Miscalculations

Bodnar's flunkies underestimate Alani Bankhead

I’ve lost a few friends in recent weeks, and of course the question of just how good of friends they were comes into play, but I’m not interested in talking about that right now. What I do want to talk about is how interesting it is that the reason these people have decided to stop talking to me is because I was outspoken about an issue that was important to me. Some people didn’t like that.

It started when I was invited to a friend’s house to hear independent senate candidate Seth Bodnar speak. I knew almost nothing about Mr. Bodnar, but just before this event, I had been to a Democratic committee meeting in Miles City where I heard all three Democratic candidates speak. I already knew Reilly O’Neill because I had interviewed her for my podcast in the last election cycle. But I didn’t even know who Alani Bankhead was until that evening in Miles City, and she made an immediate impression on me as a passionate advocate for many of the issues that are important to me. Still, I was far from making up my mind about who I was going to support in this race.

I came to the Bodnar event with an open mind, actually kind of hoping that he would give me a reason to be excited about his candidacy, because it didn’t seem as if any of the Democrats had a clear advantage.

So I was disappointed to meet a man who made almost no imprint at all. He spoke in bland cliches, with conviction that felt as if it was completely manufactured. His speech that night sounded like it had been written by AI. And there was some of that quality in his personality as well. As if someone had typed in ‘create an ideal political candidate,’ and Seth Bodnar popped out, complete with a square jaw and blue eyes. I was especially unimpressed when it came to the question and answer period, where Bodnar was so determined to stay right in the middle of the road that his answers gave very little indication of original thought. I asked whether running as an independent might give him a better chance of connecting with rural voters, which felt like a pretty easy question, but he couldn’t even commit to that.

So I immediately started digging into Bodnar’s story, and what I learned made me skeptical enough about why he was running as an independent that I wrote a post about it called “What the Fuck is Seth Bodnar Doing?” I lost a couple of friends from the title alone.

But the post got the most hits of any substack post I’ve had, by about six times. I have never been much of a political animal, honestly. I follow politics closely and I sometimes comment on it just because I’m interested and I think we all have a responsibility to be involved, but I did not anticipate this one post to start what many have suggested is a ‘smear campaign.’ Of course I don’t see it that way. What I’ve been trying to do is research this man’s history as much as possible and share my opinion about who he is and how he treats people, especially women. And the response to that has been very telling.

I started by exploring the lawsuit against the University of Montana when Bodnar was president, and my posts about that led to being contacted by some of the plaintiffs, as well as several other women who had experienced some of Bodnar’s sketchy behavior toward women but were afraid to report it because they saw the retaliation that their colleagues suffered, and are still experiencing. I was encouraged to read the court documents, which I did, and it became very clear that the narrative that Bodnar’s team has been putting out, that all of these events happened before he was president, and that he was not part of it, were not true. He was named directly by several of the plaintiffs, and more importantly, the reason the suit was filed was because the good ol’ boys network that Bodnar inherited from the previous president hadn’t change. Bodnar’s team is fond of reporting all the changes he made, and all the women he appointed, but they leave out one crucial fact, which was that most of those changes happened as a result of the lawsuit. One of the conditions of the settlement was that they make some drastic changes in the way women were treated in the university. The settlement had nothing to do with money, as the plaintiffs each received a whopping $1800.

But here’s the thing about Bodnar that continues to bother me. Not only has he failed to take responsibility for his part in that whole series of events, but he and his followers continue to exhibit the same kind of behavior that got him in trouble to begin with. It started with failing to acknowledge Bankhead as a candidate in almost every one of his ads, which featured poll results predicting a two-man race. But even worse, it also became clear that once people took the vow to support Mr. Bodnar, they also signed up to start bombarding anyone who had the nerve to question him with a laundry list of questions. I started experiencing this almost immediately after I spoke out, and the pattern became very predictable. They questioned why I didn’t talk to Bodnar himself, which I have repeated over and over again that I tried to do, but his people never got back to me. They questioned whether I had talked to any of the women who spoke highly of Bodnar, which in essence suggested that the women who filed the lawsuit shouldn’t be taken seriously because of all the women who love him. It’s dismissive and discounts their experience.

Bodnar and his team kept denying any concerted effort to intimidate people, but the email I posted above, which was leaked leading up to the deadline for one of the candidates to withdraw made it clear that they were not being honest. The email ‘suggested’ that Bodnar supporters contact the people on a list, people who supported Bankhead, and get them to encourage Bankhead to drop out of the race. There were also several people who showed up at Bankhead’s campaign stops and confronted her during the Q and A period, telling her to drop out. All of this also aligns very closely with the stories I heard from UM people, who described an atmosphere where Bodnar was always getting others to do his dirty work for him, so he could always come out and claim “I did nothing wrong! I’m the good guy!”

All of this is troubling enough, but on top of all this is the questionable funding that has come to light for Bodnar’s campaign. Not only does most of Bodnar’s funding come from very sketchy out-of-state PACs, but some of these same PACs have shown up as the source of funding for the ads that drew a lot of attention in the primary—ads that supported Bankhead. This article from Inside Elections spells it all out.

INSIDE ELECTIONS

It seems clear that the people who are pulling the strings made a calculated decision to push Bankhead forward as their favorite in the primary, which led to a ten point victory over favored Reilly Neill. Neill is still angry about it and I can hardly blame her, but she has taken just as much of her venom out on Bankhead, who had nothing to do with the ads, as she has on Bodnar, or whoever funded these ads.

Sadly, what a lot of people seem to have decided is that whatever dark shadows Bodnar may have in his past are worth overlooking because he’s bringing in so much more money than Bankhead is. And I understand the logic. But it seems to me that if there was ever an election cycle where people are ready to reject the notion that big corporate money should be one of the main reasons to support a candidate, it’s this one. People seem to be forgetting that this is how we got where we are, where there is always a price for this kind of support. Bodnar claims to be independent, but is he really going to turn his back on these people who are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign. History tells us otherwise. And meanwhile, the Bodnar camp clearly made a serious miscalculation if they thought they could bully Bankhead into backing out. Not only has she shown herself to be a worthy foe, but she has stayed true to her convictions to reject support from dark money PACs. And because of the way she’s handled this whole series of events, she has come out much stronger than Bodnar has. Sadly, because they will most likely split the vote, neither is likely to win. But as far as who comes out looking better for the future, I will always support the person who stood by their principles.