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Senator Jon Tester recently invited Congressman Denny Rehberg in a ban on third-party ads. You can hear the details of the offer from the Communications Director of the Tester Campaign, Aaron Murphy. I understand why any campaign would want to get negative ads out of the race, but I have difficulty seeing the harm in positive ads. The whole issue has me a bit conflicted. Here are the two reasons why the issue is so troublesome to me.

The Jesus statue on top of Big Mountain in Whitefish is under fire, again. This time the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) is bringing the Forest Service to court for allowing the special use lease that the Knights of Columbus holds to continue for another ten years. You can hear the co-president of FFRF and Denny Rehberg's opinions here. But what do you think?

Jon Tester and Denny Rehberg are fighting back and forth over campaign donations. Tester is accusing Rehberg of not fully disclosing information (specifically, not posting the occupations of donors).

Here's a look at what who we'll be talking with this week. Now you can plan your calendars and get your questions written before we get our guests on the air.

I just finished watching the State of the Union Speech and thought I would write a bit about what I heard. Obama employed three tactics in tonight's speech that I think he will continue to press as the campaign moves forward. First of all, he is beginning to try to appeal to the right in an effort to grab votes from the center. Specific examples of this are his opening and closing celebration of the death of Osama bin Laden, his calls for deregulation (milk is not oil was my favorite part of the speech), his push against Chinese trade violations, and his claims of opening up 75% of available offshore oil sources for drilling. The second tactic that he pressed is a more traditional populist appeal that pits the poor against the rich over the issue of "fairness."

We have had requests to publicize the upcoming guests/topics we will have on the show. So here you go Talk Back listeners, a look at the week ahead.

I was delighted this morning when Peter asked everyone to call in with polite recomendations for the city plows and instead of whining, we were treated to tales of heroism, work ethic, and neighborly service. So, if you have a great story of someone helping you out please leave a comment of thanks along with your tale.

After winning Iowa and New Hampshire it is almost certain that Mitt Romney will be the Republican candidate. If that is the case, who do you think should run with him? I think that from a strategic standpoint selecting Rand Paul might be a great option...

If unemployment drops to 8% by June, will Obama win re-election? [poll]

We spent a lot of time on today’s program talking about international aid to Pakistan. Shadman Bashir who grew up in Pakistan stated his opinion that U.S. aid was misdirected and that if the U.S. wanted to give money, it should pay off Pakistan’s debt so that it could focus its finances at bringing a consistent source of energy to the people...