Today's presidential primary will bring Utah an unprecedented prominence in selecting candidates for president, but that should merely whet Utahns' appetite for more clout in deciding who occupies the White House.

In the past, Utah has drawn little interest from contenders, largely because the state's primary had been in June, when both parties' nominations have been sewn up. The situation has changed today -- Super Duper Tuesday, or Tsunami Tuesday. About two dozen states, including Utah, have set primaries or caucuses. At stake are nearly half the delegates needed to win the nominations of the two major parties.

It may seem paradoxical, but this huge event seems to have heightened the political value of smaller states like Utah. First, on the Democrat side, delegates are distributed proportionally, so even the "losing" candidate wins something.

In addition, it seems likely that the media will not only report who won the most delegates, but who won the most states. A candidate who lost big states could take some of the sting out by hailing victories in a string of smaller, more diverse states, including Utah.

Whatever the reason, having national candidates interested in Utah is a new thing. Sen. Barack Obama opened offices in Salt Lake City and St. George, and Sen. Hillary Clinton has an active presence here. Obama appeared here once in the fall, and was scheduled to appear in Salt Lake City on Saturday until the funeral of LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley prompted that visit's cancellation. Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, made appearances in the state, and both camps have actively recruited workers and endorsements. Both have crafted television ads aimed specifically at voters here.

On the Republican side, most candidates have conceded the field to Mitt Romney. But it's likely that in future races GOP hopefuls would contest Utah as vigorously as Clinton and Obama.

For Utah, the campaigns give the state valuable exposure. Of course, candidates often forget promises made on the campaign trail, but who knows? Perhaps the next president will actually have learned something about Utah and the West while seeking our votes.

But how can Utah ensure that this attention continues in future races? Perhaps through a Western regional primary, which has been discussed for more than a decade. Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming are among the states sometimes considered for this primary.

Backers say a Western regional primary would energize regional politics and force candidates to pay attention to the West and its issues. Do the hopefuls, for example, want to make the region's awe-inspiring landscape off-limits to development? Or do they want the region's natural gas, oil and oil shale to provide cheap energy and thousands of jobs?

A regional primary might focus the minds of politicians wonderfully on the West. Some observers say the region is too thinly populated to matter much. But rapid growth is changing that view.

Some states object to the costs of a regional primary. But the costs seem trivial compared to the benefits. Campaigns may spend a total of $400 million this year nationally, and will likely spend even more in 2012. The West ought to get more of that.

Think of it as political tourism.

Skeptics of the plan say that the region is so generally conservative that politicians won't court it no matter what, on the assumption that the candidate furthest to the right will win. That, however, seems rather short-sighted. The states listed above, for example, include eight Democrats among their U.S. senators. A Western primary would likely attract candidates of both parties along a spectrum of positions.

Efforts for a Western primary have stalled in the past. Both Gov. Mike Leavitt and Gov. Jon Huntsman have pushed for it, but they've received a cool response from other states. A few seem to want to go it alone, and perhaps inch ahead of the others. Nevada, for example, held its caucuses on Jan. 19.

A bigger problem may be that the states don't see themselves as part of a region. That's too bad. As this season's campaign in Utah suggests, a Western regional primary would benefit all, including the Beehive State.

When the dust settles today, we hope Huntsman and other far-sighted leaders will continue nudging our neighbors toward 2012.