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Twenty-seven-year-old Tyler Gernant, a Missoula lawyer, will challenge Dennis McDonald in the 2010 Democratic congressional primary. If he wins, he'll challenge Denny Rehberg for Montana's lone seat in the House of Representatives.

Tyler has never sought elected office before, but he has been a staffer for Max Baucus and worked in the 2003 presidential campaign of John Edwards.

A fourth-generation Montanan, Tyler worked minimum wage jobs to get through school and knows what it's like to work hard and make sacrifices.

Dennis McDonald is a Montana rancher and, until he announced for congress, chairman of the Montana Democratic Party. He and his wife Sharon and their four children own and operate the Open Spear Ranch in Sweet Grass County, where they raise angus-cross cattle and performance horses.

Dennis is a founding member of two national agricultural groups, R-CALF and the U.S. Cattleman's Association. He has served as president of the Montana Cattlemen's Association.

He has been a vocal advocate of the Ag community, fighting for "country of origin" labeling and the Montana Certified Natural Beef Program. He also runs the Cattlemen's College Scholarship Program and founded the Beef-On-Every-Plate program, which has provided over 120,000 meals to needy Montanans over the last year.

As cold weather approaches, we're reminded of the cold reality faced by many Montanans. Calf prices won't sustain our ranches and grain prices are well below the cost of production. Our national unemployment rate -- that is, those receiving unemployment benefits -- is at a 26-year high and the actual unemployment rate is near 16%. Foreclosures last month hit an all-time high. Main Street is hurting. Middle class families are falling behind while Wall Street is doing just fine. The Dow hit 10,000 last week, a 53% increase since March. Goldman Sachs enjoyed a $3.3 billion third quarter profit.

Wall Street firms, those companies "bailed out" because we were told they were too big to fail, are now contemplating billions in year-end bonuses for their employees.

So it's a contrasting America, and as we look at the changing of the season we need to consider a fundamental change in our economic philosophy. We must put the era of trickledown economics behind us and relearn what we already know: it's only by building demand that we'll rebuild our economy and put America back to work.

Providing good paying jobs for Montanans will help them raise their families, educate their children, strengthen their churches and build better communities. Main Street will benefit and the Montana we all love will benefit.

Let's start with health care. I've spoken of expanding Medicare to cover all Americans. It's a program that's uniquely American and one that operates with extraordinary efficiency -- just 3% of the total cost goes to running the program. I can count votes, I understand the political landscape, and I appreciate those working hard to bring us healthcare reform. But in Melville [where McDonald lives] we don't fold until all the cards are on the table.

Education is of primary importance -- to our economy and to our nation's security. We must apply the gold standard in our educational system, and return the nation to the top. I'm a product of the public education system having worked my way through college and law school with scholarships, student loans, and working as a forest service firefighter and a proud Teamster. I come from a family that struggled, so I appreciate that education is a great equalizer and the nation that best educates its citizens will be the nation that best competes in the global market place.

Energy independence is another critical issue for Montana, and one that I'm passionate about. We must reduce our carbon footprint. I was the first congressional candidate in the nation to endorse the Pickens Plan, which among other things calls for converting our 18-wheelers and large tractors to natural gas that is clean, cheap, and abundant. This conversion will reduce our dependence on foreign oil by a third over 10 years and will help to curtail the greatest exportation of wealth in the history of mankind. And by converting to renewable energy (wind, geothermal, solar, and biomass), we can create an estimated 1.7 million good paying jobs.

So there are great challenges ahead, but there are also real and achievable solutions. What we can't do is continue the Rehberg politics of NO. During the Bush years, Rehberg voted yes to the Bush-Cheney policies 93% of the time. These policies brought us two wars, dangerous deregulation of the financial sector, an unprecedented economic meltdown, a war on the middle class, and failed to address the energy crisis. In contrast, since the inauguration of our new president, Rehberg has voted NO 100% of the time. Just saying NO offers no solutions. NO doesn't build a new courthouse in Billings. NO doesn't assist our veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. NO doesn't solve the health care crisis, and NO certainly doesn't put the nation back to work.

We need leadership, integrity, and good judgment. I can't promise I'll win this election, although I'm more confident than ever -- but if given the opportunity I promise to work hard for Montanans every day and never let political ideology again trump our collective sense of humanity.

In order to create and extend opportunities for all Montanans, we must tear down the barriers that hold us back. We need to dramatically simplify our tax structure to ease the burden on taxpayers and allow Montanans to spend their resources creating opportunities for themselves and others. We have a tax system that is overly complex and inefficient, too confusing for even IRS agents to understand. Whole industries are built on trying to make the system accessible to average folks whens the system should be accessible without the need for expensive accountants, attorneys or software.

Further, our outdated tax system places the burden of taxation on those who work while giving moneyed interests a free pass. Every loophole imaginable has been squeezed into our system to make sure that wealthy investors actually pay a lower tax rate than those who work for a living. While we should be creating and extending opportunities for those who work, we're focused on give-aways to those that don't need them. Somewhere along the line, we forgot the American dream. That anyone who is willing to work hard and play by the rules should have the opportunity to reach the top. Instead our system has transformed into one where those who are at the top are given the opportunity to climb even higher, while those at the bottom struggle just to make ends meet.

Our national debt has swelled to over eleven trillion dollars. On average that means that every American man, woman and child would have to pay $36,000 to cover the debt that our government has racked up on our behalf. While we are dependent on the Middle East for our oil, we are dependent on China for our capital. Neither scenario presents a positive outlook for our future. Making the capital crisis worse, much of our national budget depends on income from social security taxes, as social security currently takes in more than it gives out. As more and more people qualify for social security, this cushion will disappear. The resulting debt burden will stymie any opportunity to grow our prosperity.

In order to combat our dependency on foreign capital and create opportunities here at home, we must reign in our spending. Our first priority must be to stabilize social security. This can only be accomplished by banning the use of social security funds for anything other than social security. Only then will our nation be able to fully recognize our capital crisis.

Stabilizing social security, however, will only allow the American public to see just how severe our debt crisis has become. We must also show the American public where we are spending our money. There have been innumerable stories over the last three decades spotlighting wasteful government spending, yet our government continues to spend wastefully. Part of the problem is the lack of a centralized base of knowledge for our federal budget. We must provide the American public with an easily accessible, understandable system that details where our government spends our money and specifically where the money is allocated. Once we have the opportunity to review the way our government spends money, we can monitor spending to ensure that we are utilizing every dollar to effectively create and extend opportunities for all of us.