On this day in 1918 the British Commonwealth forces expanded the Second Battle of the Somme with a Canadian night attack at Arras. All four Canadian divisions would participate in the assault which would carry through until September 3.
Sunday, August 26, 2018
The 100 Days Offensive: Arras
On this day in 1918 the British Commonwealth forces expanded the Second Battle of the Somme with a Canadian night attack at Arras. All four Canadian divisions would participate in the assault which would carry through until September 3.
The 1968 Democratic Convention opened in Chicago. . .
on this day in that year.
It was to be a confrontational one, to say the least.
It was to be a confrontational one, to say the least.
Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Zion Lutheran Church, Laramie Wyoming
Churches of the West: Zion Lutheran Church, Laramie Wyoming:
This is Zion Lutheran Church in Laramie Wyoming.
This is Zion Lutheran Church in Laramie Wyoming.
Saturday, August 25, 2018
Best Posts of the Week of August 19, 2018.
Friday, August 24, 2018
Friday Farming: Prior to Pesticides?
The Boll Weevil Monument in Enterprise Alabama. This is the world's only monument to an agricultural pest, and was erected as the bug was such a problem it forced agricultural and economic diversification in the area, for which the residents were later grateful, as the area couldn't rely on cotton due to the bug.
I grew Brussels Sprouts one summer. I didn't get to eat any.
At the time, I was trying to do a garden without pesticides. It turned into a real battle. The bugs ate all of my Brussels Sprouts. Combating insects turned into a losing contest and in the end, I resorted back to the sort of garden pesticide you use to dust crops.
Which caused me to ponder this question.
People grew Brussels Sprouts before pesticides became widespread mid 20th Century.
What did they do about the bugs?
Thursday, August 23, 2018
The 100 Days Offensive: The Battle of Albert concludes
On this day in 1918 the Battle of Albert, part of the Second Battle of the Somme, concluded with the Anglo American capture of Albert and Arras.
The battle, the third by that name, was part of the Battle of Bapaume.
The battle, the third by that name, was part of the Battle of Bapaume.
I became so preoccupied with the 2018 Primary Election that I neglected to say much about the 1918 one. . .
which of course took place on the same Tuesday on the calendar.
So what was going on?
Well, the following Casper newspaper from 1918 gives us a bit of a clue:
So what was going on?
Well, the following Casper newspaper from 1918 gives us a bit of a clue:
I ran this on one of the 100 Days threads, but it's a report of the election results and give us a look at what was going on.
The sitting governor was Democrat Frank Houx. Houx had been elected to Secretary of State, not Governor, but took over when Democrat John B. Kendrick was elected to the Senate on a rare wave of Democratic good fortune in the state. Kendrick was the Governor at the time, so he had to resign, and Houx then stepped in, as per the Wyoming constitution.
Houx was an unusual personality. He had studied law but had not completed his studies, taking up business pursuits instead. He was Missouri born and his father had served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. Indeed, Houx was related to General Sterling Price. He'd come west to take up ranching in Montana and was headquartered out of Cody.
Houx was dedicated to his job but very much fit into the Democratic mold of the time. He was very much for Wilson's efforts in the war, as almost everyone was during the war, and a strong backer of the Prohibition movement. He was running for Governor for the first time.
Against him was Robert D. Carey, the Wyoming born son of the popular if sometimes controversial Joseph M. Carey. Robert was well educated and was a rancher and banker in Cheyenne.
The Casper paper was reporting that Houx had received a serious challenge from "Osborne", whom I think was former Democratic Governor John E. Osborne. Osborne had recently resigned from a position in the Wilson administration and had returned to Wyoming and apparently took a run at the Governor's office again.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
I suppose its a mere conincidence that our local, but Cheyenne published newspaper has been really late for home delivery for the second time in a week. . . .
and that apparently hardly any issues made it to the grocery store where I bought a copy, as mine was so late, last Sunday.
Yes, I'm sure the 140 mile morning trip following publication isn't impacting anything.
Hmmm. . . .
Yes, I'm sure the 140 mile morning trip following publication isn't impacting anything.
Hmmm. . . .
Mid Week At Work: "The personnel of General Pershing's special train, which is under the direction of the Q.M.C. / Signal Corps U.S.A. August 22, 1918."
"Left to right: Rear row: Pvt. l/c H.C. Cullars, Pvts. J.S. Banks,
E.A. Smith, T.J. Cooksey, Sgt. Paul Ackwith, Adjt. R.P. Fenelon,
(French Army) Sgt. 1/c Roy Wilson, Pvt. C.C. Guiral, Bugler H.C. Trobee.
Front row: Sgt. C.C. Crosby, Pvt. l/c S.V. Wiley, Pvt. J.P. Bascou,
Cook C.W. Brissett, Cpl. T.A. Johns, Pvt. l/c C.F. Atz, Civilian Cook G.
Parrand, Pvt. A. Reed, Captain Earl L. Thornton, Q.M.C. in charge."
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
The 100 Days: The Second Battle of the Somme commences.
The Casper Daily Tribune for August 21, 1918, which also noted the results of the prior day's primary election.
On this day in 1918, the British resumed advancing, after having halted to regroup and reorganize.
New Zealnders during the Battle of Bapaume in a scene that could easily be mistaken for one from the Second World War.
The offensive resumed with a New Zealand assault at Bapaume, part of the Second Battle of the Somme, in what is known as the Second Battle of Bapaume. The first day's assault was successful but the following day was slow, which was to characterize the overall progress in the region over the next several days. The Kiwis were continually on the assault, but the battle did not feature the breakthroughs seen earlier in the 100 Days Offensive. The effort lasted through September 3, with the town being taken on September 29. That was only a phase of the massive large scale offensive, however.
Bapaume on August 30, 1918.
The town of Albert was taken during the resumed offensive on its second day, August 22. The British forces expanded the assault thereafter with what is referred to as the Second Battle of Arras on August 26. Bapaume was taken by the Kiwis on August 29. The Australians crossed the Somme on August 31 and then fought the Germans and broke through their lines at Battle of Mont S. Quentin and the Battle of Peronne. Australian advances between August 31 and September 4 were regarded by General Henry Rawlinson as the greatest military achievement of the war.
British Whippet tank, August 1918.
The Canadians Corps seized control of the western edge of the Hindenburg Line on September 2, with British forces participating. Following this came the famous Battle of St. Quentin Canal which would feature all of the Anglo American forces under Australian General John Monash. Cambrai would follow that.
Laramie Boomerang for August 21, 1918, also noting that Carey and Houx were advancing to the general election.
Things were clearly starting to fold in for the Germans.
The New York Herald, August 21, 1918.
Nicolae Ceaușescu denounces the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, August 21, 2018.
The Communist leader of Romania, Nicolae Ceaușescu, delivered a speech in support of the Czech government and against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
We remember Ceaușescu for his bloody demise in the Romanian uprising in 1989. Ironically, if he had been able to read the tea leaves better, he might be remembered for this, his statement in favor of Romania and against the USSR, a brave thing to do under the circumstances, in 1968.
We remember Ceaușescu for his bloody demise in the Romanian uprising in 1989. Ironically, if he had been able to read the tea leaves better, he might be remembered for this, his statement in favor of Romania and against the USSR, a brave thing to do under the circumstances, in 1968.
The 2018 Wyoming Election. Volume Four
Yep, on to volume four. Volume three reached the point where a single update took up an entire first page, so it was time to add a new volume.
July 21, 2018
It was only a matter of time.
If you watch the debate that's linked in above, you'll see Harriet Hageman go after Mark Gordon for contributions to the Sierra Club and you'll also see her go after Sam Galeotos for making money from other people's money, or words to that effect, in the context of something to do with green energy (I frankly didn't really completely follow the comment).
When she did that, I cringed. Not because I'm a Hageman supporter. . . her positions on public lands take her off the table for me. No, because she's a lawyer, which makes her very exposed on those sorts of statements.
