Making Friends with Republicans: The Ballad of Rock Montana

While it is hard to imagine in 2025, there was a time when Republicans were not always less popular than hemorrhoids in California. There actually existed this rare species of elected official called “moderate Republicans.” For those of you who have come to politics in the age of President Orange Nixolini, I know this is hard to imagine.  Don’t spend too much time searching for them today, because like the fabled Ivory Billed Woodpecker, while they might exist in theory, no one has actually seen one in many years. However, in the olden times, from 1982 until 1998, Republicans won the Governor’s office in 4 consecutive elections. 

In those days, shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed and California suffered a serious recession caused mainly by the cutbacks in defense spending, a Republican Governor, prohibited from running for reelection by term limits, had a chance to cement his conservative legacy when the Democrat Attorney General died in office.    

With an election on the near horizon, the Governor, looking to help elect a Republican successor, certify his conservative bonafides, and pave his own way for a presidential campaign, decided to swing for the fences, and throwing caution to the wind, chose a right wing Congressman from behind the Orange curtain in Richard Nixon’s old stomping grounds of Yorba Linda to fill the vacancy. It was hoped the position would elevate a relatively unknown Southern California Congressman to the front of the pack in the upcoming Republican gubernatorial primary.

At first blush it appeared to be a brilliant move. Congressman Rock Montana looked like a winner upon first glance. He had grown up surfing the breakers of Huntington Beach while his father was posted to Camp Pendleton, as commanding officer. Possessing matinee idol good looks he had gone to Texas NRA University on a football scholarship where he had starred as an All American quarterback and leader of the Corps of Cadets. A day after graduation he married the captain of the cheerleaders, the beautiful blonde haired, blue eyed, Mary Elizabeth Bedford Forest. He then promptly followed his father into the Marines, coming first in his class in Navy Flight School, before volunteering for duty in VietNam as a fighter pilot. He was awarded numerous commendations for bravery, despite being shot down twice, each time parachuting to safety. 

With the end of the war, Montana became a spokesperson for those decrying the “hippies, godless commies, and queers,” who were responsible for American defeat. When a geriatric old school Republican Congressman decided he had had enough, Montana quickly threw his hat in the ring and won the seat in a landslide, holding it through 6 unopposed terms and popping out a new blonde haired baby for each electoral cycle. His Christmas cards were legendary and much treasured by the Anglo elite of southern California beach communities, as each one showed the ever growing beautiful All-American family. What could possibly go wrong?

Colonel Montana, as he still chose to be called, was clearly targeted for big things by both state and national Republican leaders. His next step in his inexorable rise to greatness was confirmation by the Senate Rules Committee to fill out the expiring term for AG, from which he would run for Governor. The ProTem selected Senator Jorge Zapata to lead the team investigating Montana’s background and determine whether he should be confirmed, as there were a few quotes attributed to Montana that indicated he might be less than sympathetic to the growing Latino population in the state. I was assigned the job of doing the opposition research. 

At first blush, the Congressman appeared to be everything his press clippings highlighted. A deacon in his church, a devoted family man with 7 adorable children and a loving girl next door, doting stay at home, Christian wife. But as I scratched the surface and dug a little deeper, a very different picture emerged. 

His military record had been buried. It took several phone calls to get at least a partial picture of a pilot who operated outside the chain of command and who had been brought up on charges of indiscriminately dropping napalm on a rural village. The charges mysteriously disappeared when unnamed “high level” officers intervened. He left the corps shortly thereafter.

The Governor knew that getting an extreme wingnut through the Senate would be difficult, but believed that the 6 conservative Democrats who held the balance of power in that august body would be scared to attack a decorated war hero. Zapata needed to poke enough holes in the carefully curated image to give the conservative Dems facing election the backbone to vote no. The Governor and his right wing allies engaged in a full court press. Montana was praised in churches up and down California as a man of God and defender of the unborn, guns, and free enterprise and as a bulwark against invading immigrant hordes and the rising homosexual agenda. 

Zapata carefully laid out a strategy for the public hearing before the Senate Rules Committee, which Montana had to clear to get to the floor for a confirmation vote. The Senator would query the nominee on his less than enlightened attitudes towards our brown brothers and sisters and I would ask questions pertaining to his congressional voting record. 

Montana showed up to the public hearing in full Marine dress blues. Mary Elizabeth in the front row in a demure white dress, the 6 squeaky clean Aryan children, also in white, three on each side, adding an exquisite photo-op of the perfect All-American family. 

