April 24, 2024
And, yes, we already have yet another edition.
First, this:
Mike Johnson, after receiving intelligence briefings on the Russia war in Ukraine and praying about it, reversed his prior position heroically. Wyoming's two Senators, who undoubtedly are not in favor of Russian winning the war in Ukraine, and who must at least suspect that voting against aid to Ukraine might mean the butchered bodies of American soldiers in Europe next year or the year thereafter, voted against it anyway.
Politicians are rarely held responsible for willfully wrong votes. Cheney was penalized by the voters for doing the right thing, but had the courage to do it anyhow. Lummis and Barrasso are doing the wrong thing so as to avoid suffering her fate. When the day comes, and if Russia prevails there's a good chance of it happening, and Russia crosses the Curzon Line, or the Balkan frontier, and the US finds itself obligated by its NATO treaty to defend Europe, assuming that Donald Trump, who hasn't upheld his oath to the Constitution, or his marital vow(s) would honor our treaty obligations, will those Wyoming politicians, who are too old to serve themselves, at least recognize that they have blood on their hands?
Probably not.
Let's look just a little bit on some of the current local races.
Senate
Lummis isn't running for reelection, but Barrasso is.
Barrasso is in political trouble as his opponent, Reid Rasner, who is from the Populist Party, is giving him a real run for the money, or so it seems. Barrasso, therefore, is running to the right of himself.
No Democrat has announced as of yet.
Wyoming House District 35
NCSD employee Christopher Dresang is running against Rep. Tony Locke, R-Casper, a Freedom Caucus member. Dresang is a Casper native who is a graduate of the Catholic school system's St. Anthony’s, and then Natrona County High School, Casper College, the University of Wyoming, and Montana State University-Bozeman. Locke, unlike many Freedom Caucus members, is actually from Wyoming and has a MS in engineering, making him all the more unusual as he's highly educated and yet apparently a populist.
Wyoming House District 56
Jerry Obermeuller, who was a really good legislator, announced last weekend he was not running for reelection and expressed the hope that a Republican (non Populist) did.
Elissa Campbell announced her run for that seat yesterday. She's a Wyoming native, unlike the numerous imports that make up the Invader wing of the Freedom Caucus, and she owns a consulting agency in Casper. She has two BA's, one in Philosophy, one in Environmental Ethics from the University of Wyoming. The press interview lacked very much useful content, and all we really know is that she's a mammal. Those who know her, however, feel that she'll be much like Obermeuller in outlook.
Wyoming House District 57
Another Wyoming native, and a former teacher, Julie Jarvis, is running against Jeanette Ward, an Illinois Populist who the Wyoming Education Association has been taking on, and a prominent member of the Invader wing. Ward is amongst the most extreme in every fashion of the Populist, and was an extreme school board member in her native state of Illinois. Ward has managed to keep her patrim fairly quiet, so nobody has every really looked at it much, even though her presentation alone has a fish out of war element to it. Jarvis is Wyoming Basque from Buffalo, and came out swinging against her.
This promises to be an interesting race as every Basque I've ever known was really smart and extremely feisty. Jarvis grew up, it might be noted, in a farming family. What kind of family Ward grew up in is a mystery.
April 30, 2024
Wyoming House District 34
Freedom Caucus member Rep. Pepper Ottman will face rancher, businessman and conservationist Reg Phillips in the primary election.
Presidential Campaign.
In a semi amusing story, I've been watching some Democrats like Robert Reich be absolutely hysterical about the Robert F. Kennedy race all season long, as they insisted that Kennedy was a Trump funded effort to draw Democratic votes away from Biden. The same logic, I'd note, applied to the No Labels effort which failed. In both instances, it always seemed to me that these efforts would draw votes away from Trump, not Biden.
Well, turns out, I'm right. In recent polls, the RFK campaign is drawing Trump voters. Well, of course it would. It features at lease one of the goofball populist elements, anti vaccines, without the boatload of moral sludge that comes out of a box of Trump Toasties. There's really nothing in the RFK effort that would draw Biden voters. There's quite a lot that might draw Trump voters who otherwise don't quite like the smell of Trump. Now, reportedly, he's targeting Trump voters.
He stands no chance of winning. But in the general election, while he'll draw some voters from Biden as well, it's really those who would otherwise feel compelled to vote for Trump that are attracted to him. And there are no doubt still a surprising number of voters who aren't Democrats, but don't like Trump, but otherwise would feel compelled to vote for Trump.
Recent related threads:
Not a profile in courage.
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