While lawyers don't think of it that way, making money on other people's money is the way that most people think of what we do, in a way, to start with. It's not like we make saddles or fix broken cars, or work in a field that has a visible product, the way other people do. I'm not saying that this is a correct perception, it's just a perception. Additionally, Ms. Hageman has campaigned in part on her record as a lawyer.
Lawyers are advocates for a client, but very few lawyers have the luck to represent clients in court that are 100% aligned with their political views. Indeed, any careful thinking person, and I'm certain that Hageman is highly intelligent and a thinking person, will never find anyone on earth who is 100% aligned with their views. It's simply impossible. While it is something that really baffles people who are not in the law, lawyers are not bothered by the thought that the people they represent aren't thinking exactly the same thing they are. Lawyers believe in the system, not necessarily the individual cause of somebody, although having said that its frequently the case that they do indeed believe in the cause.
I note all of that as I thought that when she made those comments she was really opening herself up to criticism. It turns out that I was right.
Ms. Hageman, it turns out, was hired by an entity calling itself "The Wolf Coalition" to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over wolf management. I know nothing about The Wolf Coalition whatsoever. According to an item posted on Field & Stream some years ago:
I didn't see the flack that Hageman was taking for representing them, but I did read her reaction, which was:
Just based on the snipped first set out above, I'd have to say that Hageman's reaction is understandable. It seems her position was mischaracterized. But again, how this could occur is also understandable. She went after Gordon in the debate for contributing to The Sierra Club. The Sierra Club may not have the same views that everyone in The Wolf Coalition does, but I'd be more than one or two of the members of that coalition also were members of the Sierra Club.
Indeed, I've found over the years that there's a pretty big overlap between conservationist and conservative views in application. This was the focus of a disappointing episode of a Wyoming podcast that deals with outdoor issues which Gordon was on, which noted that there's an intersection, locally, between farmers, ranchers, sportsmen, etc. It's only when you really start to get to the margins of these topics do people actually begin to hold greatly disparate views. So, an organization like The Sierra Club or The Nature Conservancy is not the same thing as Greenpeace, and so on.
This is also why, quite frankly, that some individuals that I know are now supporting alternatives to incumbents and even going to the Democratic Party this year. One long time friend of mine who is a died in the wool supporter of the Second Amendment and who is very conservative, to say the least, is supporting Dodson against Barasso due in part to Barasso's views on the public land. One lifelong competitive marksman and hunter who is a friend of mine is going for Throne in the Governor's race. Things like this should be a bit of a wake up call.
If they are, one of the things that people need to be awake to is that going after another candidate on topics like this really expose a person where they probably don't want to be. Lawyers represent parties and people all the time in various causes as a really democratic nation needs a system in which anybody and any cause (as long as the cause has some arguable legal merit) should be able to be presented. That doesn't mean that the lawyer in the case should have to pass a personal belief test to do that. And lawyers should be careful about sniping at business people about where they make their money, as after we are all officers of the court, a state system, and essentially do that in a fashion. And while organizations that people donate money to do indicate a person's personal belief, we need to be careful about believing that there are not positions in the middle.
July 25, 1918
In what at least Wyoming PBS regards as the second string Gubernatorial candidates, there's some interesting news going on.
Taylor Haynes problems regarding his ability to run appear to be growing worse, if news reports are any indication. The question of his residency over the past five years has been turned over to the authorities who are looking into it. My guess is that there's at least a 50% chance that he'll be ruled to be disqualified from the race and his candidacy will be administratively terminated.
If so, that will be a benefit to Harriet Hageman. In spite of a much more active campaign, the far libertarian right of the GOP is split on Hageman and Haynes. Neither one appears to be in position to win the primary but the level of their support is surprising. The fact that both of them are in the race is splitting that vote, to the benefit of Galeotos and Gordon. If Haynes drops out, that will be a bit of a problem for the two G candidates.
Hageman, at least according to word on the streets, lost support due to her performance in the last debate. I wondered. I thought her concluding statement was very poor and showed an aggressive pre planned attack that was obviously prepared prior to the debate. A closing can't be done that way, it has to be dynamic and capable of adjusting. Her's didn't and was mean. Apparently a lot of people didn't like it much. Additionally, her straight jacket approach to the economy in which she basically refuses to look at any other economic options other than the traditional ones appears to have left people cold as well. My guess is that she might actually be pulling lower than Haynes now, who is consistently extreme. Hageman seems to have come across that way in the debate and so more center right voters are abandoning her, according to the back street vox populi rumors.
The reported news this morning is that Foster Freiss, who is pulling far to the rear in this election season in spite of spending a ton on his campaign, will be touring the state with Rick Santorum in a "Faith and Family" tour. This, I'm afraid, shows the degree to which Freiss is truly clueless.
Rick Santorum may be a big political name elsewhere, but here he's just some random Pennsylvanian and Pennsylvania is, to a lot of Wyomingites, a random East Coast state (although one that Senator Barasso is from). Santorum isn't going to pull any votes in for Freiss at all and most Wyomingites are likely to react with a "who?" reaction.
Santorum may be a great guy (I have no idea) but he has no connection with Wyoming at all. He is well known in conservative circles as a bonafide conservative and he and Freiss are both strongly pro life in their views. Santorum and Freiss are also both very religious but their religious views are not the same overall. Freiss describes himself as a "born again Christian" while Santorum is a devout Catholic. Religious views in this context are perhaps worth noting as Wyoming is an odd state in these regards in that religion has never figured very prominently in state politics as a rule, with a couple of odd historical examples (and there's an interesting religious angle to one of the issues in the current campaign that runs under the current, but which I haven't posted on yet and might not). Generally Wyoming candidates tend to note their religious affiliation but they rarely go much beyond that, unlike other regions of the country which will see outright religious discussions of a confessional nature The largest religious affiliations in the state are the combined Protestant faiths with Catholicism and Mormanism being strongly represented minorities. There has been at least one, and I think two, Catholic Governors in the past, Mike Sullivan, and who became a Catholic following his time as Governor. But there's never been a Gubernatorial candidate in Wyoming who actually campaigned on religious faith. That Freiss is sort of intending on doing that again shows that he doesn't really seem to know the political culture of the state.
Speaking of culture, a recent report reveals that Teton County Wyoming again is the state with the highest income disparity in the US, having a lot of super wealthy people and a lot of really poor people. Native Wyomingites have looked on Teton County with a degree of disdain for quite some time as the super rich are felt to have ruined the county, but this throws an interesting angle into the election. Friess, Dodson, Trauner, Christensen and Cheney are all Teton County residents. Of those, Freiss, Dodson, Trauner and Cheney all relocated from somewhere else, and Friess, Dodson and Cheney fit into the general class of the wealthy relocators that at least native Wyomingites tend to not appreciate much. Cheney managed to get over the political bar only because the other two candidates defeated each other and opened the door to her and there will definitely be Republicans who vote against her in this election on that basis, amongst others, even though she'll win the primary. Dodson and Freiss have to overcome this burden and are frankly unlikely to do so, even setting aside the other problems their campaigns are faced with.
July 27, 2018
The problem is that the Governor of Wyoming has diddly to do with national health care.
It's really odd now national politics that the Governor is without power to do anything about has crept into the Gubernatorial primary. It's not that some national issues don't have a state reflection. Abortion certainly does as should Roe v. Wade be modified the Governor's position on legislation really matters. Likewise, a candidates stance on Federal lands really matters even though it would take Federal action to change anything in regards to them as it would also require state action (taking in Federal lands, in addiction to being a bad, anti public, position, is unconstitutional under the State constitution). But "Obamacare"?
It isn't going to matter for the Governor unless Congress repeals it. And they're not going to. If they were, they would have. They were never going to. At the very most, they'll modify it at some point, and the Governor won't have much if any impact on that either.
On the same score, Donald Trump has made a major appearance in the Galeotos campaign for some inexplicable reason.
Okay, granted, it's not wholly in explicable. It's likely some campaign staffers calculation that Donald Trump is wildly popular in Wyoming (which I think a misreading of the tea leaves) and by linking the conventionally conservative Galeotos with the populist Trump, Galeotos will pick up voters from the far right. Maybe, but he's losing votes from the center.
