Or perhaps the other shoe to drop.
The Democratic Party has been so moribund in Wyoming for the past two decades that its as if it doesn't exist at all.
It'll start to make news here shortly, however, and from an unexpected quarter for Wyomingites. That will be the Federal Court.
The Democrats control the US House and Senate, albeit barely, which means that they're the party that now makes judicial nominations. Soon a new nominee for the Federal Bench in Wyoming will occur, and that will be a Democrat.
When that occurs, there will be howls of protest from the far right in Wyoming about elections being stolen, etc. etc., and how Liz Cheney, by voting her conscience, has "betrayed" Wyoming. Indeed, that's pretty much the GOP theme in the state right now.
And that theme is quietly ripping the GOP apart.
It back rooms, living rooms and kitchens, average Republicans are quietly voicing their opinions that the GOP in the state is off the rails. I've heard hopeful speculation, for example, that one of the state's former moderate Republicans will enter the House race and displace Cheney and Hageman from the center.
And this truly reflects more of the native base. Many of the real howls of "betrayal" come from transplants outside the state, not Wyoming natives. Hageman is a Wyoming native, but long observers note that she actually comes from the GOP base, not its new populist right wing, and they'll therefore accuse her of opportunism, which Cheney has also done.
All of which brings up this.
In a year like this, the Democrats might have a chance, albeit a slight one, to take the House seat back.
Yes, I said back.
Wyoming's last Democratic Congressman was Sweetwater County lawyer and World War Two veteran Teno Roncalio. Roncalio held the seat from 65 to 67 and from 71 to 78. A tough Italian American Wyomingite, he was a strong proponent of environmental bills and a tough opponent of the Vietnam War from a state with the highest volunteer rate in the country for the armed forces during the war. He's seen war up close, of course, winning the Silver Star in Normandy. He took the seat the first time from incumbent William Henry Harrison. He gave the seat up, rather than be defeated, both times.
He's also the last Democrat to occupy it. Dick Cheney occupied it after his second term.
So why haven't there been any more Roncalio's?
Well, there sort of have been, in the Governor's office.
Democrat Ed Herschler occupied the office from 75 to 87. The tough Marine Corps World War Two veteran and Wyoming lawyer was followed by the genteel Natrona County Democrat Mike Sullivan, who occupied it from 87 to 95. After that came a Republican occupant, but it returned to the Democrats in 2003 with Dave Freudenthal, who occupied it until 2011.
That's just a decade ago.
And they're not the only ones. While most of Wyoming's Congressmen have been Republicans, nearly as many Democrats have occupied the State House as have Republicans.
And that's telling.
But what does it tell us?
For one thing, at least up until a decade ago, Wyoming wasn't as fanatically Republican as it would now seem to be. Running around calling somebody a "Rino" doesn't cut nearly as much credit when actual registered Democrats were capable of winning a statewide race. In the last race Mark Gordon took 68% of the Gubernatorial vote against Democrat Mary Throne's 27%, but maybe the constant wining from some quarters that Gordon is a "Rino" misses the point. If a moderate Republican like Gordon pulled down 68% against a real Democrat's 27%, how many more votes would have gone to a hard right candidate like Hageman or Freiss? More for certain, but how many more. 10%? 20%. An added 20% may well have put Thorne in office, and while it's unlikely that would have occurred, it's not at all impossible.
So what the lesson may be is that there is room for Democrats to be Democrats, but not to be left wing goofball Democrats.
And that has tended to be what the state's Democratic Party has been faced with since the Clinton era.
Now, Throne certainly isn't a left wing goofball, but the Democratic primaries have tended to feature them. Usually there's one good candidate, who may be a weak one, and a slate of far left candidates that can't win here. Having said that, in the last House race the surprising Lynette Gray Bull emerged, who was a good fresh candidate who pulled own 25% of the vote against Liz Cheney in a year in which the state was in full GOP ire.
If it happened next year, with Hageman the candidate, Gray Bull would do a lot better than 25%.
Indeed, a lot f Hageman's cache evaporates against Gray Bull. Hageman can claim to be a third generation Wyomingite raised on a ranch, and Wyoming tough, but Gray Bull can claim to have roots so long in the state that it makes third and fourth generation claims look like a sad joke. Beyond that, Ms. Hageman may be Wyoming tough, but Gray Bull is Wind River Reservation tough, which is pretty tough indeed.
Now, I'm not doing a "run Lynette run" plea here, but rather I'm pointing out that while still long shots, there may be more room than we might imagine for a Democratic candidate.
The GOP is ripping itself apart right now. As Tim Stubson, who had run against Cheney in 2018 stated, the only difference between Cheney, whom he knows supports, and Hageman policy wise is that Hageman "doesn't think Cheney loves Trump enought". And loving Trump comes with cost with the silent GOP Wyomingites, who may not be as keen on the post insurrection Trump as the GOP active seem to be.
Mike Sullivan became Governor in a year in which the GOP candidates ripped themselves apart in the primary. He announced late, entered the race undamaged, and people were sick of the Republicans in November.
This year, the House race will feature Hageman, whose policies are completely indistinguishable from Cheney's, demanding she be removed for, implicitly, not endorsing a lie. Cheney isn't inclined to back down and won't be having any of that.
If there's a Democrat out there. . .maybe Gray Bull, or maybe somebody like Roncalio, a veteran with a profession and a blue collar background who isn't a far right populist, but isn't a squirrel nut zipper liberal either. . .
Okay, so who is running right now?
Liz Cheney.
Harrient Hageman.
