The Abramoff scandal appears to be sticking to Senator Conrad Burns.  Check out the story from today's LA Times.

A huge outfitting store on the edge of this mountain-ringed town should be a conservative bastion: The ranchers and farmers who come to shop tend to be reliable Republicans.

But here at Murdoch's Ranch and Home Supply — amid the calf pens, muck buckets and bags of horse feed — there are signs of trouble for the GOP. And that could be bad news for the party from coast to coast.

Jack Bolender, a retiree who voted for three-term Sen. Conrad Burns because the Republican delivered mounds of federal aid to Montana, said he was deserting the incumbent in the state's November election. Allegations that Burns was cozy with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist central to a wide-ranging corruption scandal in Washington, have Bolender steamed.

"I appreciate what [Burns] brought to the state, but at what cost?" Bolender said one cold afternoon outside Murdoch's. "We seem to be selling out to the special interests."

Voters such as Bolender are at the center of a political storm that threatens to roil this year's midterm elections.

Interestingly, after years of cultivating an image of being crazy like a fox, Burns now wants Montanans to believe that he is the most naive fellow in Congress and had no idea what that Abramoff fellow was up to.  We'll see if he pulls it off.