A conundrum for the GOP
No doubt some Montana Democrats are salivating at the possibility that the heavily crowded GOP primary race for governor will produce a big surprise in the form of a weak candidate.
It could indeed come true with nine candidates vying for the prize. The circumstances at work here were summed up pretty well by Chuck Baldwin, Flathead resident and running mate to gubernatorial candidate Bob Fanning.
“The pie is going to be sliced mighty thin, and in Montana, there is no run-off in the primaries. That means, whoever gets the most votes — no matter what the percentage — wins. It is very conceivable, therefore, that the winner will receive far less than 30 percent of the votes.”
But is this truly desirable? Shouldn’t the Republican candidate reflect the will of most Republican voters? Even from a practical point of view, would that not benefit the Republican Party?
To answer that question, all we need to do is think back to the 2008 Senate election. The late Bob Kelleher was the surprise winner out of a field of six candidates in the GOP primary, becoming a feeble challenger to Sen. Max Baucus. It’s not an understatement to say that Montana Republicans weren’t happy with the candidate that had been selected for them by a minority, considering that Kelleher had been a perennial candidate for multiple offices, sometimes as a Democrat and sometimes as a Green Party candidate. He supported gun control and increased welfare, positions that entirely conflicted with the Republican Party platform.
In short, he did not represent the Republican Party establishment or most Republican voters. But he was the candidate, and let’s be fair, he actually won 36 percent of the vote.
That’s comparable to the plurality supporting Rick Hill in the current election, according to a Nov. 30 Public Policy Polling report. Hill is the front runner with 37 percent support, followed by Ken Miller with 10 percent, Jeff Essmann with 5 percent, Jim Lynch with 4 percent, Neil Livingstone and Jim O’Hara with 3 percent, Cory Stapleton with 2 percent and Bob Fanning with 1 percent.
That picture could easily change over the next seven months, if one candidate or another can motivate a small but enthusiastic minority to support them, but again it seems unlikely that any one candidate will put together 50-plus percent support.
This makes us ponder what safeguards are possible to protect the majority will of a political party in Montana, a state with no party registration requirements and the potential for Democratic voters to sway the results of the GOP primary, or vice versa. There are eight states, mostly in the South, that have adopted runoff election systems where after a primary election in which no one got a majority of the votes, the top two candidates are presented to voters again for a choice.
Some countries with multiple parties use systems where voters can rank, in order, their top three candidates. We doubt that is going to fly in Montana, but who knows? There would even be obstacles to adopting a simple runoff system, from the cost of an added election to the fact that Montana’s late primary elections don’t leave much time for another election between June and November.
The issue seems quite remote right now, but come June we wonder whether the public will be clamoring for a solution if an unpopular candidate surges to the front by putting together a small but solid voting bloc.