Dean labels self a progressive problem-solver

Sarah Dean, a Democratic U.S Senate candidate, said Tuesday she is a problem-solver aligned with the party's progressive wing.

Dean spoke at the Eagles Club during the Hill County Democratic Central Committee monthly meeting.

Havre resident Dean is challenging Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., in the Democratic primary in June.

Her husband, James Dean, is one of six candidates running to be the Republican candidate in the general election.

Sarah Dean spoke to the Central Committee two days after she sent out a press release in which she said that she was denied a speaking slot at Saturday's HIll County Democrat's Pasma-Peck Dinner because state Rep. Jacob Bachmeier, D-Havre, the chair of the Hill County Central Committee, who she called one of Tester's "men," would not let her speak.

Bachmeier said Monday that the speaker list had been set a couple of months before and when he offered Dean the chance to speak at Tuesday's meeting instead, she said she would.

Neither Bachmeier or Dean, who were both at Tuesday's meeting, brought up the subject of the press release.

Dean told the people at the meeting that although her husband is a Republican, she is not.

"I have heard a lot of talk that I am really a Republican. I am not," she said.

She said she has voted for President Barack Obama and wants the party to embrace people such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

If she becomes Montana's next U.S. senator, she said, she will help bring about a transformation that is desperately needed.

"I want Montana to set the agenda for the rest of the nation," she said. "We are fighters, we are hard workers and we are true to the causes that we build."

There are a lot of urgent national priorities, Dean said. that must be addressed.

She said people are taking on large amounts of student debt, farm debt is skyrocketing and incomes are falling.

"We are sinking further and further every day, and I am concerned about my children," Dean said.

Dean said her team has been working on a new, reformed system that no other candidate has. She did not say who is on her team or any details of the plan.

Literature, she said, was being produced about the plan and could be provided later.

She said that since filing to run in September people have come forward and said they have problems with Tester. Dean added that while Tester is good with smaller problems, he cannot bring about the reform that is needed.

"They are coming out of the woodwork and saying we need somebody else, otherwise we are not going to get a senator in here who is a Democrat." Dean said.