And so we have Al Gore and George W. Bush.
All the time, effort and money of the primary fights, and we end up today just about where everyone thought we would be nine months ago.
For Utahns, the events of Thursday couldn't have come at a worse time.
Now with both Sen. John McCain (Republican) and Bill Bradley (Democrat) ending their campaigns — we just have Al and George.
Here we were ready, as Gov. Mike Leavitt likes to say, to finally have a say in who may be our next president and — bam! — the door closes.
Of course, today's first-ever Western States Presidential Primary does give Utahns a chance to cast a direct ballot for a party nominee.
Trouble is, last Tuesday we got the party nominees. Sixteen state primaries and caucuses gave them to the rest of us.
So today's vote in Utah is kind of like taking your kid sister to the high school prom. It's nice to go, but so what?
The Western States Presidential Primary was a noble experiment.
But it's success should be closely examined.
Leavitt started the charge several years ago. A close observer of the national political scene (he worked full-time on one of Ronald Reagan's presidential campaigns and formed a successful Republican campaign consulting firm that he ran part-time in the 1980s with his close friend Bud Scruggs), Leavitt believed a Rocky Mountain states primary in 2000 could put us on the political map.
If eight states had joined up, together they had more delegates to the 2000 National Republican Convention than California. No GOP presidential candidate could ignore that, Leavitt believed.
In fact, at one time Leavitt even foresaw a strategy where an under-funded candidate could make the Rocky Mountain primary the linchpin of his campaign.
For a lot less money, a candidate could buy TV time in Western states (a number of the states, including Utah, have network TV stations that broadcast statewide) and get on the cheap as many delegates as California.
But while the strategy sounded good, in practice it fell apart.
A few of the eight states who attended a 1998 conference Leavitt organized on the 2000 primary were a little iffy, true.
But in their 1999 legislative sessions, one-by-one the states really dropped away.
For some, like Idaho and Montana, it was the cost. Montana lawmakers just didn't want to spend $500,000 on a primary that likely wouldn't see a presidential candidate drop in to any of their widely spaced, small cities.
For others it was pure politics. Arizona Republicans didn't want to change their current primary date (earlier than March 10) and New Mexico Republicans and Democrats couldn't agree on anything.
So a disappointed Leavitt saw only Colorado and Utah Republicans and Democrats pick March 10 as a primary. Wyoming Republicans also agreed to hold their caucuses today.
Political watchers will at least get some decent voter information today.
For the first time in 30 years, voters will have to tell the election judge which party ballot they want. And judges will record whether you pick up a Democratic, Republican or Independent American ballot.
That information is public. And so county and state party officials will be getting lists of who voted in the GOP and Democratic primaries today. They will use that material to identify people for fund raising in the coming months and turn-out-the-vote efforts in June's regular primary and the November general election.
Picking up a ballot doesn't officially change your party registration. If you were an "unaffiliated" voter before today, you remain an independent afterward.
But you will be publicly identified as voting in one party's primary, something that wasn't possible before when primary ballots contained all parties' candidates and judges just recorded whether you voted or not.
When it appeared the Utah vote would have an impact on the nominations, I was prepared to do my civic duty — warning anyone interested that I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat, but an independent.
Now, I may well be one of the many Utahns who stay away from the polls.
The Western States Presidential Primary was a good, worthy idea. And if eight states or so had joined up, we would have had some impact — even after all the candidate defections Thursday.
But now it is little more than an opportunity for good, civic-minded citizens to vote.
To really have an impact on presidential politics in 2004, Utah and her neighbors will have to come up with some changes to the current system.