As of this morning, it looks like there are eight candidates who plan to run for Montana’s At-Large U.S. House seat, unless I’ve missed someone.

Can you name them?

So far for the Democrats we have John Lewis and Melinda Gopher.

For the Republicans we have Drew Turiano, Brad Johnson, Ryan Zinke, Matt Rosendale, and Corey Stapleton.

Shawn White Wolf plans to run as an Independent.

According to the Montana Secretary of State’s office, Candidate filing opens January 9 and closes March 10, so we have a ways to go with probably more candidates to file. Montana’s Primary Election is June 3, 2014.

This might be the “label” election.

In an interview with the local CBS station, candidate Drew Turiano labeled himself a “pro-life Christian Tea Party conservative Republican” which I am calling PLCTPCR for short.

Besides wanting to impeach President Obama, nullify Obamacare and Roe v. Wade, he also wants to remove illegal aliens by bringing back “Operation Wetback” which was an operation from the Eisenhower administration of the 1950s.

I’m thinking Turiano is, among other things, staking his claim as the most conservative candidate in the field. He really needs to find a way to stick “Gun Tote’n” in that label some way.

Independent Shawn White Wolf told the local CBS station “he’s not going to immediately reveal his stances on any major issues.” He labeled himself, “an American-Indian conservative but said in a press release he’s liberal on social issues.”

Running as an independent is extremely difficult in Montana (probably by design by the Republicans and Democrats). White Wolf will need about 12,000 signatures to even get on the ballot. I personally think that is unfair. The Democrats and Republicans have screwed things up pretty well, so independent-minded candidates might find some support these days – if they can get on the ballot.

Shameless plug: All these candidates (and their staff/volunteers) could use my new book, “Preparing for the Race: 50+ Questions for the Potential Candidate” which is available through Amazon.com HERE.

I think the Montana’s U.S. House At-Large race will be fun to watch. If you are a candidate and you are on Twitter, follow me @TheWesternWord and I will follow you back.

### BE THANKFUL ###