More campaign finance silliness

Yes, it is a fact of political life that campaigns have to snipe at each other with accusations of political malpractice, of filing the required forms incorrectly, of failing to make the disclosures on yard signs large enough (hint: you still can’t read them from your car as you drive by even when they are the specified size), etc., etc. They have to -- it’s in the official “Campaign Operatives Handbook."

This sort of thing is why summer is called the “silly season” in political campaigns. The sad thing for the public is that as campaigns become interminable, the silly season gets longer and sillier.

Matt Gouras’s AP piece on the Montana GOP lawsuit against AG Steve Bullock lets us know just how turned around things can get during the silly season. It turns out that Bullock was raising money for an “unspecified office” for a long time (still deciding whether to run again for AG or to run for governor.) In fact his website allowed donors to give up to $1200 for 3 months prior to having declared for the governor’s race.

The significance there is that Bullock hadn’t declared for the governor’s race, and could reasonably be assumed to be seeking reelection as AG -- but $1200 is a gubernatorial campaign contribution limit and well above the amount allowed for contributions to an AG campaign. The numbers in the AP story aren’t quite self-explanatory -- the max donation this year for the governor’s race is only $630, which would translate into $1260 only if a candidate successfully wins the primary and can accept another $630 for the general election.

The Montana Commissioner of Political Practices already ruled against the protest, but the Montana GOP has taken the case to court. They have a point -- Dave Gallik, who was Commissioner at the time that the GOP filed their complaint with that office, was a contributor to Bullock’s AG campaign and can reasonably be assumed not to have been an unbiased participant. Adding to the difficulty of weeding this particular garden is the fact that the judges in Helena all know Bullock (Helena is a small town -- no surprise there), and so the case had to be moved to Lewistown, where Judge Wayne Phillips will hear the case.

As to things being turned on their head, Gouras points this out:

Bullock, who has fought in the other lawsuits for more transparency as he seeks to preserve Montana’s campaign finance laws, has argued he did not need to disclose which office he was seeking last year while he was raising hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Indeed, we have had to endure Bullock’s stentorian and moralizing pronouncements on electoral transparency, and now, he claims that the GOP protest has no validity. Silly.

Less convincingly, Gouras intimates that the GOP is also being hypocritical, since "Montana Republican Party attorney Jim Brown has argued in federal court that many Montana campaign finance laws are onerous and unconstitutional.” True enough, but the point that the Montana GOP has made in the past is that campaign finance rules are onerous and cumbersome. In this case, however, they are saying that if we are going to have these onerous rules on the books, then everyone needs to be held to the same standard.

Think of it like this: I often challenge my liberal friends who favor higher taxes to go ahead and pay more in taxes. There is nothing stopping them. You don’t even need to write an extra check. If all Democrats who want higher taxes simply don't claim the exemptions and deductions allowed to them by law, then presto -- they will all be paying the higher tax rates they say they want and the government will have more of the money they say it desperately needs to spend. After the sputtering ends, the reply usually boils down to this: the fact that they advocate higher tax rates for all doesn’t obligate them to pay more voluntarily in advance of such tax rates going into effect. Fair enough.

The same thing applies here. Just because the GOP believes that certain election laws are onerous doesn’t mean that Republicans are obligated to look the other way when Democrats skirt them. If Bullock and the Democrats believe there is nothing wrong with raising large amounts of money without the basic transparency of saying what you’re running for, they should lead the way to change the law.

As has been pointed out here at MH before, Montana’s contribution limits are antiquated and force candidates to spend inordinate amounts of time raising the amount of money that modern statewide races require. In other words, not only should Bullock (like every other candidate for statewide office) be able to raise money without declaring what office he is running for, he should be able to take in contributions as generous as someone is willing to give him. All of the filing and record-keeping absorb huge amounts of time and energy that candidates could better spend doing other things. Some campaign operatives skilled in such arcana might lose their jobs, but there is plenty of work to be had elsewhere. We hear they’re hiring for all sorts of jobs in the Bakken.

Best of all, we citizens would be spared having to hear the nit-picky campaign finance accusations that both parties dutifully hurl at each other during the interminable silly season.

Montana GOP and reporting about the outhouse -- the power of headlines

It's Wednesday and time for a little Montana politics.

By now, the entire political world knows that a yahoo (we seem to have used that word more than once lately, but really -- is there a better one?) brought an outhouse to the parking lot outside the hotel where the Montana GOP state convention was being held.

It had a sign proclaiming that it was the "Obama Presidential Library," was reportedly painted to look like it had bullet-holes in it, had an Obama birth certificate inside with a scatological term of opprobrium written across it, and had the names of several nationally prominent Democratic women written on the wall inside, complete with a "for a good time call" message.

It is hard to imagine a uglier display of ad hominem boorishness. Our tender sensibilities are, in this vulgar world, frequently subjected to even greater depths of tastelessness just when we think we've seen it all. We have also been quite critical of hamfistedness whenever it rears its head at Montana GOP high command.

So we're about to pile on, right?

Wrong.

Why not? After all, the facts are clear, aren't they? The Missoulian had a headline saying "Montana GOP convention features bullet-riddled 'Obama outhouse'" -- and KFBB television in Great Falls led off with "Montana GOP Makes 'For a Good Time' Reference to First Lady."

Yes, but the problem is that those headlines were wrong, and they skewed every bit of coverage that followed. Those headlines seem to claim that the Montana GOP made this particular crude display -- but in point of fact "the Montana GOP" had nothing to do with it.

As a parenthetical note, way back in the mists of time, the title of this blog was inspired in part by a series of misleading headlines in the Billings Gazette that got our goat. The headline is often all that many readers see. They won't see the caveats inserted in the second half of the article, and many won't read the article at all. Misleading headlines (which, incidentally, are generally written by the editors, not the reporters writing the piece) can be just as damaging as errors in the text of the articles themselves. And that is true of the Missoulian piece. You have to get deep into the article to learn that the Montana GOP convention didn't "feature" the outhouse at all. Some person of interest left it in the hotel parking lot for folks to gawk at.

This particular piece of post-modern sculpture, we later learned, was created by a guy named Dave Hurtt, who had the deep insight to tell the NBC reporter interviewing him that "maybe my humor is a little bit crude for some people." Whoa -- say it isn't so! Andres Serrano, here we come...

In fact, from what we can gather from subsequent reporting, GOP officials immediately followed appropriate procedures by talking to the hotel staff about having it moved off the property. Which is about all that could be done. The outhouse was someone's private property sitting on someone else's private property, and GOP officials would have no right to physically dispose of it themselves.

What about expressions of outrage? Shouldn't that have been the immediate response of Montana GOP leaders? Indeed, some have found the lack of a hand-wringing response from GOP leaders to be a bit damning.

Let's think about that. So, the whole GOP convention should grind to a halt while a string of speakers condemn a crude act that went on in the hotel parking lot -- raising the question of "why are they making a big deal about this -- do they have something to hide?" GOP Chairman Will Deschamps probably did the best he could with a bad situation by calling it a "sideshow" and pointing out that the president should be treated with respect -- if you give something like this oxygen by paying serious attention to it, that's not good either. Do you run to reporters and condemn it immediately, thereby shining an even brighter spotlight on it -- when really what you are wanting is for the yahoo to take his blasted prank elsewhere and let you get back to the business of having your convention?

This is the sort of thing that is deeply embarrassing to serious Republicans with a sense of dignity and decorum -- which is the vast majority of us, in my experience. We're all for good humor around here -- even tasteless humor can sometimes be hilarious in just the right setting (cf. Saturday Night Live.) The outhouse stunt pulled by Mr. Hurtt piles offense upon offense -- the last and perhaps worst of which is that when it comes to this self-proclaimed "spoof," there just wasn't anything funny about it.

