Not to sound like a lottery commercial, but what would you do with $7 million? Probably not hold an election that didn't mean anything.

That's what Missouri Republicans did Tuesday in their "beauty contest" presidential primary. In the Democratic primary, President Barack Obama was the only serious candidate on the ballot, so that was a mere formality. But at least the votes counted.

As this is written, there is no word as to which candidate Missouri Republican voters found most beautiful; there were 10 candidates on the ballot, most of whom dropped out long ago. Except for maybe generating a (very) few headlines, the results won't signify. Party leaders last year opted to do the actual delegate-selecting at caucuses that will be held on March 17. Combine that with a St. Patrick's Day celebration, and you've got a very strange party.

The state will pick up most of the estimated $7 million cost of the primaries, an awful waste of money when schools, roads, parks and social services are severely underfunded. If the results counted, that would be one thing — a primary is a far more democratic (small D) way to choose candidates than a caucus.

But $7 million on a beauty contest? Now that the Miss America pageant has been downsized, it can't cost much more than that. We will hear no more about the party of fiscal responsibility.

Missouri Republicans got themselves boxed in last fall. On one side was the Republican National Committee, which, to protect early-balloting states like Iowa and New Hampshire, decreed that any other state that chose delegates before March 6 might lose half its delegates to the national convention.

On the other side was Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, who last summer vetoed — for unrelated reasons — a bill that included moving the primary back a month. The idea came back in September in a special legislative session called to consider an economic development bill. When the special session got bogged down — mostly because of intra-party treachery among Republicans — the move-back-the-primary bill died again.

So party officials went with the beauty contest-cum-caucuses plan, thus assuring GOP voters just about zero impact on picking the party's nominee.

So what else could Missouri have done with $7 million? It could have hired 100 highway patrol officers and paid their benefits. It could have paid tuition, fees, room and board at the University of Missouri for 320 students. It could have restored some money cut from social services and mental health budgets. It could have doubled the salaries of all 197 state senators and representatives.

Wait, strike that last part.