I've heard two individuals closely following the race who have been so repelled by Galeotos' campaign literature and television spots about his getting in office to help Trump achieve his goals that they've dropped him like a hot rock. He ought to take head.
People following the race felt that Galeotos did well in the recent debate and following it picked up votes from Hageman supporters who dropped here after he poor debate performance (which seems to have been loved only by her diehard supporters) and here Molotov Cocktail closing. Maybe that will continue for Galeotos but if he's now loosing voters to Gordon, the only place that some of his supporters have to go (as Dahlin is still largely an unknown) his embracing of Trump may have proven to be an error.
If so, part of that might be because the news of the past couple of weeks is rapidly converting the Russian Election Meddling story from a disturbing oddity into something that's beginning to look like Trump's Watergate. Indeed, it's starting to look worse.
Trump has been controversial and unpopular since day one. Indeed, it tends to be forgotten that he went into office as a hugely unpopular President who won, in part, because Hillary Clinton was even more unpopular. The election at the end of the day turned out to be, in many voters mind, sort of a distasteful contest between a school yard vulgarian bully and that radical feminist class room snot. Not much of a choice. That's simplifying things in the extreme, but to many it was viewed that way. If the news doesn't turn around shortly Trump may be facing criminal charges and the nation a Constitutional crisis.
And this in spite of the fact that Trump, even to those who don't care for him, has some acknowledged and unacknowledged good results to his credit. The economy actually is growing faster than at any point since 2014 and in spite of a sudden retroactive effort on tariffs (which got all out of whack over a fifty years period). Trump's judicial picks really have been good (probably due to Mitch McConnell). And so on. But after two years in office under a Republican controlled Congress asserting, as Galeotos has, that his getting in will help Trump carry through with the rest of Trump's agenda is more than a little silly and I strongly suspect that Galeotos doesn't believe a word of it. Nobody who is familiar with politics would. It's discrediting a campaign that was getting a lot of credit.
Back to something that the Governor's views can in fact impact, the Wyoming Wildlife Federation is going to sponsor a Gubernatorial debate in Casper:
I'd really like to go to this, but I'm scheduled to be out of town. I'm seriously considering altering my schedule so I can make it.
July 28, 2018
A couple of things this morning, those being Taylor Haynes diminishing chances of running in the Fall and Sam Galeotos' economic ideas.
Let's start with Galeotos who is one of the two front runners.
I criticized Galeotos the other day for his embracing of Trump in his campaign, which I think is deceptive. As noted, there's not much a Wyoming Governor can do to "help Trump" and frankly the ads come really close to fitting into the blame it on Obama rhetoric that's now past the statue of limitations in my view. The Chief Executive of Wyoming isn't in a position to help the Chief Executive of the United States do anything. Maybe its more the other way around.
Anyhow, a person I know who attended a Galeotos even the other day was really impressed with Galeotos economic discussion, which centers on technological data centers in a way that I can't even grasp but which he does. Galeotos knows a lot about high tech and is, in these discussions, apparently emphasizing how Wyoming is ideally suited to take advantage of a data center explosion that's coming due to the amount of energy the state can generate.
That's actually fresh thinking of a type that we don't hear much about in this race. This was touched on only briefly in the recent debates and in a way which I also didn't understand, but it is a message that Galeotos is apparently trying to put across.
A simpler to understand message is that he feels the state grossly under-funds tourism efforts, and compares us poorly to other states in that regard. All the candidates seem really hesitant to endorse spending any money on anything, but here Galeotos is. He apparently cites a figure that for every dollar spent in tourism efforts ten are generated. So here too, in spite of his current Trump based media campaign, he has some fresh thinking that sets him apart from the other Republicans. Shoot, on that he almost sounds like a Democrat, which I'm sure that people like Hageman would point out. Hageman, when asked about tourism boosting efforts a while back, commented that she wondered why we didn't do something like that for coal.
Hageman is splitting the far right/libertarian vote, as we've noted, with Haynes. Right now, because Haynes and Hageman are so close in percentages, they'll stand to effectively take each other out. That may well change:
This doesn't look good for Haynes at all and my prediction is that this will kill off his campaign, but not before we read a lot of commentary about how this effort by the state is a conspiracy.
Haynes has no chance of winning in this election in any event, but this will have an impact. The impact will be to boost the chances of Hageman, although I suspect that more than a few disgruntled Haynes voters will go to really extreme candidate Rex Rammel, who is running as a third party candidate. I don't feel sorry for Haynes for this, as it really does seem like he may have been taking the residency requirements a bit too broadly.
August 1, 2018
The Casper Star Tribune published its voters guide in today's issue.
It's always worth picking up, even if it is frustrating as the candidates largely just answer questions posed to them by the Tribune and those questions, a standard set, tend to wholly omit issues that I'm concerned about and following.
For local and lessor known races, however, it may be about as good as a person will get.
In other news, President Trump Twitter endorsed John Barrasso. It was a pretty short endorsement noting that Barrasso didn't need his help but he hoped he'd win. Dodson quickly countered that this showed that Barrasso was concerned about his primary prospects.
Apparently there's no polling data on that race, so people don't really have any data to go on regarding who is where in the polls. It's widely expected that Barrasso will win, but Dodson has been running a pretty vigorous and very well funded campaign.
August 2, 2018
Apparently there were debates at Casper College last night that involved the Gubernatorial and the Senatorial candidates. I somehow missed that this was going to occur and ended up reading about it in the Tribune this morning.
This is frustrating in that I would like to have watched it on the computer (it was live streamed) or on television, if was televised. Wyoming Public Media participated in it, so I hope it was.
A link to sections, but only sections, of the debate appears on Wyoming Public Radio's Facebook page. Hopefully more will be posted later.
From what I read, the GOP candidates, apparently now knowing that they're risking it by maintaining otherwise, all say the Federal lands will remain in Federal hands, save for Taylor Haynes. Right now, if I was to predict it, I think Haynes will likely be out of the race next week when the Court holds a hearing on his eligibility to run, given his residency. As I haven't actually listened to the debate yet, I'd hold off making too many assumptions about that as a person really needs to hear what they have to say. Certainly Hageman wasn't a friend to Federal oversight of the lands earlier, but stopped short of the transfer position that had been maintained by Haynes.
It sounds like the conclusion of the debates was again fiery with Hageman going after all of her opponents, claiming Freiss was a "jet setter" and that Gordon wasn't qualified due to donations he had made to Democratic candidates. Gordon defended himself and Freiss apparently did not. On this, it might be pointed out that never supporting any Democrat would suggest that a person has a mind framed only by political allegiance which would make a person fairly incapable of working with anyone, but if that was pointed out, I don't know. Anyhow, Hageman, who is behind in the polls, is taking the gasoline on the fire approach to closing statements. In actual policy points, it seems like all of the GOP candidates took consistently conservative positions.
The Democrats also debated, and were more civil, but at this point Democratic appearances only serve two points, 1) to make it obvious that Throne will will the Democratic primary; and 2) to lessen Throne's chances of winning by associating her with the gadfly element of the Democratic Party represented by the aptly named Rex Wilde. It could be argued that Taylor Haynes and Harriet Hageman serve the same purpose in the GOP as Wilde does in the Democratic Party but as the political culture of the state is so heavily Republican that does not tend to occur. At least the fact that the Democrats are debating means that Throne remains in the news.
In the GOP Senatorial race (only Truaner is really running on the Democratic side so there's no point in a Democratic debate) Barrasso, citing important Senate work that had come up (it really had) bowed out and remained in D. C., leaving the floor to the other four candidates, of which only Dodson is a real candidate. Dodson seems to have absolutely dominated the discussion, not surprisingly, and used it to beat up on Barrasso. Barrasso should have showed up.
August 4, 2018
Yesterday, August 3, the District Court in Cheyenne denied a petition for an interlocutory order seeking to bump Haynes out of the election based on his residency, which is in question.