Montana Republican presidential delegate selection -- looking at 2012...

In a previous post, we reviewed the events of 2008 regarding the selection of presidential nomination delegates by the Montana GOP, reviewing what a close-run affair it was, with Ron Paul supporters nearly taking over the state convention and with it, the presidential delegates from Montana.

As noted in these pages in 2008, there is a problem with the Montana GOP’s rules that make it possible for Montana Republican voters to cast their ballots one way, only to have a determined minority take control of the convention and award Montana’s delegates to a different candidate. It was our hope at that time that the GOP would see this flaw and fix it in their bylaws, avoiding even the possibility of the public-relations disaster that would ensue from having our non-binding presidential primary be completely ignored by the party.

Alas, unless something has happened that we are unaware of, the Montana GOP has done nothing to fix this. Reviewing state party bylaws, it is clear that the primary is still non-binding and that delegates are still elected by the same system of county conventions sending delegates to the state convention, which selects delegates. By contrast, the Montana Democratic Party’s bylaws are quite clear and specific about the binding nature of the Democratic side of the presidential primary.

The situation in 2012 is still unknown. Some factors are different, to be sure. With Romney leading the pack, one assumes that his organization is engaged and organized here in Montana. Whether he has as many supporters as he did in 2008 is difficult to predict, since unlike then, Romney this year is clearly perceived as the liberal to moderate candidate, whereas in 2008 he was still able to pull off the legerdemain of casting himself as the conservative alternative to McCain. In short, Romney is the McCain of 2012, and Santorum is a combination of what Huckabee and Romney were in 2008.

We can assume that Ron Paul’s supporters are likewise engaged and organized, and it would be difficult to assess the relative strength of the two camps when it comes to on-the-ground organization. One thing is certain, however, and that is that Rick Santorum likely does not have a good field organization in Montana, since his resources -- like Huckabee’s in 2008 -- have to be trained on wherever the next competitive contest on the calendar is being held.

Mike Huckabee had dropped out in 2008 before the June Montana primary, so the field was left to McCain and Ron Paul. But it is entirely possible that Santorum could still be in the race in June, setting up a primary in Montana where there is a choice between a liberal/moderate Romney and conservative Santorum -- a head-to-head that Santorum could very possibly win with the Republican voters of Montana, only to have the delegates be awarded to Romney or Paul on the strength of their organization at the convention level.

Alternatively, if Santorum drops out, we could again see a presumptive nominee for whom enthusiasm is lagging (Romney this time) left alone on the ballot with Ron Paul. Romney would overwhelmingly win that primary vote, but again, depending on how carefully the Paul forces have laid their groundwork, Ron Paul supporters could this year succeed in capturing the convention and electing a Ron Paul slate of delegates to send to the national convention.

We are old-fashioned traditionalists around here, with more than our share of reverence for ways of old (Edmund Burke’s writings on prescription and all that sort of thing.) But it is high time for the Montana GOP to change its bylaws and make the presidential primary binding on delegates on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention -- winner-take-all, proportional... doesn’t matter.

The idea that preserving our current system somehow strengthens the party apparatus in a healthy direction by encouraging more participation in county and state meetings is a misguided one. The reality is that politics has for years, decades even, been candidate driven, not party driven, and when not built around candidates, people’s involvement in politics tends to be built around membership in issue-driven organizations rather than party organizations.

The party system (admittedly mandated by state law) of precinct committee members who will theoretically work in their neighborhoods to get out the vote for the party come election time hasn’t worked as designed for a very, very long time, mainly because people’s social networks and communities are today built around their places of work, worship, and recreation -- not their physical neighborhood.

As the political world has changed, so do political parties need to change. To paraphrase slightly Edmund Burke himself, a party without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Let’s hope it doesn’t take a public relations disaster to convince the Montana GOP that it is time for some change.

Montana Republican presidential delegate selection -- looking back at 2008...

For Montana Republicans active in party affairs, the news out of Missouri this weekend had to bring back memories from four years ago, when our own delegate selection process was the occasion of similar ground wars played out county by county in party meetings across the state, and culminating in dramatics on the state convention floor at Missoula.

To review the events of 2008, the season started with a newly instituted winner-take-all caucus held on Super Tuesday in March. The front-loading of the primary and caucus schedule had long ago made Montana’s process irrelevant -- a June primary, followed shortly thereafter by the state party convention at which a slate of delegates is elected to attend the Republican National Convention. Not since 1976 had Montana played any kind of role in selecting the presidential nominee, let alone attracted attention from candidates seeking the party’s nomination.

Because Montana does not have voter registration by party, the state GOP had chosen to have a limited participation caucus, whereby only those who were officially on record with the state as being a Republican (elected officials and precinct committee members) were eligible to caucus. The move was not without controversy, drawing criticism from Republicans not eligible to vote at the caucuses and gleeful charges of “elitism” from Democrats. The caucus did achieve the goal of attracting volunteers to sign up for hundreds of empty precinct positions across the state, which existed in no small part because of the changing way that politics today is candidate-driven rather than party-driven.

Mitt Romney won comfortably that night, as the only major candidate who had dedicated resources and organization to filling precinct positions with supporters. An unintended consequence of the caucus experiment, however, was that Ron Paul’s grass-roots organization filled enough spots to allow the Texas Congressman to come in 2nd, narrowly edging Sen. John McCain, who had been endorsed by his former Senate colleague, Conrad Burns, and comfortably defeating Gov. Mike Huckabee.

When Romney dropped out of the race, party rules dictated that the delegates would go back to being uncommitted, doubtless with the expectation that politics as usual would run its course, with a Montana delegation made up of party regulars who would vote for the presumptive nominee -- who had for 30 years always long determined by the time of the June primary and convention.

But the caucus strategy, while creating buzz in the short-term, created headaches for the party down the stretch because of Ron Paul’s refusal to drop out of the race and because of the fervor shown by his supporters, who now filled much of the party apparatus at county levels. When McCain unsurprisingly won the Montana primary 76% to 21%, most assumed that the matter was settled, but those closer to what was happening on the ground knew better.

There was, at this point, a perfect storm -- John McCain was mostly unpopular with Montana Republican party regulars and had made a disastrous start by naming Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger as his campaign’s state chair. Bohlinger has largely been forgotten by Montanans at this point, even though he is still in office, but at the time he was in the middle of running for re-election with his running mate, Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer. To say that the liberal former GOP state senator was persona non grata in the Montana Republican party would be an understatement.

In summary, there was a front-runner distinctly unpopular with the party faithful for reasons both national and local (McCain.) Furthermore, the mainstream candidates perceived as being the more conservative alternatives had dropped out (Romney and Huckabee,) and large numbers of their supporters who had signed up for precinct positions in order to vote for them in the caucus had long lost interest and dropped out of active party participation.

In county after county, the field was left to the usual party regulars who had once again resigned themselves to dutifully supporting the inevitable candidate... and of course the still enthusiastic supporters of Ron Paul. Reports from around the state as county parties held their annual meetings to elect delegates to the state convention, while difficult to quantify, showed that Ron Paul supporters were within reach of their goal -- control of the state convention, which would allow them to elect a slate of delegates who would vote for Paul at the Republican national convention. A bit of panic set in, since such an outcome would not only be a major embarrassment to the McCain campaign (which had been essentially absent on the ground in Montana throughout the primary season,) but it would also be a black eye for the state party.

As mentioned above, the state party had already sustained heavy criticism for holding a limited participation closed caucus in March, and what benefit and buzz it had generated (while attracting no visits from candidates, family members had come to Montana as surrogates) was probably more that outweighed by the damage control it had to engage in on the PR front. To now have Ron Paul end up with all of Montana’s delegates after voters in the Montana GOP primary had just overwhelmingly voted for McCain would have been a public relations disaster of the first order in what was already shaping up to be a very difficult year for Republicans in Montana.

