Daines ad puts focus on business, not Congress

Rep. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) is focusing on his business career, not his single term in Washington as a House lawmaker, in his first Senate ad.

“I’m Steve Daines and I spent 28 years in business growing companies and creating jobs. Running for office is really one big job interview, so here’s my story,” Daines says in the ad.

{mosads}Danies is running against Montana Lt. Gov. John Walsh (D), a former adjutant general and head of Montana’s national guard. They are vying for the seat being vacated by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who has been nominated to serve as U.S. ambassador to China. 

Daines’s business career includes a stint in China, where he lived for a time as a Procter and Gamble executive. 

He moved back to Montana to work for his famliy’s construction business and later became an executive with RightNow Technologies, a cloud-based software company that is a large employer in Bozeman, Mont.

In the ad, Daines boasts that he helped “create 400 new, good-paying Montana jobs.”

It also plays up his military ties, featuring his Marine veteran father in the ad.

It’s not until the end of the minute-long spot that he mentions his one term in Congress, and when he does it’s to say he’s pushing to change the institution.

“My very first bill said this: If the folks in Washington don’t balance the budget, they don’t get paid,” he says.

Daines is the early favorite to win a full term to replace Baucus, though Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) could give Walsh, his 2012 running mate, a boost by appointing him to finish out Baucus’s term.

.