Perhaps I didn't read it carefully, but it seems to me that at least the press accounts I read of this prior to the hearing were inaccurate and gave the impression that his residency was set to be tried on the merits. That's not what was the case. This was just a petition to stop him from running until the trial was held, which is some time off.
The Attorney General expressed surprise by the Court's ruling, but I'm not. Courts generally try to stay out of political affairs as a matter of judicial discretion and prudence. Moreover, most Courts here would in fact read the tea leaves and factor that in. Haynes isn't going to win on August 21 and then the case will be moot. The Court will never have to decide the matter on the merits.
It was the correct decision by the Court.
August 5, 2018
Donald Trump, Jr. has an article in the Casper Star Tribune endorsing Foster Freiss for Governor.
It's pretty obvious that a lot of Wyoming candidates are hoping that a perceived Wyoming Likes Trump feeling in the state is going to rub off on them. Maybe they're right, but frankly I have my real doubts.
One thing that candidates taking that view ought to recall is that Trump was not a popular candidate, nationwide, when he was elected in the first place, which of course doesn't mean that he wasn't, or isn't, popular here. Another thing they may wish to keep in mind is that there's been a lot of water under, and over, that bridge since then and they may be gambling incorrectly.
Indeed, I have a neighbor in my neighborhood who was a real Trump fan that has all Democrat signs up right now. . . .
And that neighbor may be indicative of something else. They're Texans. Given the nature of the state's economy there's fewer imports in the state now than there was in 2016 when Trump was elected. Are native and long term Wyoming residents are pro Trump as the oil population was?
Somebody who feels that answer is "no", apparently, is the state's Democratic Party which was featured in the every election year repeat article of the Tribune where they express high hopes about winning some seats this election. With Mary Throne I'd say their hope is real and it might not be delusional as to Gary Trauner, but the expression of the concept that Wyoming may be part, even a little part, of a "red wave", as the headline muses, is delusional. It won't be.
Which brings me to my repeat election year rant about the terms red and blue.
Everywhere else in the world red stands for the political left.
August 8, 2018
I'm frankly of the view that politics in general has become exceedingly odd ever since the 2008 election which resulted in Barack Obama becoming President. Not because of Obama, but because the reaction to his election was so strong. It seemed to revive a lot of old feelings that we hadn't seen in a long time.
During his eight years in office that feeling grew stronger, even though throughout much of his Presidency he was fairly ineffectual and fairly far from being any kid of a radical. That changed in his last two years in which he really did lurch to the left, by which time there was little detriment to his doing so. Following that we had the 2016 election which gave us Donald Trump in a really odd election and politics have just stayed odd ever since.
It's almost hard to look back on prior elections and feel that they even occurred in the same country.
This started spreading into Wyoming 2008 but it's really in full flower now, and for the first time in my memory we're seeing some really odd campaigning including some truly negative campaigning.
Harriet Hageman, aware that Mark Gordon is in the presumed lead in the Gubernatorial race, has been going after him in every debate with the argument that he's a closet liberal and has done heinous things like support the Sierra Club. Some organization that clearly backs here is now sending around mail flyers to that point, including the point that he was born in New York and grew up, the flyer claims, back East (I think he was sent to an Eastern prep school). On that latter point, it's interesting that Republicans would aim that at one of their own as it would also take, in this race, every single member of our Congressional representation (Senate and House) out of consideration for election.
It also strikes the wrong message with a lot of Wyomingites and, at least by my observation, among those just looking at voting for the first time, who are not yet burdened with the concept that their own lines of work define moral goodness, it's doing the polar opposite. I heard one conservative Wyoming young voter ask "Why does Hageman hate the Earth?" I'm sure that person isn't alone in that view, and among sportsmen there's a real red flag up now regarding Hageman. Without knowing for sure, I suspect her chances are declining.
Not according to the Laramie Boomerang, however.
In a recent poll by the Boomerang Hageman came out on top over the other candidates, although she still polled less than 50%. Indeed, what that call in poll revealed is what we might call the Cheney Effect, where two other front runners, Galeotos and Gordon are splitting the majority of the GOP vote and the third choice might therefore slip in. That's exactly what allowed Cheney to win the 2016 GOP primary. The difference here is that the Democrats are running a fairly strong candidate on their own right, Mary Trauner, who might then pull off getting in against the odds.
On getting in against the odds, but not against the current of history, this reminds me that this past week I saw a letter to the editor in which the pro Hageman writer compared Hageman to "Nellie Taylor[sic] Ross" apparently due to gender alone. Students of history might recall that Ross, who served only one term after having been elected to fill the term that her husband had previously been elected to, was not from Wyoming, was a Democrat, and went on to have a position in the Franklin Roosevelt administration.
I have no update, however, at the time that I posted this (I teed it up on July 7) as I updated the last edition the morning of July 7. What I will note is that at this point, people getting the race are basically in it, and the primary races are now well in play. The most contested race, that for Governor, is most up in the air on the Republican side of the race after early predictions that it would be a Gordon walk away. There are at least three Democrats running, but Mary Throne will win the Democratic nomination and given her good showing so far, stands a chance of taking the Governor's office, although she has an uphill battle.
Most of the other seats are being contested, of course. But only the Senate race for the GOP nomination features a lot of noise, if you will. Well funded Dodson is making a lot of noise in that race, and he's not a wholly unattractive candidate based on what he's saying, but he has an uphill battle against incumbent John Barasso. Trauner hasn't really started campaigning yet on the Democratic side and has little reason to do so until the primary is over. The GOP challenger for Cheney's seat is eclectic but not well funded and stands little chance. Democrats vying to run against her are nearly completely silent and likewise stand little chance.
July 9, 2018
July 9, 2018
Gubernatorial Primary Debates to be Live Streamed & Broadcast on Wyoming Public Radio & WYPBS
Interesting format, two GOP debates on the same day, devided into top contenders and not so top contenders:
July 12, 2018
The Tribune reports, in connection with the poll which was part of the debate noted above, that the Republican race is too close to call.
Reading the article on this carefully, what's clear is that Galeotos and Gordon are basically within striking distance of each other, something which indicates that the early predictions of the race being Gordon's "too lose" were either wrong or Gordon is doing a poor job of campaigning. . . or Galeotos a really good one. Hageman is rounding up the bottom but still close enough she can't be ignored.
Over all, the big problem, or opportunity, for all of them is that 35% of the the GOP voters indicate they're undecided.
And no wonder. So far the GOP candidates have been so afraid of the extreme right wing minority in the GOP that they're all running campaigns that are an anathema to large sections of casual GOP voters. Hageman's campaign is at least honest in her extremism.
So what did the poll show? Here's what the poll results were, in part:
And what about Hageman?
Looked at another way, what this tells us right now is that Gordon and Galeotos are vying for the majority of GOP votes and they'll undoubtedly take the lion's share of the undecided 35%. The problem is that they're set to pull a Cheney by doing that as that's pretty much what gave us Congressman Liz. That position would have gone to one of the other two solid GOP candidates but they destroyed each other at the polls. It's unlikely, but not impossible, that Gordon and Galeotos will repeat this, in which case they'll launch Hageman into position.
Hageman, for her part, is the most extreme of the top three, the way that this debate is set up, but from the looks of it she shares that position basically neck and neck with Haynes. This shows that about 20% of the dedicated GOP voters are in the far right camp right now, a number that's higher than I would have guessed. Haynes and Hageman do in fact appear to be likely to destroy each other, in spite of Haynes basically not campaigning. Haynes might not be campaigning at all if the complaint about his being a Colorado resident pans out, leaving the entire extreme block for Hageman.
On Hageman, an interesting shift that's afoot is the rise of voters, a lot of whom are in the GOP, that will not voter for her under any circumstance due to her hostility to state lands. For the first time in a long time I'm hearing Republican voters who are openly declaring that they'll vote for Throne if Hageman is the nominee. Three solid GOP voters I know have all taken that position, including one who was invited to a Hageman event and angrily declined to go. People who assume that Hageman will be the next Governor if she's nominated may be in for a surprise.