As per long-standing state GOP rules, an official delegate slate chosen from those who had applied to be national convention delegates was drawn up, with the selection being done by a committee made up of long-time party workers and luminaries. In Montana, which hadn’t had a competitive situtation in over 30 years (the Ford-Reagan nomination battle in 1976,) delegate selection had long been a formality -- delegates are chosen with the party long knowing who the nominee is going to be, and knowing that they would be loyally voting for that nominee. It is just a matter of who has the privilege of attending the national convention to cast those votes.

Such a process, however, assumes that those involved in the process are playing by those understood but unofficial rules. As the state convention approached in 2008, it became clear that Rep. Paul’s supporters felt no moral obligation to respect the results of the primary, and were going to go for broke at the convention, fielding an alternative slate of delegates. It should be made completely clear that while there was some subterfuge (the well-organized Paul people knew who each other were, but were always careful to avoid openly stating that their intent was to gain Montana’s delegates for Ron Paul,) they were completely playing by the rules.

The McCain campaign had made it clear to the state party that only one outcome would be acceptable -- having all of Montana’s delegates go to McCain. Truth to be told, this directive from the McCain campaign, complete with vague threats of adverse financial implications for the Montana GOP should the state party apparatus not deliver for McCain, was a bit rankling, coming as it did from a campaign that had expended no energy or resources in the state, and it had to be tempting to let the chips fall where they may -- allowing the campaign that had devoted considerable grass-roots effort in the state over the last 6 months to carry the day at the state convention. At the end of the day, however, a Ron Paul win at the convention would have hurt the Montana GOP more than it would have hurt McCain, so the temptation couldn’t be seriously considered.

Both campaigns had parliamentarians in attendance at the convention, ready for a fight, and former U.S. Congressman (and current GOP candidate for governor) Rick Hill was chosen by the party to chair the meeting at which the floor vote would take place. In a decision felt to be controversial by Paul supporters, all of those running as part of the official delegate slate were lined up to speak at a microphone to the chair’s right, and all of the others (i.e. the Paul supporters running for to be national convention delegates) were lined up at the microphone to the chair’s left, and an official delegate list was circulated by the state party to make sure everyone knew who the “right” choices were.

There were, of course, moments of shenanigans, such as a list of delegates being circulated that contained the names of the most prominent Republicans running for national convention delegates, but with the less well-known names on the official delegate slate being replaced with the names of Ron Paul supporters. Had it not been exposed as being misleading (it implied that this list was the official list, causing confusion that had to be clarified from the podium.)

All in all, the proceedings were were orderly and civilized (probably much to the chagrin of any Montana Democratic Party informers who may have been in the room,) especially considering that neither side had any way of being able to predict the outcome. Mere nose-counting, even if possible, wouldn’t have sufficed to predict the results, since at both the county and state level, votes in the Montana GOP process are weighted by precinct and county, depending on the number of people who had voted in the last GOP primary in that precinct or county -- the more Republican voters there are, the more weight the precinct or county gets in the vote. Vote counting in a competitive selection process is thus a Byzantine affair requiring not only counting votes but calculating in weighting factors -- that day’s vote tabulation accordingly took nearly 5 hours.

Carrying the day was the official delegate slate, who did go on to vote for McCain at the national convention later that summer, and while the final tally from the Montana GOP convention wasn’t publicized, the vote was reportedly quite close. A Ron Paul win was probably prevented only because several large Republican counties such as Yellowstone County happened to hold their elections later in the process leading up to the state convention, after the threat of a Paul takeover had become clear because of results in counties that had met and voted early on. Enough of the old-time precinct committee members trudged out to dutifully vote at the later county conventions in order to carry the day. They ended up sending just enough delegates who would vote for the official GOP delegate slate. It was hardly a labor of love, given the distinct lack of enthusiasm for McCain, but the alternative was, again, an unthinkably bad PR disaster for the GOP in Montana.

The Montana Democratic Party’s rules make the Montana Democratic presidential primary binding on delegates for the first ballot, and are divided proportionately -- the contrast between their “democratic" rules and the GOP’s “insider” rules (had Paul forces captured the convention and elected their own delegates) would have been stark. They would have made the most of it at every level. It isn’t particularly difficult to imagine them using it successfully enough to have swung the state into then Sen. Obama’s column (who lost the state by only 49%-47% -- one of the closest state results in the country in the 2008 presidential election.)

Next up: Montana’s delegate selection -- a look forward. (Attentive readers can see where this is heading... a not particularly popular presumptive nominee who is perceived to be a moderate, conservative alternatives who will have dropped out or been sidelined by June, a never-say-die Ron Paul campaign that has continued to learn the finer points of party organization...)

Polling recommendations

If the "leak" of a memo based on internal polling was intended somehow to embarrass the Montana GOP, it is unlikely to have that effect.

The supposed "bombshell" of the memo was that GOP legislative candidates were advised not to attack the governor. Far from being some unusual recommendation, it is something that should be common sense -- and from reading Republican legislative candidate literature, it is something that at least in the Billings area, legislative candidates have already been doing for months.

As Chairman Erik Iverson pointed out, this polling data only confirms what has already been a change in direction for the Montana Republican Party, where in the past everyone's fortunes depended on the outcome of major statewide races such as a Presidential race or Senate race. It was never probably a very good strategy in a state like Montana, where voters are noted for their independence and cross-ticket voting. And in the current state of voter flux nationally, it makes even less sense now.

And again, this is a turn that the Montana GOP had already taken some time ago. The silly days of thinking that there were major political gains to be made by repeatedly calling the governor a "mint farmer" or by criticizing him for letting Jag climb on tables and chairs in the state Capitol are long gone.

To be sure, many of the governor's policies deserve criticism -- and alternative visions need to be presented. Some might interpret this as attacking the governor, but of course such straight-forward critiques and contrasts are the legitimate stuff of campaigns.

It is, however, the job of the Roy Brown campaign to do that, and the pollster was stating the obvious by noting that legislative and local candidates aren't going to gain any ground by personal attacks on the governor. The governor has a singular talent for getting under the skin of Republicans -- as we have noted before in these pages, the governor is very Clintonesque in that respect. But we must resist the urge to fire verbally at will, no matter how tempting and even pleasing the prospect might be at any given moment.

Montana Headlines has made these same points before, and while we don't shy away from criticizing policies or actions of the governor, we try to do so on points of substance -- such as our continuing coverage of the governor's refusal to follow a rule that he himself signed into law, or our critiques of how the budget surplus was wasted.

If the memo wasn't intentionally leaked by the GOP (which we suspect it was,) it should have been, because it only serves to highlight for Montana voters the new direction of the Montana GOP, with its emphasis on having local and legislative candidates run their own campaigns on their own merits -- with the benefits percolating up to benefit statewide candidates. It is good long-term strategy, and will pay dividends. Kudos to Erik Iverson.

The governor: "Take responsibility when you're wrong..."

The governor's new ad is out, and it is a pretty good one. It is straight from the current Democratic playbook -- the governor on the back of a horse, bawling calves in the background, etc.

The ad is all about symbolism, which is a big part of what an effective television ad is about. Just ask Barack Obama, who has been schooled by the McCain camp on that front recently with an effective, hilarious, mocking viral ad campaign that conveys the sense that Obama is an empty suit with nothing much behind the high-flown messianic rhetoric and worshipful fan-base.

But one should be careful, when massaging the symbolism, not to say inconvenient things that can bite you with sharp-toothed facts, and the governor did just that, when he said that he had "learned as a rancher" a list of good American, apple-pie things that included "taking responsibility when you're wrong."

The irony is that in at least one high-profile example to be found in the real world, the governor continues to refuse to take responsibility for breaking the law by doing Public Service Announcements (PSA's) -- using public funds to produce and distribute them -- while a declared candidate for public office.

