Big Sky Cairn

Democrats have been eager to convince Republicans that their vote doesn’t matter in today’s primary elections. Missoulapolis and Montana Headlines have already done an excellent job of disproving this misrepresentation, so I’m going to take a different tack and suggest that contrary to what you are probably reading in the Montana media, voting in the Democrat Party’s primary probably isn’t going to matter that much either.

Here are five reasons the Montana Democrat’s Presidential Primary is irrelevant on the national stage.

1) Super Delegates - Surprise, you’re voting in an elitist Democrat Party system that is designed to reign in the unpredictable vote of the people - your vote if you dare to buck who The Party thinks you should vote for. In Montana, unless you’re one of eight super-delegates whose single votes can cancel over 100,000 opposing plebiscite ballots, the Democrat Party doesn’t really care who you think should be the Democrat Nominee for the Presidency. Hope you vote correctly!

2) The Democrat Party already knows what you want - In Michigan, no votes were cast for Obama because - well - he wasn’t on the ballot. Hillary Clinton was on the ballot - against the will of her party - and earned 55 percent of the vote. The Democrat Party decided to award Obama the majority of Michigan’s delegates anyway because, well, they already know how the people of Michigan were going to vote so why actually go to the trouble of counting their votes? If Montana gets it wrong, well, thank God super delegates can save Montana Democrats from their own ignorance.

3) Puerto Rico - So even if Montana minds it’s p’s and q’s, and does what it’s supposed to do, it doesn’t matter. The Democrat Party doesn’t really care that much about what Montana thinks anyway. See, there are 50 states (unless you’re Obama) and the Democrat Party has determined that what the people of Puerto Rico think is more important than more than half of them (27, to be exact). Puerto Rico has 55 Democrat delegates. Montana has 25 or less than half of Puerto Rico. Really want to the Democrats to listen to you? Avoid U.S. citizenship - and all hail the international community!

4) It’s already over - It’s really gotta be hard on the Montana Democrats who have been so excited about their votes making a difference today. There’s got to be some frustration that Hillary couldn’t keep a lid on her plans to concede for 24 itsy-bitsy more hours so they could have their fun (and for that matter, she spoiled the fun for Andrew Hammond too). Not that her exit is really that important since pundits have been calling her challenge mathematically impossible for months now.

5) McCain wins Montana anyway - Doesn’t matter who gets the Democrat nomination. McCain beats ‘em both in Montana - land of the bitter gun-clinging racists.

Does either ballot matter? If I lived in Bill Warden’s district, I could vote for him and against his primary opponent. But I don’t and my district has no primary.

Is the AG primary a close one?

And McCain v Ron Paul is moot.

The democrat ballot seems to at least have a contested presidential race.

Nice try, Wiley. The eyes of the nation are on Montana, and it isn’t because of the Republican primary. We’ll be the final state (our polls close two hours later than South Dakota) to send a message about who our next (Democratic) president should be. We have lots of cool down-ticket races, too. Jealous?

well as of 10:40 am the AP said Obama had enough delegates to win the nomination, so I hope you got your vote in before then so it would still matter.

Actually Pete, they eyes of the nation are on the Clinton Campaign. A bunch of House Superdelegates went over to Obama, clinching the nomination and the rumors of a Clinton concession seem to be accurate. Your friendly national Democrat Party couldn’t hold its load for another 24 hours to at least make it seem like Montana was relevant. Talk about premature election. High comedy.

I thought this post was pretty much dead on. I won’t be voting for McCain, but he will probably take MT.

I voted a Republican ballot. I wanted input on state races, which are important. I want hands though- which of you voted for Kelleher?