Montana shouldn’t be concerned about primaries

A debate going on among political leaders in Montana concerns moving the primary election in presidential years from June to February. The hope is a February election would attract more presidential candidates.

The reality, however, is a state that contain only three electoral college votes would have a hard time attracting candidates regardless of the timetable. One could argue the small states of Iowa (seven electoral votes) and New Hampshire (four votes) receive a great amount of coverage, but these are traditional important early states and Montana would have an extremely difficult time replacing them.

After the Montana Legislature rejected a bill to change the primary’s date, Democrats are now talking about selecting their party’s choice for president during a caucus in February. In that scenario, the electoral votes will be decided in the caucus rather than during the primary. We find the idea of not having the votes in the June primary even matter to the Democrats, a bit insulting to us voters.

Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson wishes the nation to be divided into four regions for primaries, and have the dates for each primary rotated. Some candidates might even step foot in Montana under that plan, but we still feel much of the attention would be given to Washington (11 votes) and Colorado (nine votes).

The simple fact is that we in Montana don’t have a big say when it comes to national politics, just as we in eastern Montana are usually left out when it comes to statewide election when politicians concentrate on larger cities. It’s not fair, but it’s our reality of living in a low-population area that, good or bad, powerful politicians stay away from us.