There isn't much debate over whether the governor broke both the spirit and the letter of the law that he himself signed. The Democratic legislator who wrote the bill has confirmed that the Republican interpretation (i.e. the plain as the nose on your face interpretation) is what he intended. In other words, the law was intended to prevent public officials from doing exactly what the governor did with his "Ag Month" PSA's -- in this case, the governor even had the chutzpah to include his "Montana is on the Move" official campaign slogan in the "public service" announcement.

Ongoing coverage is on YouTube for those who want to listen to all the details of the special hearings now ongoing. One thing is clear -- the governor is refusing to accept responsibility for something he and his employees did that was wrong. As we have noted before, it would have been simple for the governor to say -- oops, we goofed and weren't watching the calendar closely enough. The matter would have blown over in days. It is precisely the governor's intransigence in admitting a relatively minor mistake that has turned this into much bigger matter of whether the governor considers himself to be accountable before the law or not.

We again note that the governor has made no more such PSA's -- if he were so certain that the intent of the legislation was not to ban the activity, why isn't he continuing to "serve the people of Montana" by making lots more PSA's?

We would also note that as Sec. State Brad Johnson told us in his Montana Headlines interview, it is perfectly possible for a government department to put out PSA's without using the name, face, or voice of the person in the department who is running for office.

The governor could have had the head of the Dept. of Agriculture or a volunteer announcer do the ads, could have left out the governor's campaign slogan "Montana is on the Move," and everyone would have been happy and unquestionably within the law.

If Sec. State Brad Johnson has no problems understanding and following the law -- and still manages to do the part of his job that requires putting out necessary PSA's -- why is is so difficult for the governor to do so?

The joke goes that one of the most dangerous places to be standing in Montana is between this governor and a television camera. Now, we have to add a radio microphone to the list of danger spots, it would appear.

Right to work nonsense in the GOP platform

Not only did the Ron Paul folks apparently take over the National Affairs subcommittee of the Montana GOP platform committee, but now an (admittedly weakly worded) right-to-work plank got added. (H/T Missoulapolis, where Carol continues her great convention coverage.)

This nonsense needs to stop. It is fine for individual Republicans to run on right-to-work, but it shouldn't be an official policy of the party platform. Regardless of how hostile unions are to the Republican party (but not always -- after all they endorsed Alan Olson in his critical PSC 3 race,) there is just no sense to this sort of thing. Brad Molnar was not amused, and neither are we.

Set aside the political suicide of it, at least for candidates running in so many parts of Montana. There is also a free-market case to be made against right-to-work legislation. Think of it this way: right-to-work laws take away the right of an employer to have the stability of a union contract with its work force.

There needs to be a balance between labor and employers, with neither having the upper hand. Since Taft-Hartley, unions have not had the upper hand, and the balance has been reasonable, by and large. Robert Taft believed that if you don't have unions and employers -- two private entities -- negotiating with each other, government is bound eventually to be the one that will step in and tell people what to do in disputes. How is that an improvement?

There are reasons why Montana has a less-than-favorable business climate, but we have yet to be convinced that our not being a right-to-work state is one of those reasons.

It sounds like there are a few things to be ignored in the Montana Republican platform by candidates -- and quite a few things that need to be re-addressed in two years.

Obama making serious play for Montana

In a note that should make Sen. McCain's campaign sit up and take notice, Sen. Obama appointed a high-profile campaign director for Montana and a number of other states that have recently been Republican strongholds in the Presidential election.

Granted, it is possible that Obama simply has money to burn, and is willing to expend it in ways that make the McCain campaign work for states that they should be able to take for granted.

And Obama's campaign seems to be showing the important insight that there are benefits to ones party of running stronger than expected even in states one is destined to lose. Parties in states that have long been ignored are going to get some attention, and may make gains in down-ticket races due to Obama putting resources into those states.

Will the McCain campaign and the RNC answer in kind in Montana, or will they make the mistake of ignoring Montana Republicans in an hour of great need? We shall see, but suffice it to say that if the McCain campaign and the national Republican Party don't expend some resources in Montana, not only will McCain run the risk of losing the state in the fall (or have to expend precious last-minute resources to stave off an Obama surge,) but Montana Republicans could lose in what should otherwise be a very competitive year for regaining control of the state Senate and winning down-ticket races like Tim Fox's race for AG or Duane Grime's bid for State Auditor.

Few Republicans seem to be holding their breath, expecting that any help is coming from the national party. Instead, there seems to be the knowledge that we are on our own, and a determination that Montana can be successful in the fall elections with only ourselves to depend on -- and our own Congressman Denny Rehberg seems to understand this better than anyone. Which isn't an entirely bad thing at all. If there isn't any help coming, the sooner one realizes it, but more prepared one is to defend oneself.

An opening salvo from Montana Dems in the war of words

More on the Democrats who attempted to crash the GOP state convention armed with video cameras: they apparently tried more than once, and wondered why they weren't welcomed with open arms. Is it possible that they were trying to cause a scene and get attention? Naw...

Dem party bosses didn't apparently send their sharpest operatives, though. The first would-be party crasher employed by the state party didn't feel up to the task, and even came back with reinforcements in order to overwhelm the GOP with superior intellectual firepower:

“I think this is systematic of Montana Republicans excluding Republicans from the process if you don’t subscribe to their views,” (Kevin) O’Brien said.

Call us sensitive and insecure, but statements like that are just plain "systematic" of how much smarter Dems are when compared to Neanderthal Republicans like us. It just makes us feel uncomfortable to be reminded of our intellectual inferiority.

O'Brien's role with the state Democratic Party is as its communications director (quick, somebody buy that man a dictionary!)

Leaving aside the matter of whether any Republicans were "excluded from the process" -- we've heard nothing to that effect, but maybe the Dems know something we Republicans don't -- we can't resist parsing this out a bit further (it's a quiet Saturday evening, and Republicans don't have much else to do.) Is O'Brien letting slip that he is a Republican who was being excluded from the Republican proceedings? Don't they check references and have people sign loyalty oaths around Dem party central anymore before hiring people?

This same skilled communications director offered another musing to Chuck Johnson, who as always, does a masterful job of just reporting the facts and quotations as they are given to him:

"What’s the old saying? Might beats right.”

Hm. That "old saying" should be pretty well-known to a expert communications director: "might makes right." Unless we're mistaken, the English variant on the concept of vae victus seems to have a rather different meaning from "might beats right," if that actually were an old saying (which it isn't.)

Sort of brings back memories of Al Gore helpfully telling us in a debate with George W. Bush that he wanted to make us an e pluribus unum -- which he helpfully (in that inimitable schoolmarm voice) explained meant, "out of one, many." Little Freudian slip, there.

But back to O'Brien's comments and a little more deep subconscious analysis of his words. He is (did we mention?) the skilled communications director for the party of the intelligent and educated (that's not us Republicans -- as we must with a mixture of shame and humility admit.)

Is he sending out a subliminal message via historical allusion that he expects Montana Republicans to defeat Democrats this fall in a manner that will be reminiscent of the sack of Rome? Someone alert GOP central, there is panic in the Democratic ranks...

Reading such things makes us wonder if perhaps we doltish Montana conservatives perhaps have a fighting chance in the war of words and intellect after all -- hope springs eternal.

That's another "old saying," by the way. (cf. Alexander Pope.) There's probably a copy of "An Essay on Man" floating around somewhere in a university town like Missoula.

State GOP convention notes -- national delegate selection and Kelleher

A couple of items from the GOP state convention:

The national convention delegates have been named -- as noted in an earlier post here on MH, they were the slate of delegates and alternates recommended by the delegate selection committee.

