy, moved back to Montana to start a family in 1986. The Schweitzers have three children: Ben, 22, Khai, 20, and Katrina, 18.
At the Ag Research Center, David Wichman, the superintendent and agronomist, is one of Schweitzer's MSU graduate school classmates. Wichman drives the visitors around to inspect the crops.
Schweitzer grills him about crops, moisture and pesticides. Then he asks Wichman about the status of oil-seed crops such as canola and camelina, which Wichman says were hailed out.
As he leaves, Schweitzer tells Wichman, “Don't give up on those oil-seed plants.”
Back in Lewistown, Schweitzer stops at Garfield Elementary School to read a book about his border collie, Jag, to a kindergarten class. He asks the children to raise their hands if they have dogs, cats, rabbits and other pets at home. Many hands go up. Soon he has them woofing and howling with him as he reads the book.
Then it's off to Roundup and the coal mine. The tour takes longer than anticipated, so Schweitzer has to postpone a lecture to a Montana State University political science class rather than show up a half-hour late.
The last stop is Whitehall for a gun show.
Schweitzer gets a good response as he goes from table to table checking out the guns and knives for sale.
“I think you're the first Democrat I've ever seen at a gun show,” says one seller, Herb Dawson of Emigrant.
Impressed by the knives with intricate trim made by a man who goes by “Big Joe,” Schweitzer asks him to send one to be displayed in the governor's office to spur sales.
“I just appreciate the job you're doing,” the knifemaker says.
Buyers and sellers at gun show seem glad to see the governor and visit with him.
When a campaign aide asks how it went, Schweitzer says, “Almost everywhere I went, people said, ‘You're doing a good job. Keep it up.' ”
At one table, Schweitzer spots a Remington 12-gauge shotgun selling for $175. He offers the seller $150. After some prolonged, friendly dickering, Schweitzer buys it for $155.
A man from another table, impressed with Schweitzer's negotiating skills, tells him, “Now, I know why you're governor.”
“No,” replies Schweitzer. “Now you know why we have $200 million left in the bank - because I'm too damn tight.”
Schweitzer bio
Name: Brian Schweitzer
Office sought: Governor
Office salary: $100,120 a year
Political party: Democrat
Age: 53
Birthdate, place: Sept. 4, 1955, in Havre
Home: Georgetown Lake
Occupation: Governor
Family: Wife, Nancy, and children, Ben, 22; Khai, 20; and Katrina, 18.
Education: Graduated from Holy Cross Abbey, Benedictine Monastery, Canon City, Colo., 1973; received bachelor's degree in international agronomy, Colorado State University, 1978, and master's degree in soil science from Montana State University, 1980
Past employment: Built irrigation systems and dairy farms in the Middle East, 1980-86; farmer-rancher, Montana, 1986-2005; elected Montana governor, 2004
Military: None
Political experience: Lost U.S. Senate race in 2000; won governor's race in 2004
Campaign Web site: www.brianschweitzer.com
Key endorsements: National Rifle Association, Montana State Firemans Association, Montana
AFL-CIO, MEA-MFT and United Transportation
Union
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