Montana U.S. Senate candidate Jon Tester was in Seattle last night for a fundraiser. This is one of only a handful of states the Democrat has visited outside of Montana to raise money in his race against Republican Sen. Conrad Burns. The evening affair was at the swank offices of Ron Dotzauer's Strategies 360 firm on Westlake. Expected to arrive as I was leaving were Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, and Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell.

Turns out Tester has plenty of Seattle connections. His media consultants are Laguens Hamburger Kully Klose, with offices here and in D.C. The ubiquitous Christian Sinderman is doing Tester's direct mail.

Both firms have been with Tester since he began what seemed like a long-shot campaign to face Burns, who has been engulfed in the Jack Abramoff scandal. When Tester won the primary, he said the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and other national players were ready to sweep into Montana to take over. In an interview before heading to the buffet, he told me:

"We had more friends than we knew we ever had after the primary and we had a lot of folks who were wanting to run our campaign for us. ... You go with the ones that brought you there."

He said the biggest surprise in the campaign has been the realization of how much he has to delegate to staffers. But he says he's learned to put his full faith in the group that has surrounded him.

"Nobody has done anything to make me think they're trying to tomahawk me. They bitch at me, and I bitch at them. But it's cool."

Tester has an iconic connection to the city, too. He is friends with Jeff Ament, Pearl Jam's bass player. They're both from Big Sandy, Mont., population 700. When Ament was in high school, Tester was teaching junior high music to Ament's younger sisters. Ament's dad, George, was mayor, and the town barber, "and first endowed me with this haircut."

The haircut has become famous. The National Republican Senatorial Committee ran a TV ad that featured a barber who claimed Tester's trademark buzzcut was a way to hide his left-leaning ways, and came with the tag, "Jon Tester, conservative haircut, liberal values."

Tester's campaign responded with it's ad, "Creating a buzz," that showed Montanans getting their hair cut like Tester's, with its tag line that he will "make the Senate look a little more like Montana."

Tester and his wife Sharla are organic grain farmers. They still farm, even in the heat of the campaign. Sharla said yesterday she was on the tractor just two days ago listening to campaign commercials on the radio. Tester is president of the state Senate. He sounds more than a little like Mike McGavick when he says that he and Sharla almost decided against a run for the U.S. Senate because of the uncivil tone of campaigns these days.

"It just seems like every political campaign anymore gets nasty and they don't talk about the things that impact people. They just try to rip apart a person. But I think we're comfortable enough with our relationship and we're comfortable enough with knowing who we are and where we come from to put up with this stuff. You just have to hold your nose for the next nine weeks."

The campaign has taken on national implications in part because of Burns' ties to Abramoff. It's seen as one of the Democrats' better chances to pick up a seat. It's going to be an expensive campaign. Tester said that $20 million will likely be spent just by him, Burns, and their national parties. That doesn't count the groups that are sure to do independent campaigns. And that's for about 400,000 voters.

In Washington, probably a few million more than $20 million will be spent in the Senate race. That's to reach about 2.8 million voters. You have to feel sorry for those Montanans and the political deluge they face.

Here's an AP story that does a good job summarizing the race.