Dave Hart, the Ron Paul coordinator wasn't happy that none of the official slate were Ron Paul supporters. He has a point -- but only to a point. It is traditional, once there is a settled nominee, to send a slate of delegates for that nominee to show party unity. You can bet your bottom dollar that most of the delegates going to Minneapolis to vote for John McCain did not have McCain as their first choice at the beginning of the campaign season. The slate appears to be heavy with known Romney and Huckabee supporters.

So a question for Hart would be this: did any Ron Paul supporters submit applications to be national convention delegates and say that while they were Paul supporters, they are now willing to go the convention to vote for and be supportive of the party's nominee? One doubts that if Steve and Cindy Daines had announced their intention to vote for Mike Huckabee at the national convention (Daines was the Huckabee state coordinator,) that they would have been selected as delegates.

Alternatively, did Hart approach either the nominating committee or the McCain campaign, offering to negotiate a reasonable split of the delegation -- based either on Paul's share in the caucus (25%) or in the primary (20%,) perhaps? And in return, the Paul people, who are pretty organized, could have agreed not to nominate any others from the floor. Given the complexity of the voting (Chuck Johnson reports that the tabulation of the votes took nearly 5 hours yesterday,) neither side could be completely sure in advance of the final results (which were indeed apparently fairly close.) One would think that the opportunity to have one big happy family at the convention with such a slate approved by unanimous consent, would have been strongly considered by the state party. One certainly hopes so, anyway.

Absent Hart making such overtures, the state party could only assume that the Paul delegation intended to go for the full slate -- upon which the only logical response would be for the nominating committee to nominate a full slate of John McCain supporters. Which is what they did.

This is all tea-leaf reading, since MH is not privy to the inner workings either of the delegate selection committee at the state party or of the Ron Paul campaign. Anyone reading this who does have such knowledge is welcome to contact us.

___________________

Quote of the day from Bob Kelleher: “It would be a lot better if I lost. I didn’t plan on winning.”

The same article states that Kelleher advocates banning handguns and that he has apparently lost none of his fervor for "replacing the U.S. form of government with the parliamentary system."

And Democrats claim to be serious in wondering why he wasn't given a prime-time speaking slot.

____________________

More from Carol at Missoulapolis live-blogging the state convention about the section of the platform committee that got taken over by the Ron Paul folks. Apparently we Montana Republicans have taken an official position for the gold standard now. Must-read stuff. Someone needs to send this woman to the national convention to live-blog through Montana eyes -- get a professional impersonator to go door-to-door campaigning in her house district for her while she's gone. Something.

Clean sweep for McCain at convention

Sources indicate that the official slate of delegates, all McCain supporters, were elected at the state GOP convention. Thus ends the effort by Ron Paul supporters to try to nab the delegate slate. The vote was apparently fairly close, but clear.

Paul supporters have to be disappointed, but they at least had the treat of getting to hear Paul himself speak at the convention, and see him well-received.

Still waiting on "real" news sources with links.

Don't miss Carol's incredible (and incredibly entertaining) Missoulapolis live-blogging here and here. It's almost like being there!

Update: There was some excitement earlier in the day, according to this piece from Chuck Johnson -- courtesy of our Dem friends wielding videocams.

Sen. Burns gets the boot -- not...

Sen. Conrad Burns had been scheduled to be the keynote speaker addressing the Montana state convention on behalf of Sen. John McCain. This makes sense, since Burns is the titular head of the McCain campaign in Montana and is a former Senate colleague of McCain's.

But then we learned that Burns had been replaced:

The Montana Republican Party says the McCain campaign has replaced Burns with Rod Knutson, who spent time in Vietnamese prisoner of war camps with McCain.

The move comes a week after Burns' comments that he only reluctantly supports McCain; however, a campaign spokesman says the events were not related.

Whoops. Burns would have done well to steal a page from the Tom Coburn playbook. Coburn has a more conservative voting record than Burns did -- and yet when he campaigned on behalf of McCain, he only talked about what they had in common.

What was it that our mother's used to tell us? If you can't say something nice... That certainly applies to politicians who are endorsing other politicians.

Later, however, it was reported that Knutson was going to be speaking in addition to Burns, not instead of him. The reports must have made for some good inside baseball buzz for a while.

Does anyone want to bet, however, that when Burns speaks, he will this time give a glowing endorsement of McCain, accentuating the positive and leaving anything negative unsaid?

Whispers and rumors from the GOP convention

The big couple of days has arrived, and the question that everyone is waiting for an answer to out of Missoula is whether Ron Paul's people have put together enough delegates to the GOP state convention to elect their own slate of national convention delegates. That alternative slate would displace the official slate of delegates proposed by the state party -- which presumably will be made up entirely (or overwhelmingly) of delegates intending to vote for John McCain at the national convention.

MH has made some discrete inquiries of some of our usual muck-raking anonymous sources, and while we understand that they are busy and do have other things on their mind while they are up in Missoula, the only conclusion that can be reached in reading the tea-leaves is that either someone doesn't know how to count -- or else everyone is guessing and no-one is actually doing any counting.

That, or MH doesn't have the right muckraking sources.

On the one hand, we've heard strong assertions that the RP people have the votes, and on the other we've heard it equally strongly said that there is no way that the RP people have the votes. Needless to say, the two are mutually exclusive.

Carol of Missoulapolis, who is there at the convention, makes the observation that the buzz she is hearing in the halls is discontent about the caucus and about the prospect of a Ron Paul takeover, and she wonders if the two are related.

Our vote would be that they most certainly are related -- although we would hasten to add that it is hard to imagine being able to anticipate this kind of problem.

Regardless, the caucus gave Ron Paul supporters an early organizational focus. By coming in second in the caucus, defeating both John McCain and Mike Huckabee, they had a taste of what a little bit of organization can deliver. Their organization was in place and their precinct people were already in position -- months before the delegate selection process started that has led up to the convention. By contrast, John McCain seems never to have had an organization of any kind in Montana. This doesn't bode well for McCain's success here at the convention, since organization and planning is everything when it comes to caucus and convention systems of delegate selection.

It could fairly be stated that without the caucus, this struggle over Montana's delegates, with RP supporters making a strong play for sweeping the national slate, would likely never have happened. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

We'll know when we check our local listings tomorrow night or open our papers on Saturday morning whether Ron Paul supporters pulled it off at the convention. The sad thing, of course, is that if Paul wins, it will be huge news of McCain getting embarrassed and out-organized in Montana after he had the nomination wrapped up. Whereas if John McCain ends up winning, it will likely be an understandable "so what?" reaction from the press.

May it all end well. And we'll keep our ear to the ground to listen for hoofbeats from the direction of Missoula.

Michael Lange to run as write-in candidate

There has been plenty of talk about it, but the rumor-mill had reached a point where it was clear that Michael Lange, who garnered the most votes of the "real Republicans' in the Republican primary won by Bob Kelleher, was indeed going to run as a write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate, and would probably make an announcement to that effect this weekend.

And he did.

Even under the best of circumstances, write-in candidacies are a long-shot, and these aren't the best of circumstances. Short of a situation where Bob Kelleher takes votes from Max Baucus's left and where Sen. Baucus simultaneously is found to have some serious scandal, Lange doesn't have a prayer. Of course, in a year like this, who knows?

Patty Lovaas, who came in a distant 4th in the primary, is trying a different approach, planning to try to get on the ballot as an independent, even though Montana law is clear that she cannot. She plans to challenge that law in court. Sorry, but the law that states that a party candidate can't turn around and run on the ballot as an independent is a good one, since it prevents an angry primary loser from playing spoiler in the fall. The fact that this year we had a bad result from the perspective of most Republicans isn't a reason to change a good law. As we have stated before, the fundamental reason we are in this situation is that the Montana GOP failed to recruit a strong candidate with good name recognition, low negatives, and the ability to raise reasonable amounts of money (or, better, that the Republicans who fit that bill failed to step forward.) One doesn't change laws because of something like that. And while there are certainly exceptions, in general we Republicans shouldn't be in the business of trying to use the courts to overturn laws we don't like.