Those two are, of course, the GOP race, but others are still trying to run, including:
Robin Belinsky: Belinsky is a businesswoman from Sheridan who is billing herself as Wyoming's Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Anthony Bouchard: Bouchard is a member of the legislature from Goshen County who has been in a lot of local political spats and who is a far right firebrand in the legislature. Most recently, however, he's been in the news for the revelation that when he was 18, he got a 14-year-old girl pregnant, and the drama that ultimately followed that. This also revealed that he's originally from Florida, something that was pretty vague before.
Bryan Eugene Keller: He's a resident of Laramie County who has registered, but I don't know anything else about him.
Denton Knapp: Knapp is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and a current Brig. Gen. in the California National Guard. He's from Gillette originally and claims to be generally fond of the Cheney and to respect her past role in Congress.
Marissa Selvig: Mayor of Pavilion. Selvig announced early and has a website, but has received very little attention thereafter.
And of course we have the Governor's race as well, which features:
Mark Gordon: Gordon is the incumbent.
Harold Bjork. Who Bjork isn't really clear, but he's started a Facebook and internet campaign for Governor. From what little you can tell about him, he's a self-declared "conservative" who is running pretty far to the right of Gordon and who is strongly opposed to the now expired mask mandate.
Rex Rammell: Rammell is a perennial and unelectable candidate who ran last time and will again. His views can be characterized as being on the fringe right/libertarian side.
December 8, 2021
Harriet Hageman has released the first of her paid ads in her campaign, according to a news report.
Featuring Western themes, and the "Cowboy Ethics" list adopted by the state, and written by James P. Owen, formerly of Wall Street and now of San Diego, in the form of "ride for the brand", the ad accuses Cheney of not riding for the "brand", and refers to Trump, apparently meaning that Trump, formerly of New York and now of Florida, is Wyoming's brand.
It's really a fairly startlingly proposition, but it is in fact what a lot of Cheney opponents seem to believe. Loyalty to Trump is the centerpiece of Cheney's opponents. By not endorsing the demonstrably false stolen election mantra, and voting to impeach Trump, she's not "ridden for the brand".
The irony is, of course, while Hageman is trying to paint Cheney as an ally of Pelosi, they otherwise are both establishment Republicans and have nearly identical views on everything else. Only their view of loyalty to Trump over loyalty to democratic principals separates them overall, if we credit Hageman with holding the pro Trump line sincerely.
December 15, 2021
While not directly related to the election. . .and yet it is, two interesting things related to the January 6 insurrection have been in the news.
One is the text messages received and sent by White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who briefly was cooperating with the January 6 Committee but who no longer is. They showed that Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News personalities were in contact with Meadows trying to urge him to get Donald Trump to issue a statement to hopefully halt the insurrection. This makes it clear that they understood what was occurring and that Donald Trump didn't react.
It also makes it plain that Fox's near contemporaneous willingness to entertain the conspiracy theory that left wing fifth columnists were actualy staging the insurrection wasn't believed at the time, and frankly it no doubt isn't believed now. By extension, that means Fox frankly is exposed for knowingly telling falsehoods.
In other news documents hacked by a "whistleblower" have revealed that head of Wyoming's GOP belongs or belonged to a group called the Oath Keepers.
I'm frankly unaware of the group, but the FBI desribes them as a "paramilitary group". Their name stems from the oath taken by members of the military, police, and others to "protect and defend the United States Constitution", apparently, which if correct would suggest that they express the trend of recent years of some members of the far right taking an alternative interpretation of the Constitution which is not supported by the law. This popped up in the last legislative session in which there was an attempt by a group to support a bill which would have required, in essence, members of the legislature to ignore rulings by courts in some circumstances.
The list was apparently hacked and released in October, but WyoFile apparently just went through it. Their news story indicated that there were 191 members of the group in Wyoming, but an interview with one acknowledged former member (Eathhorne declined to speak to WyoFile) suggests that it was active at one time but ceased to be well before the January 6 attack. Indeed, if the interview is correct, it may have been part of a far right chat group that basically fell apart well before the election before things got really extreme.
In other news Converse County's rightfully declined to "discipline" Larry Hicks, who is mentioned above.
December 16, 2021
Apparently Casper and Cheyenne are in contest to see who will host a rally for Harriet Hageaman lead by ex President Donald Trump over Memorial Day weekend.
December 29, 2021
No Democrat has announced, but former Republican Melissa Selvig had said she's now running in the Constitution Party.
In doing so, she slammed the GOP claiming that it had engaged in negative politics, gone with big money candidates and further that there had been closed door discussions about who it really supported.
The Constitution Party lacks sufficient support to appear in the primary so it will choose its candidate at a convention in April.
Assuming nobody else runs in the Constitution Party, she'll receive its endorsement and then go on to defeat in the general election.
January 9, 2022
Not shriking from a fight, Liz Cheney last week called out membes of the state GOP organization as being "radical". While not called by name, she specifically referenced Frank Eathorne, head of the state organization, who earlier expressed some sympathy with a gafly Texas suggestion that Texas would succeed from the Union. Eathorne had said this during an interview on radio, indicating it was being watched.
Eathorne has subsequently been identified as a (possibly former) member of the Oath Keepers, an organization that is identified with the far right wing populist ideology. He and then candidate Darin Smith were in Washington D. C. during the "Stop the Steal" event, but both claim that they were not at the insurrection itself.
January 10, 2022
Aaron Nab, a feul truck driver, has announced he's running against Governor Gordon. Based upon his interview with the press, he's from the populist right wing. He stands no chance whatsoever. His point, in the interview, was that Gov. Gordon should not have imposed mask mandates when he did, something that is now old news and will not be happening again.
So far, this election season has only seen Cheney, who would normally not draw a serious opponent, drew a serious opponent. Democrats continue to remain nearly completly silent.
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