Election scramble in high gear
The presidential nomination process has reached a tipping point with some incredible and historic reversals of fortune.
And on the Republican side of the ledger, at least, Montana will be weighing in on the races in a meaningful way for the first time with a Super Tuesday caucus vote.
The turnaround in the GOP race has been remarkable: It was just months ago when former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was the undisputed national front runner, and it was just last summer when Arizona Sen. John McCain's campaign was broke and appeared to be completely broken.
The wheels of politics have since rolled in strange directions. Giuliani banked on a strategy of basically overlooking the early primary states and relying on Florida and the 22 Super Tuesday states to propel him to victory. Many pundits were skeptical, and rightly so: The Giuliani campaign bogged down, almost to irrelevance, out of a sheer lack of inertia.
He came in a distant third place in Tuesday's Florida returns, effectively ending a $50 million campaign.
It may well be remembered as the most blundered presidential campaign in American history.
McCain, meanwhile, has all the makings for achieving one of the greatest comebacks in history. It has already been a huge comeback, but if he can vanquish Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee next week, it will pave the road to the national nomination for McCain.
And Montana Republicans will have a say on Tuesday.
The state Republican Party's decision to switch to an earlier, closed caucus vote was arguably an approach that has been exclusionary to GOP voters, but at the same time it is an approach that may indeed make Montana more relevant in the nomination process.
Only Republican precinct officials and elected officials can vote in the caucus - about 3,000 people will be casting ballots - but the party's delegates to the national convention will be bound for the first time to cast their votes for the candidate that gets the most votes.
While Montana will have only 25 delegates, their votes could potentially be influential in the race. McCain will certainly vie for them, along with the other major candidates, but adding excitement is the upstart Ron Paul campaign, which sees a chance for an upset victory in Montana.
In any case, the caucus vote will certainly be more influential than votes that are cast in Montana's June primary elections. June is simply way too late in the process to be of any influence in either the Democratic or Republican presidential nomination process.