Ms. Lovaas, during her brief stint on the GOP candidate speaking circuit, impressed no-one that we have heard from, and the way she is talking about her attempt at an independent run only reinforces the conviction that she was just part of the the six-ring circus of distractions that helped make this problem happen for the GOP in the first place. The best thing that Lovaas can do for the Republican Party in Montana right now is to get out of the way.

There are really only three reasonable options available -- 1. just write off a Senate race that was already unattainable as a practical matter, 2. have Lange, the 2nd place finisher, run a write-in campaign, or 3. have someone come off the bench to run an independent or write-in campaign. If there was anyone willing to do option 3, that person would have run in the primary, so we are really left with 1 and 2. It is hard to say which would be most helpful to the Republican Party.

The Montana GOP will do well to take a neutral approach to Lange's run, neither supporting nor opposing it. There is no way that the GOP can endorse or support Bob Kelleher, the more one learns about him. But neither will it play well to have the GOP endorse or support a write-in candidate when Montana voters, confused as they probably were when they did it, voted for Bob Kelleher. The rules are that the winner of the primary gets the "R" line on the ballot. Period. The state party is not obligated to help Kelleher just because he has the "R" line, but it would seem a little dicey for the official party organization to come out against the person who won the primary. Best just to stay out of the way and let Lange do his thing.

We'll see what kind of a campaign Lange mounts -- if it is one that promotes Republican ideas and doesn't cause injury to the Republican Party, more power to him. His argument that Montanans need a choice is compelling, and Lange is an articulate and tireless campaigner. He should make the race more interesting, and given the other choices available, it wouldn't be surprising if he ends up setting some sort of record for the number of write-in votes cast in a Montana race.

Montana's Republican delegate selection process

Over at mtpolitics, Craig notes that Obama staffers are calling Republicans and telling them that their vote doesn't matter because of the GOP caucus.

Well that would be true, except that Romney dropped out of the race, and that means that the delegation that had been bound to vote for him at the RNC is now free to vote for whomever they choose. It is as if the caucus had never happened, and we are starting all over again.

What does this mean? Well, in one sense, not much, since Republican delegates have never been formally bound by the GOP Presidential primary. But on the other hand, historically, the Montana delegation has traditionally followed the Presidential primary results pretty closely. It would be pretty silly for a political party to do otherwise.

It would be a bit of a problem, then, if 65% of Montana Republicans voted for (to choose a name at random) Ron Paul in the primary, but then gave the majority of delegates to John McCain.

Or vice versa.

Rumor has it that Ron Paul supporters have been quietly trying to take over county convention selection processes across Montana, and that they have been pretty successful at it. This really shouldn't be that surprising, since RP supporters are pretty enthusiastic about their man, while the other guy on the ballot -- Sen. McCain -- didn't have a lot of grass-roots enthusiasm back when the nomination was still up for grabs.

One would hope, though, that Ron Paul's supporters would see that it will make them and their movement look pretty bad if McCain wins the support of a strong majority of Montana Republican voters in the primary (as he surely will,) only to have Paul's people engineer a takeover of the delegate selection process, awarding the delegates to Ron Paul.

They might fairly argue that the caucus wasn't an inclusive vote, either, and that they are just playing by the rules by working through county conventions to control the delegate selection process at the state convention. And this is absolutely true on both counts.

But on the other hand, at the time that the caucus was being held, there were no presidential primary results to compare the caucus results to. We just had to hope that the caucus (which was the only way that the Montana GOP could be a part of the process on Super Tuesday once moving the primary was shot down in the state Senate) would have representative results. That is to say, we had to hope that the winner of the caucus would be the same person who would have won a presidential primary in Montana, had one been held on that day. While it is impossible to know what would have happened, truth to be told, Mitt Romney probably would have won a Montana primary on Super Tuesday, so in that sense, the caucus probably did yield a representative result. This time.

But again, the caucus is in the dustbin of history, since Mitt Romney is no longer in the race and has released his delegates.

What is important is that this time (that is, when the GOP state convention convenes in June to do a final selection of presidential delegates,) we will have real, statewide primary results at our disposal. Not a telephone poll of 800 registered voter. Not a vague sense of what people think. But an actual statewide election -- John McCain and Ron Paul head-to-head, with real, live voters making the choice.

Montana's delegates sent to the national Republican convention should reflect our primary results. While the party has the right to its selection process (and a county convention/state convention process is perfectly legitimate way to choose delegates,) the integrity of that process depends on having a broad swathe of Republicans involved in the process.

Is the current Ron Paul insurgency representative of where Montana Republicans are right now? We won't know until we see the primary results and compare them to reports from the Montana GOP convention. It seems highly unlikely that the Republican party would allow our delegates to the national convention to vote differently from the way Montana Republicans vote in our presidential primary June 3.

So, there is definitely a good reason for Republicans to vote in the Republican presidential primary. Our votes do matter. The presidential primary vote has always been an authoritative voice about who gets Montana's Presidential delegates to the national convention. This year, will it be John McCain -- or Ron Paul? Will Montana be the only state in the Union to give its presidential delegates to Ron Paul just because Montana Republicans are lukewarm about John McCain or are eager to vote for or against Hillary? Or does Ron Paul have the depths of support in Montana that many of his supporters believe he does? This is the time to find out, one way or another.

Put differently, who is more representative of the Montana Republican Party and the voters that support it? John McCain or Ron Paul? Many Montana Republicans who don't like either candidate may view this as being a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" choice. But for those who do see a clear difference, one way or another, the June 3rd primary is the time to speak your mind.

We will watch the results -- both those at the ballot box, and those at the state convention -- with great interest, curious to learn for sure where Montana Republicans are.

Notes from the Maine and Washington caucuses -- with reflections on the Montana GOP caucus

Correspondence with an interested MH reader from Maine sent some interesting observations about yesterday's Democratic caucuses in that state. He had earlier predicted a solid Obama victory based on his unscientific local observations, and his own precinct went 2 to 1 for Obama (as did he.)

He noted that national trends seemed to be reflected in his own precinct, with older women and blue-collar folks tending to go with Clinton, and with better educated and younger voters going for Obama. Another interesting observation was that while under 35's and over 55's were well-represented, there was a dearth of folks in the middle, age-wise.

When questioned about the Maine process, he confirmed that there is registration by party in Maine, making it easy to determine who is eligible to vote in the caucus. Only those registered to vote as a party member can vote in the caucus -- if independents want to participate in a caucus, they have to choose to give up their independent status and register as a member of the party.

Meanwhile, out in Washington, there are some potentially interesting mechanisms that Montana Republicans can consider for future caucuses.

First, the Washington GOP has both caucuses and a primary. Some of the delegates are awarded based on the early caucus, and others are awarded based on the primary.

Second, anyone can vote in the caucus, but there are two things that make this possible to be done with some safety for the party. For one thing, the caucuses do not appear to be strictly binding -- the party convention seems to be the place where that is finally determined. So if Mickey Mouse or John Kerry were to magically win the Republican caucuses through organized disruption, this could be remedied at the convention without changing any rules.

But more importantly, the Democrats and Republicans have caucuses at the same time, and voters in each party's caucuses have to sign a statement that they are a Democrat or Republican and that they pledge not to participate in the other party's delegate selection process in any way.

Unlike Montana, it seems that the parties were in agreement on moving up their Presidential primaries -- but what they couldn't agree on was the date of the primary. Republicans wanted February 5th, Democrats wanted March 18th. This likely reflects the realities of the way the two parties handle their primaries and caucuses.

