For that week, Montana became a bigger version of Iowa and New Hampshire before their caucus and primary. Montana visits by presidential candidates may not be over yet either.
Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, took their battle for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination before large audiences in Butte and Missoula April 5 and 6.
Long-shot GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul has scheduled a “freedom rally” Monday, April 21, in the University of Montana's University Center ballroom.
The only one missing from Montana was the likely Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain. The odds are he will campaign here before November.
Montana, with its scant three votes in the Electoral College, often gets overlooked in presidential campaigns, particularly in western Montana. If there are visits, the candidates usually stop in Billings.
Often, Montana draws the surrogates of the major presidential candidates - the spouses, the brothers and sisters and the children.
That has not been the case this election cycle. The first visit was by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who spoke to the Montana Republican Party convention in June 2007.
Fast forward to Butte, Montana's historic Democratic stronghold, on Saturday night, April 5. The state Democratic Party put on an well-run event for its annual Mansfield-Metcalf dinner before 4,000 people in the Civic Center. Despite having two presidential candidates with busy schedules, everything ran like clockwork.
They spoke on a platform, and the organizers had several large video screens set up so people could see them up close.
Here are my impressions, which are not meant as endorsements of either candidate or support for their stands on the issues.
Obama spoke first. He's an outstanding orator, even a spellbinding one at times. He ignited the crowd. At times it was hard to hear some of the lines in his speech because the crowd's applause from his previous comments drowned him out.
He drew the louder applause than Clinton when each was introduced. The crowd interrupted Obama's speech more times with applause than it did hers, although she received plenty of ovations too.
They did not appear on the platform together. Either some security or etiquette rule decrees that Obama and Clinton cannot appear on the same stage together unless it's for a debate.
Between Obama and Clinton's speeches, Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester and Gov. Brian Schweitzer spoke, followed by the original keynote speaker, Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D. State Democratic Chairman Dennis McDonald was the emcee.
Then it was Clinton's turn. She's a fine speaker too, although not in Obama's league as a pure orator.
Somewhat to my surprise going in, I thought Clinton's speech contained more specifics, more meat and potatoes, than Obama's. She outlined a number of problems and presented a series of specific solutions.
His speech was the more eloquent and generated more applause, while hers was the more substantial. That's one reporter's assessment after hearing them in person on one night, although I have watched them on television a number of times.
Later, I was lucky enough to get interviews with both candidates, with thanks to the two campaigns.
The Obama interview was first. Montana Standard photographer Lisa Kunkel and I were escorted to a meeting room next to a locker room in the back of the Civic Center. Obama walked in and we shook hands. He's tall and stands ramrod straight. He's wiry but looks even thinner than he looks on TV.
We were given 7 minutes with Obama. His campaign had insisted on getting the question topics the afternoon before as a condition of getting the debate. That seemed odd, but those were the rules, so we sent them six or seven possible topics.
Obama was friendly, although he seemed tired. He should have been. He'd done the same gig with Clinton in Grand Forks, N.D., the night before, flew to Missoula, spoken to nearly 9,000 people at the University of Montana that morning and then spoke in Butte that night.
I asked both candidates the same three questions about what specifically they would do about rural health care and rising gasoline prices and about their positions on guns and the Second Amendment.
He answered the questions efficiently. I lost track of time and probably could have asked another one. But I wanted to keep within the time limit, and I knew a television crew and another newspaper reporter were waiting for their chance for interviews too. All of us faced serious deadline pressure.
Obama thanked me for my “economy” in asking the questions, and we left.
The Clinton interview came about two hours later, after her speech. Montana Standard photographer Walter Hinick and I were taken to another back room in the Civic Center.
Clinton walked in. She was friendly and less formal than Obama. The former first lady is more petite than she looks on television. She, too, was tired, but was more personable and informal than Obama. Perhaps it was because no other reporters were waiting. I had the only interview.
She wanted to know where I lived, where I worked and where I had gone to school. She talked about how one of the Clintons' most favorite vacations was in Montana in the mid-1980s when Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas. She remembered how then-Montana Gov. Ted Schwinden had arranged for a helicopter to take them up to the Kootenai Lodge on Flathead Lake.
Clinton answered the same three questions. She had not requested the issue topics in advance. Although I had more time scheduled with her, I ended the interview and excused myself. I had to race back to the press table, transcribe the interview, slap a lead on it and file the story before the 11 p.m. deadline.
For a couple of days, Montana voters had a chance to size up the Democratic contenders, and reporters had a chance to cover them. Let's hope McCain provides the same opportunities.
Johnson is chief of the Lee Newspapers State Bureau in Helena. He can be reached at (800) 525-4920 or (406) 443-4920. His e-mail address is chuck.johnson@lee.net
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