Shifting to the Democrats, there are now four candidates but Throne is the only one anyone hears about. This is unfortunate for the Democrats nonetheless as the Democratic Party in the state has a history of political suicide. The best thing the new Democratic candidates could have done for their party is to refuse to run, but hope springs eternal.
The additional candidates are Ken Casner, formerly a candidate for House District 47, Michael Allen Green, about whom I know nothing, and Rex Wilde, former failed candidate for the US Senate who lost to Charlie Hardy. If you loose to Hardy, you ought to stay home for good. Indeed, Throne is the only candidate with any real hope here and the others are just, frankly, being spoilers who are running. . . but aren't.
I heard Throne speak the other day, purely by accident, in a forum in which she was open for questions. Her problem in this race is going to be, in my view, that she doesn't have a dynamic personal presence. Maybe that's unfair as this was the only time I think I've met her, but none the less that's my impression. She's much more honest when asked a question than most politicians I've seen, which is very much to her credit, but she doesn't present as well as might be hoped.
In contrast, while I haven't seen any of the GOP candidates speak so far, if they're television personas are any indication they're really good at shoveling what is basically crap, but sounding good at it. Gordon and Galeotos, whom I want to like, have so far ran campaigns that don't impress me. Galeotos, for example, has a television advertisement on right now in which he declares that if elected he'll help President Trump overturn Obamacare. That's 100% pure BS. The Governor of Wyoming has no role in that whatsoever.
But that's an example of how the two leading GOP candidates right now have ended up neck and neck and why 35% of the GOP voters are undecided. That quiet 35% is likely thinking they don't want to have the Feds transfer the public lands to the state, and then shortly on to private hands, and they know the Governor of Wyoming can't do anything about things like Obamacare. Chances are that if a candidate was honest and said that, he'd pull ahead.
That he might end up being a she, and might end up being a Democrat, if this keeps up.
July 13, 2018
Republican candidates running for the office of Wyoming Governor will be participating in a series of public debates Thursday, July 12, 2018 in the auditorium of the Wyoming National Guard Joint Forces Readiness Center in Cheyenne.
There will be two one-hour debates. The first debate will begin at 7 p.m.; the second debate will begin at 8 p.m. Candidates have been placed in either the first or second debate based on results of an independent poll conducted by the University of Wyoming Survey Research Center. The top three polling candidates, which will debate at 7 p.m., are Sam Galeotos, Mark Gordon and Harriet Hageman. The remaining three candidates will debate at 8 p.m. They are Bill Dahlin, Foster Friess and Taylor Haynes
July 12, 2018
The Tribune reports, in connection with the poll which was part of the debate noted above, that the Republican race is too close to call.
Reading the article on this carefully, what's clear is that Galeotos and Gordon are basically within striking distance of each other, something which indicates that the early predictions of the race being Gordon's "too lose" were either wrong or Gordon is doing a poor job of campaigning. . . or Galeotos a really good one. Hageman is rounding up the bottom but still close enough she can't be ignored.
Over all, the big problem, or opportunity, for all of them is that 35% of the the GOP voters indicate they're undecided.
And no wonder. So far the GOP candidates have been so afraid of the extreme right wing minority in the GOP that they're all running campaigns that are an anathema to large sections of casual GOP voters. Hageman's campaign is at least honest in her extremism.
So what did the poll show? Here's what the poll results were, in part:
The poll, conducted over two days from June 18-20, put Galeotos slightly ahead of Gordon when respondents were asked about name recognition. It gave Gordon a more significant lead when respondents were asked who they would vote for if they had to choose the next day. In that hypothetical scenario, Gordon led the field with 19 percent of the votes from the 596 survey respondents. Galeotos took 14 percent.Not a good showing for either candidate by long measure.
And what about Hageman?
Hageman trailed the two men in the “vote tomorrow” question, with only 11 percent of respondents saying they would cast their vote for her at that time. Hageman is seen as likely to split more conservative votes with perennial candidate and professed constitutionalist Haynes, who got 10 percent of the responses.That's not great, for Hageman, actually. She's regarded as one of the top three by the Public Television folks, but when we assemble that she's basically neck and neck with Haynes in this category, and Haynes is the far edge of an extremist. Dahlin bottomed out in this category at 1% and unless every other candidate in the debate states they hate puppies, love Hillary Clinton, and are in favor of lower wages, he might as well drop out. Interestingly, mega bucks candidate Foster Freiss who has blanketed the airways and back pages of newspapers is in the bottom three with Haynes and Dahlin.
Looked at another way, what this tells us right now is that Gordon and Galeotos are vying for the majority of GOP votes and they'll undoubtedly take the lion's share of the undecided 35%. The problem is that they're set to pull a Cheney by doing that as that's pretty much what gave us Congressman Liz. That position would have gone to one of the other two solid GOP candidates but they destroyed each other at the polls. It's unlikely, but not impossible, that Gordon and Galeotos will repeat this, in which case they'll launch Hageman into position.
Hageman, for her part, is the most extreme of the top three, the way that this debate is set up, but from the looks of it she shares that position basically neck and neck with Haynes. This shows that about 20% of the dedicated GOP voters are in the far right camp right now, a number that's higher than I would have guessed. Haynes and Hageman do in fact appear to be likely to destroy each other, in spite of Haynes basically not campaigning. Haynes might not be campaigning at all if the complaint about his being a Colorado resident pans out, leaving the entire extreme block for Hageman.
On Hageman, an interesting shift that's afoot is the rise of voters, a lot of whom are in the GOP, that will not voter for her under any circumstance due to her hostility to state lands. For the first time in a long time I'm hearing Republican voters who are openly declaring that they'll vote for Throne if Hageman is the nominee. Three solid GOP voters I know have all taken that position, including one who was invited to a Hageman event and angrily declined to go. People who assume that Hageman will be the next Governor if she's nominated may be in for a surprise.
Shifting to the Democrats, there are now four candidates but Throne is the only one anyone hears about. This is unfortunate for the Democrats nonetheless as the Democratic Party in the state has a history of political suicide. The best thing the new Democratic candidates could have done for their party is to refuse to run, but hope springs eternal.
The additional candidates are Ken Casner, formerly a candidate for House District 47, Michael Allen Green, about whom I know nothing, and Rex Wilde, former failed candidate for the US Senate who lost to Charlie Hardy. If you loose to Hardy, you ought to stay home for good. Indeed, Throne is the only candidate with any real hope here and the others are just, frankly, being spoilers who are running. . . but aren't.
I heard Throne speak the other day, purely by accident, in a forum in which she was open for questions. Her problem in this race is going to be, in my view, that she doesn't have a dynamic personal presence. Maybe that's unfair as this was the only time I think I've met her, but none the less that's my impression. She's much more honest when asked a question than most politicians I've seen, which is very much to her credit, but she doesn't present as well as might be hoped.
In contrast, while I haven't seen any of the GOP candidates speak so far, if they're television personas are any indication they're really good at shoveling what is basically crap, but sounding good at it. Gordon and Galeotos, whom I want to like, have so far ran campaigns that don't impress me. Galeotos, for example, has a television advertisement on right now in which he declares that if elected he'll help President Trump overturn Obamacare. That's 100% pure BS. The Governor of Wyoming has no role in that whatsoever.
But that's an example of how the two leading GOP candidates right now have ended up neck and neck and why 35% of the GOP voters are undecided. That quiet 35% is likely thinking they don't want to have the Feds transfer the public lands to the state, and then shortly on to private hands, and they know the Governor of Wyoming can't do anything about things like Obamacare. Chances are that if a candidate was honest and said that, he'd pull ahead.
That he might end up being a she, and might end up being a Democrat, if this keeps up.
July 13, 2018
July 21, 2018
It was only a matter of time.
If you watch the debate that's linked in above, you'll see Harriet Hageman go after Mark Gordon for contributions to the Sierra Club and you'll also see her go after Sam Galeotos for making money from other people's money, or words to that effect, in the context of something to do with green energy (I frankly didn't really completely follow the comment).
