Bohlinger announces he will run for U.S. Senate

Former Republican Montana Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger announced Nov. 5 that he will run next year as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate.

His announcement came one day before Montana’s lone congressman, Republican Rep. Steve Daines, announced his intentions to run for the Senate seat currently held by Democratic Sen. Max Baucus. Baucus has said he won’t run again next year.

Bohlinger, 77, successfully ran twice as a Republican candidate for Montana lieutenant governor alongside Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brian Schweitzer.

Bohlinger initially announced his Senate bid at the Lewis and Clark Democratic Central Committee party dinner on Nov. 5 and then confirmed the announcement to The Associated Press the next day.

He said his decision to run for the U.S. Senate was driven by the partial federal government shutdown in October and the inability of members of Congress to work together.

He also said he’d been considering running for the Senate for several months, but the tipping point came when Daines joined other conservative U.S. House Republicans in supporting the shutdown.

Bohlinger called the shutdown “an attack on our country,” a crisis that he compared to both Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There was no loss of life in the shutdown, he said, but billions of dollars “disappeared from the economy.”

“Daines voted to shut it down,” Bohlinger said. “He and the Tea Party Taliban rejoiced in that. They thought it was clever. They thought it was cute. It’s not. It’s hurtful.”

A former Marine, Bohlinger ran a women’s apparel business in Billings for more than 30 years and served as a Republican for three terms in the Montana House and two terms in the Montana Senate.

He backed off from a previous statement that he would only serve one six-year term if elected and noted that he is “blessed with good health” and will serve as long as Montanans return him to office.

Two other Democrats have declared their intention to run for the U.S. Senate next year — current Montana Lt. Gov. John Walsh and Dirk Adams, of Wilsall. According to Walsh’s campaign, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester has endorsed Walsh. Bohlinger called that type of endorsement inappropriate.

“I said, ‘It’s not up to Max Baucus and Jon Tester and the Washington insiders to choose the next senatorial candidate,” he said. “It’s up to the people of Montana.”