Perhaps some voted for the name that sounded best, knowing little if anything about their chosen candidate. Perhaps some intentionally voted for a candidate they didn't truly expect to win, just to stick a proverbial thumb in the eye of the status quo. Or perhaps they had very good reasons for throwing their support to long-shot candidates.
Regardless of voters' intentions, Bob Kelleher is now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and John Driscoll is the Democratic nominee for U.S. House. They received the most votes; they won their nominations fair and square - and much to everyone's surprise.
That should go without saying, yet neither Driscoll nor Kelleher seem poised to put up a fight. Driscoll has repeatedly said that he doesn't plan to raise any campaign money, spend any campaign money, or even do any campaigning outside of his pre-arranged summer travel plans.
He is running against Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Republican who has won his previous four House races and amassed hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars.
Kelleher, for his part, is up against Sen. Max Baucus, who has raised $10 million in his bid to win a sixth term in the U.S. Senate. Kelleher has run for various offices under various party banners more than a dozen times, and it's safe to say that most of his views on government are not representative of the Montana Republican Party platform.
Nevertheless, it was disappointing to learn that, at the state Republican convention in Missoula last week, Kelleher was overhead saying, “It would be a lot better if I lost. I didn't plan on winning.”
That was probably music to Sen. Max Baucus's ears. Baucus's spokesman, Barrett Kaiser, had previously explained to a Lee Newspapers State Bureau reporter that the senator won't be accepting any invitations to debate Kelleher, saying “Max plans on talking to Montanans across the state, and they'll have ample opportunity to ask him questions. But we don't want to subject him to what will be a circus.”
No doubt campaigning for public office does sometimes feel like a circus. It's got to be a tremendously frustrating, exhausting endeavor. Candidates have to convince many people that they are the best person for the job. They have to show that they can represent their constituents without compromising their values. They have to make a lot of promises, knowing that perpetually cranky editorial writers will be calling them out for the tiniest infraction.
It can't be easy. It's probably almost as difficult as actually holding a public office.
Nevertheless, the months, weeks and days proceeding an election is the time when voters make their decisions, and they need to know where the candidates stand on the issues that are important to them in order to make informed decisions. Lively campaigns help that information reach their ears.
That's why it is so important for candidates - even long-shot candidates - to present a formidable challenge, for without them, voters have no choice at all.
Kelleher and Driscoll should indeed campaign, and campaign hard. They should call for debates, and keep calling until their opponents agree to debate them.
Most of all, they should show their respect for the voters who supported them by running their campaigns as though they had a very good chance of winning.
You never know. They might just surprise us all again.
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