When she did that, I cringed. Not because I'm a Hageman supporter. . . her positions on public lands take her off the table for me. No, because she's a lawyer, which makes her very exposed on those sorts of statements.
While lawyers don't think of it that way, making money on other people's money is the way that most people think of what we do, in a way, to start with. It's not like we make saddles or fix broken cars, or work in a field that has a visible product, the way other people do. I'm not saying that this is a correct perception, it's just a perception. Additionally, Ms. Hageman has campaigned in part on her record as a lawyer.
Lawyers are advocates for a client, but very few lawyers have the luck to represent clients in court that are 100% aligned with their political views. Indeed, any careful thinking person, and I'm certain that Hageman is highly intelligent and a thinking person, will never find anyone on earth who is 100% aligned with their views. It's simply impossible. While it is something that really baffles people who are not in the law, lawyers are not bothered by the thought that the people they represent aren't thinking exactly the same thing they are. Lawyers believe in the system, not necessarily the individual cause of somebody, although having said that its frequently the case that they do indeed believe in the cause.
I note all of that as I thought that when she made those comments she was really opening herself up to criticism. It turns out that I was right.
Ms. Hageman, it turns out, was hired by an entity calling itself "The Wolf Coalition" to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over wolf management. I know nothing about The Wolf Coalition whatsoever. According to an item posted on Field & Stream some years ago:
The "Wolf Coalition" is a group of Wyoming sportsmen, business associations, and insurance companies whose goal is to de-list the non-native Canadian gray wolf introduced into our beloved mountains by the USFW back in the nineties. Consequently all original criteria has been met or exceeded insofar as number of breeding pairs and packs. The feds will not accept Wyoming's action plan. These alien creatures are devouring our game herds in spite of the bogus statistics presented nationally by the employees of the USFW. Consequently the "Wolf Coalition" attorneys announced on April 2 that they intend to sue the U.S. Secretary of Interior, the USFW and it national director as well as the Rocky Mountain Region director. Wyoming is sick of wolves, do you want these 120 plus pound animals feeding on big game in your neck of the woods?So it doesn't appear to be some sort of radical environmental group.
I didn't see the flack that Hageman was taking for representing them, but I did read her reaction, which was:
I understand that there have been concerns expressed regarding my involvement with the wolf lawsuit, and my view of wolf management in Wyoming. I want to set the record straight in case there is any question about my commitment in that regard.I was first hired by the “Wolf Coalition” in 2002 to file suit against the Fish and Wildlife Service over its failure to properly manage the Canadian gray wolf population that it had introduced into Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990’s. That Coalition was made up of 28 different organizations, including sportsmen groups, outfitters and guides, County Commissioners, ag groups, and conservation districts, among others. The point of our lawsuit was to establish that the wolf population exceeded the recovery goals as of 2002; that Wyoming had developed an appropriate wolf management plan to protect that recovered population; and that the FWS was required to approve it, delist the wolf from the ESA, and turn management over to the State. We continued that fight over the next 15 years, with the Wolf Coalition being one of the most important and consistent advocates for our livestock industry, outfitting industry, including Wyoming Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, hunters, Counties, conservation districts, and small business owners whose livelihoods have been so damaged by the introduction of this predator. As importantly, we were the primary voice at the table throughout this time for protecting our other wildlife resources such as our elk, moose, and deer populations.In February, 2017 we finally succeeded in convincing the Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. that Wyoming’s Wolf Management Plan met all of the requirements of the ESA. This was a major victory for Wyoming, and allows us to implement management techniques that are unavailable anywhere else in the Country. For example, Wyoming is the only State where wolves are considered predators in the majority of the State – meaning that we can use more robust and effective control techniques (aerial hunting, may be shot on sight in certain geographic areas, etc.). Wyoming is also the only State where the National Park Service is responsible for maintaining and protecting a portion of our population within the National Parks. Finally, Wyoming is now only required to maintain a limited number of wolves – thereby allowing us to control the population through hunting seasons (within the trophy game area), and throughout the year (within the predator area). This win, in other words, will finally allow Wyoming to start controlling wolf numbers in this State, thereby making it possible to rebuild those game herds that have been so decimated by the uncontrolled and previously ever-expanding gray wolf population.
As Governor, I have every intention of asserting Wyoming’s sovereignty over our wildlife, and of aggressively implementing those control techniques that are effective at constraining our wolf population to the recovery numbers. Under my administration we will no longer tolerate an ever-expanding wolf population. We will instead focus upon protecting all of our wildlife resources, and protecting our livestock producers from suffering the consequences of those bad policies for which Washington, D.C. is notorious.
I have dedicated the last 20+ years of my career to protecting our legacy industries in Wyoming. I have fought to protect private property rights, the livestock industry, the sportsmen industry, outfitters and guides, and local governments. I have worked tirelessly – often-times all alone – to push back against federal overreach, and to hold the federal government accountable for the mismanagement of the federal lands and for its failure to follow the endangered species act. I have refused to buckle under as the EPA has sought to take our water. I have traveled the Country warning of the dangers of an out-of-control federal government. I AM THE ONLY CANDIDATE WITH THIS HISTORY, and with my record of success on these issues. So the next time that someone whispers in your ear about me, claiming that I want to give people access to private lands, that I have worked to give Wyoming’s water away to other states, or that I haven’t fought hard enough or long enough on battling the wolf mess, you can now look them in the eye and say with absolute confidence: “THAT MY FRIEND, IS HOGWASH.”
- Harriet Hageman
Just based on the snipped first set out above, I'd have to say that Hageman's reaction is understandable. It seems her position was mischaracterized. But again, how this could occur is also understandable. She went after Gordon in the debate for contributing to The Sierra Club. The Sierra Club may not have the same views that everyone in The Wolf Coalition does, but I'd be more than one or two of the members of that coalition also were members of the Sierra Club.
Indeed, I've found over the years that there's a pretty big overlap between conservationist and conservative views in application. This was the focus of a disappointing episode of a Wyoming podcast that deals with outdoor issues which Gordon was on, which noted that there's an intersection, locally, between farmers, ranchers, sportsmen, etc. It's only when you really start to get to the margins of these topics do people actually begin to hold greatly disparate views. So, an organization like The Sierra Club or The Nature Conservancy is not the same thing as Greenpeace, and so on.
This is also why, quite frankly, that some individuals that I know are now supporting alternatives to incumbents and even going to the Democratic Party this year. One long time friend of mine who is a died in the wool supporter of the Second Amendment and who is very conservative, to say the least, is supporting Dodson against Barasso due in part to Barasso's views on the public land. One lifelong competitive marksman and hunter who is a friend of mine is going for Throne in the Governor's race. Things like this should be a bit of a wake up call.
If they are, one of the things that people need to be awake to is that going after another candidate on topics like this really expose a person where they probably don't want to be. Lawyers represent parties and people all the time in various causes as a really democratic nation needs a system in which anybody and any cause (as long as the cause has some arguable legal merit) should be able to be presented. That doesn't mean that the lawyer in the case should have to pass a personal belief test to do that. And lawyers should be careful about sniping at business people about where they make their money, as after we are all officers of the court, a state system, and essentially do that in a fashion. And while organizations that people donate money to do indicate a person's personal belief, we need to be careful about believing that there are not positions in the middle.
July 25, 1918
In what at least Wyoming PBS regards as the second string Gubernatorial candidates, there's some interesting news going on.
Taylor Haynes problems regarding his ability to run appear to be growing worse, if news reports are any indication. The question of his residency over the past five years has been turned over to the authorities who are looking into it. My guess is that there's at least a 50% chance that he'll be ruled to be disqualified from the race and his candidacy will be administratively terminated.
If so, that will be a benefit to Harriet Hageman. In spite of a much more active campaign, the far libertarian right of the GOP is split on Hageman and Haynes. Neither one appears to be in position to win the primary but the level of their support is surprising. The fact that both of them are in the race is splitting that vote, to the benefit of Galeotos and Gordon. If Haynes drops out, that will be a bit of a problem for the two G candidates.