The Democratic system is much more top-down than the Republican. Consider: the national party mandated proportionate distribution of delegates (part of why the race is so close in the delegate count this year.) State parties do not have the freedom in the Democratic Party to decide how to allocate delegates, as in a winner-take-all primary or some variant on that that Republicans often use in order to give their states more clout or to benefit a "favorite son" candidate.

Another example of this top-down approach is the different ways that the parties sanctioned states that went "too early." Republicans took half of the delegates away from those that jumped the gun, whereas Democrats took all representation away from Michigan and Florida. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as MH has written before (with some approval of the DNC on this point.) It is just a different approach.

The most top-down feature of the Democratic (here is a place where Democratic isn't very democratic) process is that a very large number of the total number of delegates are unelected "super-delegates" who can vote for whomever they want to. The party bosses thus get to have a lot of say. Which again isn't intrinsically bad at all -- it just flies in the face of Democratic rhetoric.

All of this together goes to make the Democratic nomination process one that is institutionally designed to be more likely to take a lot longer to be settled -- and thus a state's Democrats don't have the motivation that a state's Republicans do to have delegate selection processes occur earlier on the calendar.

Anyway, with all of the winner-take-all primaries on the Republican schedule and the greater tendency for GOP contests to be wrapped up quickly, it is understandable that the Washington GOP would want to go on Super Tuesday while the Dems wouldn't see the need to rush. In fact, they got more attention by not being in the glut of Super Tuesday -- but this was not the case for Washington's GOP, which was, unbelievable as it might seem, essentially irrelevant even though February wasn't half-over.

So, these states are interesting things for Montana's Republican and Democratic Parties to look at in deciding how to do things in the future. If Democrats and Republicans can cooperate with each other, they could agree to move up a primary date. Or they could jointly set up open caucuses held on the same day at the same time, with parallel statements for people to sign, agreeing not to participate in the other's delegate selection process at any time.

Or they could agree to instate registration by party in Montana, which would allow each party to do caucuses of their own on whatever date each felt was most advantageous -- as was done in Maine, with the Maine GOP caucuses being held earlier than the Dem caucuses.

And the GOP could consider allocating some delegates to the caucus winner, and some to the primary winner.

There are many options, but as we have stated before, this year's GOP caucuses can best be thought of as a trial balloon. Something needed to change if the GOP in particular here in Montana were to have a voice in the process, given the typical dynamics and timetable of Republican nomination contests.

Rather than lambast the Montana GOP for "disenfranchisment" (no such thing happened, but there's no point in rehashing all of that again,) interested Montana Republicans should give their input to the party with ideas about how we can be relevant, timely, and as inclusive as possible. We can see, by looking at the many ways that things are done around the country in other states, that Montana's June primary isn't the only way that things can be done here.

One would hope that we could be humble enough to acknowledge that we need to be open to change in Montana, and treat this year's caucus experiment in the GOP as an exciting first step toward improving how we select our delegates to national conventions.

It is gratifying, although not surprising, that GOP Chairman Erik Iverson and the GOP leadership had the courage to step out and try something different. They've started the ball rolling.

The Lt. Gov. did show up -- good for him, good for us

In the last MH post, we asked the question of whether Lt. Gov. Bohlinger showed up at the Helena caucus in response to GOP Chairman Erik Iverson. The post started with the intent of just asking the question, but as we searched in vain to find any news report, that initial open-minded attitude started to drop away. Mistake.

Wrongly assuming that he had not, given that Google News searches revealed nothing, we made some comments that were erroneous, and went on to others that were snarky at the least -- mean-spirited at the worst. We should have waited for a response to our question before commenting further. We apologize to Lt. Gov. Bohlinger for assuming that he didn't show up. Rather than delete the post, we will leave it up as a monument to the errors of hasty judgments.

Our criticism now would be of the Montana press, which gave wide coverage to the fact that Bohlinger was not able to vote under caucus rules, and in some cases criticized the Montana GOP for its lack of openness. One would think that the following would have been big news.

Here are the responses we received:

From an anonymous commenter who seems to be knowledgeable about the event --

Yes, Lt. Gov. and the brand-new Mrs. Lt. Gov. were among the earliest arrivals (at about 5:15 for an event that started at 5:30) for the Lewis & Clark County caucus.

They were greeted warmly by the Central Committee chair, ushered inside and acknowledged politely by several other attendees. The Lt. Gov. also spoke to the crowd for several minutes extolling the virtues of John McCain. I'm sure that the Senator's third-place finish in the voting can be ascribed to his endorsement. Mr. Bohlinger never made an attempt to vote in the caucus.

Pictures exist of the couple throughout the evening.

And our good friend Jack the Blogger over at Western Word sent us this link. Isn't it odd that only Fox News online seems to have carried this AP story? A search for the text of the above quotation reveals no other links.

We can only be very glad that this cordial meeting took place, and hope that there are many more to come. In the AP article, Bohlinger is quoted as saying this:

“I don’t think that signing on to be Brian’s partner makes me a Democrat,” Bohlinger said, adding he has not given up on the Republican party “and I hope they don’t give up on me.”

The Republican caucus has drawn attention to the fact that Montana doesn't have registration by party, and so the only way that one can be identified with a party is by being on the ballot as a Republican or Democrat -- or by being someone whose actions show a support for the Republican Party.

On the one hand, we would like to have registration by party in Montana -- for a number of reasons.

But on the other hand, there is a sense in which there is something appropriately Montanan about having to prove that one is a Republican or Democrat by one's actions.

There is a way forward for Bohlinger as a Republican, should he choose to take it -- and it involves action. Coming to the caucus and respecting party rules was a good start. It was also a good start for him to be graciously invited by Iverson and courteously received by the gathering.

What can the Republican Party do now? Iverson has already indicated that he will invite Bohlinger to speak at the GOP convention this summer, and that is a good start. It is perhaps not in the best spirit of bridge-building to ask him to have a 90-minute question and answer session -- sort of the political equivalent of a public root canal. But the ground rules should be clear -- conventions are meant to build and boost the Republican Party -- and Bohlinger should respect that and speak in a way that boosts and helps the Republican Party.

What else can Bohlinger do? He can do fundraisers to benefit the Montana GOP or the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee. He can work to get a Republican AG elected and to get Duane Grimes elected as State Auditor. He can take public stands where he sides with Montana Republicans on some issues where most Montana Republicans disagree with the governor.

We think this would be a great thing for the GOP, and a great thing for Bohlinger. Will it help the governor? Maybe -- but we suspect it would be a wash. Sen. Roy Brown will defeat the governor in the coming election based on the issues and on Republican fundamental strengths -- not on how how the governor uses Bohlinger as a tool against Republicans. And if we proactively reach out to the Lt. Gov. and get him to commit to our party and some of our candidates, there will be less of an opportunity for him to be used in that way.

Thanks again to Lt. Gov. Bohlinger for coming to the caucus, thanks again to the forward-looking Iverson for inviting him, and thanks to the Helena gathering for receiving him warmly. May this be the start of something beautiful.

Notes on the Montana GOP caucus

As MH predicted, it Romney won solidly. And as we noted more recently, it was not as big of a win as we had earlier predicted. It was not the kind of landslide that he had in Wyoming or Nevada.

The results of the caucus were basically in direct proportion to the amount of organizational effort that went into the state -- with one exception, and that is that McCain greatly overperformed, considering the absence of any McCain campaign efforts during the time that organization could make a difference. This shows the fundamental strength that McCain has in Montana, and it means that regardless of the Democratic nominee and regardless of how many Republicans are drinking the Ann Coulter "I'm going to campaign for Hillary if McCain is nominated" Koolaid, McCain should handily win Montana in the fall.

