I was eating dinner last night with my family (I made potato soup) and happened to see U.S. Sen. Max Baucus on TV talking about the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

First I thought it was on the local newscast, but then I saw that it was a campaign commercial, and it was paid for by Friends of Max Baucus.

So away we go – This is the first campaign TV commercial I have seen in Montana for the 2008 election.

In an interview, a Baucus spokesman said, “This isn’t about politics.” Sure it isn’t. If you believe that, then I have some ocean front property to sell you north of Shelby. Anytime a U.S. Senator spends his campaign money on a commercial, it is all about politics and nothing else. That’s just the way it is. The other two votes from Montana (Rep. Denny Rehberg and Sen. Jon Tester) both support the program, so it wasn’t aired to convince them. I also don’t believe the commercial was done because President Bush catches a few shows from the Montana Television Network. It was about politics. I guess the Montana media can’t see this.

SCHIP is a good program that has sadly been politicized in recent weeks.

A better angle for the Baucus campaign team would have been to use some of those campaign dollars to increase enrollment in SCHIP. There are around 19,000 Montana children eligible for SCHIP, but are not enrolled. Supposedly, there’s enough money to enroll most, if not all, of them. If the reauthorization SCHIP bill is not passed, they can keep the program running in Montana for around nine months. If the Baucus team would have used this angle, then they could really say the Senator was doing something for the children.

It might have even scored him some points with the voters.