Hageman, at least according to word on the streets, lost support due to her performance in the last debate. I wondered. I thought her concluding statement was very poor and showed an aggressive pre planned attack that was obviously prepared prior to the debate. A closing can't be done that way, it has to be dynamic and capable of adjusting. Her's didn't and was mean. Apparently a lot of people didn't like it much. Additionally, her straight jacket approach to the economy in which she basically refuses to look at any other economic options other than the traditional ones appears to have left people cold as well. My guess is that she might actually be pulling lower than Haynes now, who is consistently extreme. Hageman seems to have come across that way in the debate and so more center right voters are abandoning her, according to the back street vox populi rumors.
The reported news this morning is that Foster Freiss, who is pulling far to the rear in this election season in spite of spending a ton on his campaign, will be touring the state with Rick Santorum in a "Faith and Family" tour. This, I'm afraid, shows the degree to which Freiss is truly clueless.
Rick Santorum may be a big political name elsewhere, but here he's just some random Pennsylvanian and Pennsylvania is, to a lot of Wyomingites, a random East Coast state (although one that Senator Barasso is from). Santorum isn't going to pull any votes in for Freiss at all and most Wyomingites are likely to react with a "who?" reaction.
Santorum may be a great guy (I have no idea) but he has no connection with Wyoming at all. He is well known in conservative circles as a bonafide conservative and he and Freiss are both strongly pro life in their views. Santorum and Freiss are also both very religious but their religious views are not the same overall. Freiss describes himself as a "born again Christian" while Santorum is a devout Catholic. Religious views in this context are perhaps worth noting as Wyoming is an odd state in these regards in that religion has never figured very prominently in state politics as a rule, with a couple of odd historical examples (and there's an interesting religious angle to one of the issues in the current campaign that runs under the current, but which I haven't posted on yet and might not). Generally Wyoming candidates tend to note their religious affiliation but they rarely go much beyond that, unlike other regions of the country which will see outright religious discussions of a confessional nature The largest religious affiliations in the state are the combined Protestant faiths with Catholicism and Mormanism being strongly represented minorities. There has been at least one, and I think two, Catholic Governors in the past, Mike Sullivan, and who became a Catholic following his time as Governor. But there's never been a Gubernatorial candidate in Wyoming who actually campaigned on religious faith. That Freiss is sort of intending on doing that again shows that he doesn't really seem to know the political culture of the state.
Speaking of culture, a recent report reveals that Teton County Wyoming again is the state with the highest income disparity in the US, having a lot of super wealthy people and a lot of really poor people. Native Wyomingites have looked on Teton County with a degree of disdain for quite some time as the super rich are felt to have ruined the county, but this throws an interesting angle into the election. Friess, Dodson, Trauner, Christensen and Cheney are all Teton County residents. Of those, Freiss, Dodson, Trauner and Cheney all relocated from somewhere else, and Friess, Dodson and Cheney fit into the general class of the wealthy relocators that at least native Wyomingites tend to not appreciate much. Cheney managed to get over the political bar only because the other two candidates defeated each other and opened the door to her and there will definitely be Republicans who vote against her in this election on that basis, amongst others, even though she'll win the primary. Dodson and Freiss have to overcome this burden and are frankly unlikely to do so, even setting aside the other problems their campaigns are faced with.
July 27, 2018
So declares a headline in the Casper Star Tribune regarding a Friess/Santorum appearance yesterday in Casper, part of their "Faith and Family" tour.At Casper event, Friess, Santorum blast Obamacare, support bringing back high-risk pools
The problem is that the Governor of Wyoming has diddly to do with national health care.
It's really odd now national politics that the Governor is without power to do anything about has crept into the Gubernatorial primary. It's not that some national issues don't have a state reflection. Abortion certainly does as should Roe v. Wade be modified the Governor's position on legislation really matters. Likewise, a candidates stance on Federal lands really matters even though it would take Federal action to change anything in regards to them as it would also require state action (taking in Federal lands, in addiction to being a bad, anti public, position, is unconstitutional under the State constitution). But "Obamacare"?
It isn't going to matter for the Governor unless Congress repeals it. And they're not going to. If they were, they would have. They were never going to. At the very most, they'll modify it at some point, and the Governor won't have much if any impact on that either.
On the same score, Donald Trump has made a major appearance in the Galeotos campaign for some inexplicable reason.
Okay, granted, it's not wholly in explicable. It's likely some campaign staffers calculation that Donald Trump is wildly popular in Wyoming (which I think a misreading of the tea leaves) and by linking the conventionally conservative Galeotos with the populist Trump, Galeotos will pick up voters from the far right. Maybe, but he's losing votes from the center.
I've heard two individuals closely following the race who have been so repelled by Galeotos' campaign literature and television spots about his getting in office to help Trump achieve his goals that they've dropped him like a hot rock. He ought to take head.
People following the race felt that Galeotos did well in the recent debate and following it picked up votes from Hageman supporters who dropped here after he poor debate performance (which seems to have been loved only by her diehard supporters) and here Molotov Cocktail closing. Maybe that will continue for Galeotos but if he's now loosing voters to Gordon, the only place that some of his supporters have to go (as Dahlin is still largely an unknown) his embracing of Trump may have proven to be an error.
If so, part of that might be because the news of the past couple of weeks is rapidly converting the Russian Election Meddling story from a disturbing oddity into something that's beginning to look like Trump's Watergate. Indeed, it's starting to look worse.
Trump has been controversial and unpopular since day one. Indeed, it tends to be forgotten that he went into office as a hugely unpopular President who won, in part, because Hillary Clinton was even more unpopular. The election at the end of the day turned out to be, in many voters mind, sort of a distasteful contest between a school yard vulgarian bully and that radical feminist class room snot. Not much of a choice. That's simplifying things in the extreme, but to many it was viewed that way. If the news doesn't turn around shortly Trump may be facing criminal charges and the nation a Constitutional crisis.
And this in spite of the fact that Trump, even to those who don't care for him, has some acknowledged and unacknowledged good results to his credit. The economy actually is growing faster than at any point since 2014 and in spite of a sudden retroactive effort on tariffs (which got all out of whack over a fifty years period). Trump's judicial picks really have been good (probably due to Mitch McConnell). And so on. But after two years in office under a Republican controlled Congress asserting, as Galeotos has, that his getting in will help Trump carry through with the rest of Trump's agenda is more than a little silly and I strongly suspect that Galeotos doesn't believe a word of it. Nobody who is familiar with politics would. It's discrediting a campaign that was getting a lot of credit.
Back to something that the Governor's views can in fact impact, the Wyoming Wildlife Federation is going to sponsor a Gubernatorial debate in Casper:
I'd really like to go to this, but I'm scheduled to be out of town. I'm seriously considering altering my schedule so I can make it.
July 28, 2018
A couple of things this morning, those being Taylor Haynes diminishing chances of running in the Fall and Sam Galeotos' economic ideas.
Let's start with Galeotos who is one of the two front runners.
I criticized Galeotos the other day for his embracing of Trump in his campaign, which I think is deceptive. As noted, there's not much a Wyoming Governor can do to "help Trump" and frankly the ads come really close to fitting into the blame it on Obama rhetoric that's now past the statue of limitations in my view. The Chief Executive of Wyoming isn't in a position to help the Chief Executive of the United States do anything. Maybe its more the other way around.
Anyhow, a person I know who attended a Galeotos even the other day was really impressed with Galeotos economic discussion, which centers on technological data centers in a way that I can't even grasp but which he does. Galeotos knows a lot about high tech and is, in these discussions, apparently emphasizing how Wyoming is ideally suited to take advantage of a data center explosion that's coming due to the amount of energy the state can generate.
That's actually fresh thinking of a type that we don't hear much about in this race. This was touched on only briefly in the recent debates and in a way which I also didn't understand, but it is a message that Galeotos is apparently trying to put across.
