Former President Bill Clinton's schedule these days is nearly as packed as that of his wife, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton.

He's jetting around the country, trying to drum up as many votes as possible for her in presidential primaries and caucuses.

His recent schedule included a stop Sunday in San Jose, Calif. (population 900,000), and he planned visits today to Portland, Ore. (500,000 people), and nearby Salem (150,000). And then on Tuesday, the former president will stop in Havre. Population 9,451.

Even in a race as tight as that between Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, has it come to this? State Rep. Bob Bergren, a Havre Democrat, tried to remember the last time a president hit the Hi-Line. Probably never, he said, but he mentioned John F. Kennedy's visit to Great Falls, more than 100 miles to the southwest, in 1963.

"That was as close as we've ever gotten," he said - at least, in his memory. Bill Clinton's visit is yet another sign of Montana's importance this primary season. Both Clintons, as well as Obama, are visiting the state this week to woo votes in the state's June 3 Democratic primary.

Nationally, Obama has a slight edge in the state delegates who will decide the nominee at the national convention in August. That means Montana's 17 state delegates, usually immaterial, are suddenly crucial to each candidate. Hence, their sudden infatuation with all things Big Sky.

And hence, especially, Bill Clinton's appearance in north-central Montana (he'll also stop in Great Falls Tuesday), home not only to the sort of more conservative rural and union Democrats presumably inclined to vote for Hillary Clinton, but some of the state's Indian reservations, along with the landless Little Shell Band of the Chippewa in Great Falls.

Havre "is out of the way. It's remote. It's cold. There aren't that many people," said Craig Wilson, pollster and political science professor at Montana State University-Billings. "My guess is that he somehow wants to hook up with the Native American vote."

Indian people have not forgotten Bill Clinton's visit to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1999, which made him the first sitting president to visit a reservation since Franklin Roosevelt.

"Indian people prospered more under his administration than any other," said state Rep. Margarett Campbell, D-Poplar. Clinton's visit to Havre will put him in proximity to the Rocky Boy's and Fort Belknap reservations, as well as - farther away - the Fort Peck and Blackfeet reservations that bookend the Hi-Line.

"He has a lot of influence in those communities," said Campbell, of the Fort Peck Reservation. "His coming up there is a real reminder to Indian Country of what the Clintons are capable of in terms of understanding Indian Country and being willing to really look at some innovative and long-term systemic ways of making changes, both social and economic."

"I think he's there to remind the tribes of that, and that's very smart of him," she said.

As vice-chairwoman of the Montana Democratic Party, Campbell is a superdelegate to the national party convention, which means that her vote carries more weight than that of the regular delegates. It's generally believed the nomination will be decided by those super-delegates.

Campbell's phone has been ringing off the hook for weeks now with calls from Clinton and Obama campaign representatives soliciting her support.

"It's unbelievable," she said. "There isn't a day that goes by that I don't hear from one or the other of them."

The "very, very high-level surrogates" for the candidates who call take different tacks, she said.

"Some people approach me from a woman's perspective. There are others who have figured out that I'm an Indian. ... Some approach me as being from rural Montana. Others mention the Second Amendment," she said.

The Clinton campaign has been especially attentive, she said. Campbell said she won't publicly support a candidate until after the June primary, "to see how my constituents think."

Wilson, the MSU-Billings pollster, said that despite the relatively small number of votes to be had in north-central Montana, it's a smart move for Bill Clinton to swing through those communities - as well as Butte and Helena, which he'll also visit Tuesday.

"He's pretty much picking the right spots for Hillary's appeal," Wilson said. Outsiders often wrongly color the region the deepest of Republican red.

"But it's agrarian up here. We're ranchers and farmers. It's a railroad town. We're surrounded by three of seven Indian nations," Bergren said.

When it comes to political philosophies, he said, "there's a great dichotomy."

For Bergren and other area Democratic lawmakers, the only problem, in fact, with Bill Clinton's Havre visit is that many of them are supposed to be in Helena on Tuesday for legislative committee meetings.

While the former president will also visit Helena - and while those same lawmakers will be attending the annual Democratic Metcalf-Mansfield dinner in Butte Saturday where both Obama and Hillary Clinton will speak - it's not the same as seeing a former president on their home turf.

"I'd kind of like to see him if he's in my hometown," said Bergren, who said he was adopting the proverbial wait-and-see approach as to where he'd be on Tuesday.

Clinton's scheduled stops

President Bill Clinton will visit Montana this Tuesday, April 1, attending "Solutions for America" events in Havre, Great Falls, Helena and Butte.

Clinton is campaigning for his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who is battling with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for Montana's 17 votes in the June 3 Democratic presidential primary. The votes will be divided proportionally according to the outcome.

Bill Clinton campaigned in Billings in his 1992 presidential campaign when he unseated Republican President George H.W. Bush.

Clinton carried Montana, winning 38 percent of the vote to Bush's 35 percent, with independent Ross Perot pulling 26 percent. Minor party candidates divided the rest of the votes.

The Clinton family also visited the Billings area in 1995 and he conducted a town hall meeting that was televised statewide.

Following is Bill Clinton's schedule while in Montana on Tuesday, April 1:

9:45 a.m. -- Havre

1 p.m. -- Montana Expo Park Exhibition Hall, 400 3rd St. NW, Great Falls

3:30 p.m. -- Helena High School Gymnasium, 1300 Billings Ave., Helena

5:45 p.m. -- Butte High School, 401 S. Wyoming Street, Butte

-- Independent Record and IR State Bureau