Perhaps more encouragingly, when one adds up the McCain and Huckabee votes, it can be said that nearly a half of the caucus voters (who can be assumed to be at least somewhat representative of the party base) doesn't pay any attention to the opinions of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, choosing rather to think for themselves.

The caucus, at least in Yellowstone County, was a pretty pumped-up affair. One is reminded of the strength of caucusing when it comes to party-building. It would be nice to have party registration so we could have caucuses in every precinct in the state -- but we'll probably have to wait a little while longer for that.

Montana's 25 delegates were certainly sought-after by the campaigns. Had all the campaigns been tuned in as early as the Romney camp was to how the caucuses were going to work, we would have seen even more activity by the candidates over the last year. It was nice to know that candidates were having to pay enough attention to Montana to have staffers studying issues of importance to Montana Republicans, crafting literature and phone messages to pitch their message to Montana caucus-goers.

And it can only be good for Montana to have Montana Republican leaders making connections with candidates and top-level staffers of the various campaigns at a time when those campaigns are actually paying attention and at a time when they are grateful for every bit of support that they can lap up.

For decades, Montana politicians have been left out of this kind of networking that connects our leaders closely to those who are or will become leaders in the national party -- or perhaps residents of the White House.

Now, two things remain -- to capitalize on all of the grassroots party building that has resulted from the caucus; and to do an evaluation of what worked, what didn't, and how things can be improved upon next time.

And we certainly hope that there will be a next time. There are lots of ways to keep this going, and we have suggested some ideas, such as making the June primary binding on the second and subsequent ballots of a convention. Another way would be to have the caucuses assign some of Montana's delegates, and the primary assign others. Yet another would be to have the caucuses be non-binding (which means we could have them even earlier without penalty, but with the reward of having them bring attention and "Montana front-runner status" to the winner.)

It may be old-fashioned to say so, but we have really lost something by making primaries ubiquitous in the delegate selection process. Political parties, with the tempering effect they can have on the political process by forcing broad coalitions to form, have lost influence. And as a result, our politics has become more viciously partisan, not less so.

So, we'll leave it on that old-fashioned note. We look forward to the 2012 Montana Presidential GOP caucuses.

More on L'Affaire Bohlinger

While it might seem that we have been generally criticizing Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger lately, the MH gripe with him has been a pretty narrowly directed one.

Namely, that he signed up to be Sen. John McCain's chairman in Montana -- and then didn't do a blessed thing for McCain. Didn't bother to learn the caucus rules, couldn't be bothered to contact and talk to the state GOP folks like every other campaign head in the state, didn't even bother to find out if he had a vote, and if not, how to get one.

Unless Lewis and Clark County is some gross anomaly (which we doubt,) Bohlinger was probably sitting right in a vacant precinct that he could have applied for. Did he ever contact the L&C County party to find out? Did he ever contact the state party to learn the caucus rules and whether he had a vote? We somehow doubt it.

Bohlinger not having a vote doesn't make him special, by the way. There are Supreme Court justices, district court justices, city council members and mayors and other non-partisan elected officials who probably consider themselves to be Republicans, but who weren't elected with an "R" beside their name on the ballot. And unlike the Lt. Gov., most of these folks in non-partisan offices who consider themselves to be Republicans have furthermore probably worked for and contributed to Republicans and have probably never worked to defeat Republicans at the ballot box. None of these elected officials get a vote in the GOP Presidential caucus, though, because they weren't elected as Republicans.

Do we wish that there were a way to have a larger group of caucus voters? Yes. But it is certainly understandable why the GOP arrived at the solution that they did. One way of putting it is that everyone in the state who is on record with the government as being Republican is going to vote in this caucus.

We hope that there will be changes made in the future -- for starters we'd like voter registration by party that would allow for a broader group of Republican caucus voters, or we could have an agreement with Democrats to caucus on the same night (so people would have to choose that night whether to be a Republican or a Democrat,) or we could pass the legislation proposed by Republicans in the last session to move up the Presidential primaries for both parties.

But ultimately, the rules for determining a political party's delegates are -- according to Montana law -- made by the parties themselves. Lt. Gov. Bohlinger of all people should have been sophisticated enough to find out what those rules were, especially if he aspired to lead a Presidential campaign effort in the state.

Bohlinger has announced that he plans to appear at his local caucus to make a speech for McCain and then make a stink about not getting to vote (does he want to make doubly sure that McCain doesn't get any votes? What does he have against poor Sen. McCain, anyway?)

He did this several days after the deadline had passed for certifying voters at the caucus -- which indicates either that someone in the governor's office knew exactly when the deadlines were that everyone else had to follow and then made a point of waiting until after they had passed, or it means that the Lt. Gov. couldn't be bothered with finding out the caucus rules.

GOP Chairman Erik Iverson handled the situation well by sending Bohlinger a letter that (much more diplomatically) explained the above to the Lt. Gov.

Iverson personally invited Bohlinger to come to the caucus in Helena and to speak on behalf of John McCain, although he pointed out that he couldn't give Bohlinger a vote without breaking rules that everyone else in the state GOP has had to follow and ignoring deadlines that everyone else in the state GOP had to meet.

Still, perhaps the Montana GOP could have been a little more proactive about dealing with Bohlinger and the GOP caucus. Couldn't we see this one coming from 10 miles away? This was a wedge tactic that one didn't need a crystal ball to see coming.

Someone at state party central could have written Bohlinger long ago, spelling out the process and offering to guide him through it. The party could have offered to show him how to sign up to being a precinct committeeman, a position where he could work for Republican victory and with which he could have a vote at the caucus.

Regular readers of MH will know that it is not a new opinion around here to advocate being more active and less reactive when it comes to the Lt. Gov.'s attempts to play the Republican game.

But again, Iverson responded politely and positively, inviting Bohlinger to work with him to elect Republicans here in Montana. No word yet on whether Bohlinger has offered to take Iverson up on his invitation.

Clarifying the MH GOP Presidential primary proposal

Over at LITW, there seems to be some confusion about exactly what the MH post recently was proposing regarding the June GOP presidential primary. Jay seems to think that we were advocating making the primary binding. Not so.

The idea was this: leave the February caucus in place just as it is, with the winner getting all 25 delegates on the first ballot at the Republican convention. No change whatsoever.

This gets the advantage of an early vote -- a say in how momentum develops early in the season, and committed delegates on the first ballot (which most years is the only ballot.)

The MH twist was this: instead of turning Montana's delegates loose to vote for whomever they please on 2nd and subsequent ballots in the event of a brokered convention (which is how it is now,) the party could pass a rule that commits our delegates on the 2nd and subsequent ballots to the winner of the June primary.

Nothing would be taken away from the caucus voters -- they still have the early influence and reward for getting involved at the precinct level, namely, 25 delegates committed to the candidate of their choice on the first ballot. We would still have the party-building grassroots effects of the caucus.

By committing the delegates on the second and subsequent ballots to the June primary winner, it would ensure that in the off chance that the June primary is actually still relevant (something that now appears unlikely, with McCain on a serious roll,) there would be a motivation for candidates to come and campaign in Montana for the June primary -- namely, getting Montana's delegates on the second and subsequent ballots when the nomination would be decided in a brokered convention.

With these added rules, there would also be no change from what Montana has experienced in the past -- in other words, in most years the Montana Presidential primary would be an irrelevant afterthought, just as it is today. Some people are apparently fond of the idea of keeping it that way, so they would get their wish.

But on the rare year when the nomination battle was still going in June, our Presidential primary would still be just as relevant, since by definition a race that is still going in June is a race where the nomination won't be decided on the first ballot.

It would be the best of both worlds, as we said in our original post. We would get the early say and the party-building effects of an early caucus (which could be expanded to include straw polls, etc.) -- at no expense to the taxpayers.

And we would have the back-up of a meaningful primary in that odd year of a brokered convention.