There are no television and radio ads, but a major primary election is underway right now in Montana. Democrats and republicans are trying to select a candidate to run in a special election for the seat currently held by Congressman Ryan Zinke who was tapped to be the next Secretary of the Interior. Musician Rob Quist, of Mission Mountain Wood Band fame, is busy travelling the state to urge Democratic Party insiders to vote for him. Quist says he chose to run this time, because of the short election process.

"Hey lets be honest, I like the fact that this is such a short election cycle and I think all Montanans would agree with me that this is the way every election cycle should be," said Quist. "Everybody can make up their mind and lets get on with this thing and not have a long drawn out process that involves special interest money to influence it. It seems like after three month everybody just goes negative anyway which is something I would never do."

Because of the nature of the primary Quist will need to convince a very small segment of Montana Democrats to support him.

"It will be 135 votes all together," Quist said. "Each county that has a democratic party will be able to have four votes. Of course Jon Tester will have one vote as well as Steve Bullock and the senate minority whip, the house minority whip, the minority leaders and also the partner organizations such as the AFL-CIO and the teachers union."

Quist is leveraging his songwriting abilities in his political endeavors and is out with a new song titled “If you stand with me, I’ll stand up for you” as a campaign theme of sorts. Quist will be in Missoula today and will be chatting about the campaign on Talk Back this morning at 8:30.

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