Montana  was introduced by his pastor, who in closing, said a prayer for this man of god, sent to guide Californians towards the “path of righteousness and away from iniquity.” Montana, blue eyes sparkling, looking beatific, reveling in the praise of his supporters who overflowed from the Committee room filling the ground floor of the Capitol, appeared almost saintly, a seeming golden halo outlining his square jaw and ramrod straight countenance, streaming in from the south facing grand windows of the 19th century dome. Rather than a lengthy opening statement, he would leave it to his many supporters to sing his praises. He sat down and addressed the chair and members with a simple, “Colonel Montana, reporting for duty.” 

I opened the hearing by praising Montana’s military service and after a few perfunctory queries about his time growing up in Orange County and his football career, got to the point rather gently. “Colonel, I see here that you resigned your commission several months short of your scheduled rotation, can you enlighten us as to why?”

Montana explained that he had flown the requisite number of missions and was allowed stateside as his wife was pregnant with their first child. I then asked the Senate sergeants to hand a manilla folder to Colonel Montana, a folder Zapata had been able to obtain from a marine corps contact unknown to Montana. In it were the full set of charges detailing the casualties in the village Montana had mistakenly napalmed, as well as 8 x 10 glossies of the damage done.The file also indicated that court martial procedures had been pursued and then abruptly curtailed for “unknown reasons.” “Colonel Montana, is it possible your father, General Montana, made the charges disappear?” Of course Montana denied this, claiming the charges had been concocted by anti-war activists, but the tone was set.

As it turned out, there were more than a few isolated comments concerning Mexican immigrants in the Colonel’s background. While at University in Texas, Montana had led a battalion of self proclaimed “Minutemen” who patrolled the southern border making unauthorized and intimidating stops of “Mexican looking” travelers in the border region, many of them American citizens. Federal District Court in Austin had issued several cease and desist orders, one naming Montana specifically. Zapata asked whether the Colonel had racially profiled those detained and if not, how did he identify “illegal aliens.” 

Montana responded, “you can tell. When you pull them over they look shifty.” He claimed that the judge who shut down the border patrol had misinterpreted the law and had shown bias. Zapata, “in what way was the judge biased?” Montana, “he was a Mexican?” Zapata, “are you saying Mexican American judges are incapable of applying the law correctly?” Montana, “I did not say that, I just said he was biased against us.” Zapata, “Is it possible he read the 14th amendment to prohibit racially discriminatory extra judicial vigilante actions?” Montana now visibly flustered, ‘NO, he was a damn Mexican!” 

Coop: “I see you score 100% for the Right to Life, National Rifle Association, and Tobacco Industry scorecards. You get a zero from the American Civil Liberties Union, League of Women Voters,  and the Sierra Club. You even voted against a national holiday for Martin Luther King, can you explain?” 

“I was joined by 30 other Republicans. Mr. Hoover said he was a communist and a deviant. I stand by my vote.” 

Where he truly distinguished himself, however, was joining his Bircher colleague as the only two to vote against Holocaust Remembrance Day, and reparations for Japanese Americans interned during the second world war. 

“Why did you oppose Holocaust Remembrance Day?“ I asked. “They were war casualties and they control Hollywood.” Montana responded.

The vote granting reparation to Japanese Americans illegally interned during World War II was 435-2.” “Colonel, you were one of the two no votes. Can you explain?”

Montana, “It was the right decision. The Japs had just bombed us. They needed to be removed. Besides, Manzanar was just like a big summer camp. They had gardens and volleyball. It was a pretty location.” 

It continued like this for hours. When the massacre was over, even many of the churchmen had left in great disappointment. The Governor’s counsel did not even ask for a vote. They withdrew his name the next day. But this is not the end of the story.

A week after the hearing, I was seated on a Southwest flight to LAX, first row, window. Who sits down next to me but Congressman, Colonel Rock Montana, who looked my way, trying to place where it is he might know the passenger in an Atlanta Braves, World Champions ball-cap, ratty old Friends of the River tee, and threadbare Levis. For the first half of the flight we engaged in guy talk. Baseball, football,  children and wives, and found commonality in that we both went to school in the south. All good and friendly, until, somewhere over the Santa Lucias, Montana smiling says, “I know I know you from somewhere, but I cannot place you.” I hesitated, and looking directly into his cobalt blue eyes, responded, “I am counsel to the Senate Rules Committee.” It took a moment for that comment to hit home, but when it did, it was clear, he now recognized his chief tormentor. I am not sure whether what erupted from the depths of Montana’s being was an inaudible threat, a death rattle, a primordial scream, or simply the sound of a man struggling against all impulse not to murder someone in cold blood in front of 200 witnesses, but what we heard was, ahhhhhhh! And then dead silence for the next 45 minutes.