A simpler to understand message is that he feels the state grossly under-funds tourism efforts, and compares us poorly to other states in that regard. All the candidates seem really hesitant to endorse spending any money on anything, but here Galeotos is. He apparently cites a figure that for every dollar spent in tourism efforts ten are generated. So here too, in spite of his current Trump based media campaign, he has some fresh thinking that sets him apart from the other Republicans. Shoot, on that he almost sounds like a Democrat, which I'm sure that people like Hageman would point out. Hageman, when asked about tourism boosting efforts a while back, commented that she wondered why we didn't do something like that for coal.
Hageman is splitting the far right/libertarian vote, as we've noted, with Haynes. Right now, because Haynes and Hageman are so close in percentages, they'll stand to effectively take each other out. That may well change:
This doesn't look good for Haynes at all and my prediction is that this will kill off his campaign, but not before we read a lot of commentary about how this effort by the state is a conspiracy.
Haynes has no chance of winning in this election in any event, but this will have an impact. The impact will be to boost the chances of Hageman, although I suspect that more than a few disgruntled Haynes voters will go to really extreme candidate Rex Rammel, who is running as a third party candidate. I don't feel sorry for Haynes for this, as it really does seem like he may have been taking the residency requirements a bit too broadly.
August 1, 2018
The Casper Star Tribune published its voters guide in today's issue.
It's always worth picking up, even if it is frustrating as the candidates largely just answer questions posed to them by the Tribune and those questions, a standard set, tend to wholly omit issues that I'm concerned about and following.
For local and lessor known races, however, it may be about as good as a person will get.
In other news, President Trump Twitter endorsed John Barrasso. It was a pretty short endorsement noting that Barrasso didn't need his help but he hoped he'd win. Dodson quickly countered that this showed that Barrasso was concerned about his primary prospects.
Apparently there's no polling data on that race, so people don't really have any data to go on regarding who is where in the polls. It's widely expected that Barrasso will win, but Dodson has been running a pretty vigorous and very well funded campaign.
August 2, 2018
Apparently there were debates at Casper College last night that involved the Gubernatorial and the Senatorial candidates. I somehow missed that this was going to occur and ended up reading about it in the Tribune this morning.
This is frustrating in that I would like to have watched it on the computer (it was live streamed) or on television, if was televised. Wyoming Public Media participated in it, so I hope it was.
A link to sections, but only sections, of the debate appears on Wyoming Public Radio's Facebook page. Hopefully more will be posted later.
From what I read, the GOP candidates, apparently now knowing that they're risking it by maintaining otherwise, all say the Federal lands will remain in Federal hands, save for Taylor Haynes. Right now, if I was to predict it, I think Haynes will likely be out of the race next week when the Court holds a hearing on his eligibility to run, given his residency. As I haven't actually listened to the debate yet, I'd hold off making too many assumptions about that as a person really needs to hear what they have to say. Certainly Hageman wasn't a friend to Federal oversight of the lands earlier, but stopped short of the transfer position that had been maintained by Haynes.
It sounds like the conclusion of the debates was again fiery with Hageman going after all of her opponents, claiming Freiss was a "jet setter" and that Gordon wasn't qualified due to donations he had made to Democratic candidates. Gordon defended himself and Freiss apparently did not. On this, it might be pointed out that never supporting any Democrat would suggest that a person has a mind framed only by political allegiance which would make a person fairly incapable of working with anyone, but if that was pointed out, I don't know. Anyhow, Hageman, who is behind in the polls, is taking the gasoline on the fire approach to closing statements. In actual policy points, it seems like all of the GOP candidates took consistently conservative positions.
The Democrats also debated, and were more civil, but at this point Democratic appearances only serve two points, 1) to make it obvious that Throne will will the Democratic primary; and 2) to lessen Throne's chances of winning by associating her with the gadfly element of the Democratic Party represented by the aptly named Rex Wilde. It could be argued that Taylor Haynes and Harriet Hageman serve the same purpose in the GOP as Wilde does in the Democratic Party but as the political culture of the state is so heavily Republican that does not tend to occur. At least the fact that the Democrats are debating means that Throne remains in the news.
In the GOP Senatorial race (only Truaner is really running on the Democratic side so there's no point in a Democratic debate) Barrasso, citing important Senate work that had come up (it really had) bowed out and remained in D. C., leaving the floor to the other four candidates, of which only Dodson is a real candidate. Dodson seems to have absolutely dominated the discussion, not surprisingly, and used it to beat up on Barrasso. Barrasso should have showed up.
August 4, 2018
Yesterday, August 3, the District Court in Cheyenne denied a petition for an interlocutory order seeking to bump Haynes out of the election based on his residency, which is in question.
Perhaps I didn't read it carefully, but it seems to me that at least the press accounts I read of this prior to the hearing were inaccurate and gave the impression that his residency was set to be tried on the merits. That's not what was the case. This was just a petition to stop him from running until the trial was held, which is some time off.
The Attorney General expressed surprise by the Court's ruling, but I'm not. Courts generally try to stay out of political affairs as a matter of judicial discretion and prudence. Moreover, most Courts here would in fact read the tea leaves and factor that in. Haynes isn't going to win on August 21 and then the case will be moot. The Court will never have to decide the matter on the merits.
It was the correct decision by the Court.
August 5, 2018
Donald Trump, Jr. has an article in the Casper Star Tribune endorsing Foster Freiss for Governor.
It's pretty obvious that a lot of Wyoming candidates are hoping that a perceived Wyoming Likes Trump feeling in the state is going to rub off on them. Maybe they're right, but frankly I have my real doubts.
One thing that candidates taking that view ought to recall is that Trump was not a popular candidate, nationwide, when he was elected in the first place, which of course doesn't mean that he wasn't, or isn't, popular here. Another thing they may wish to keep in mind is that there's been a lot of water under, and over, that bridge since then and they may be gambling incorrectly.
Indeed, I have a neighbor in my neighborhood who was a real Trump fan that has all Democrat signs up right now. . . .
And that neighbor may be indicative of something else. They're Texans. Given the nature of the state's economy there's fewer imports in the state now than there was in 2016 when Trump was elected. Are native and long term Wyoming residents are pro Trump as the oil population was?
Somebody who feels that answer is "no", apparently, is the state's Democratic Party which was featured in the every election year repeat article of the Tribune where they express high hopes about winning some seats this election. With Mary Throne I'd say their hope is real and it might not be delusional as to Gary Trauner, but the expression of the concept that Wyoming may be part, even a little part, of a "red wave", as the headline muses, is delusional. It won't be.
Which brings me to my repeat election year rant about the terms red and blue.
Everywhere else in the world red stands for the political left.
Logo of the British Labour Party, the heavily left leaning major British political party.
Everywhere.
The current logo of the French Socialist Party, a union between the old French Socialist Party which used the red rose as its symbol, and the French Green Party.
And I do mean everywhere.
The log of the German Social Democratic Party, one of the oldest and most significant leftist parties in the world.
Including North America.
The logo of Canada's ruling party, the left of center Liberals.
By the same token, blue is associated with right wing political parties, sometimes extreme ones.
Logo of the Austrian Freedom Party, a right wing Austrian party. I'm not certain what the inclusion of a red vowell means, but blue is the primary color here.
Indeed, the Spanish fascists wore blue shirts, and an Irish fascist movement prior to World War Two also did that and was nicknamed "the blue shirts". Spain's contribution to the Eastern Front during World War Two was the Blue Division.
Which isn't to say that all right wing parties using blue are extreme.
Logo of Canadian Conservative Party.
But thanks to a stupid color choice by the media several elections ago, we are now stuck with this bizarre out of whack of color scheme here in the U.S.
August 8, 2018
I'm frankly of the view that politics in general has become exceedingly odd ever since the 2008 election which resulted in Barack Obama becoming President. Not because of Obama, but because the reaction to his election was so strong. It seemed to revive a lot of old feelings that we hadn't seen in a long time.
During his eight years in office that feeling grew stronger, even though throughout much of his Presidency he was fairly ineffectual and fairly far from being any kid of a radical. That changed in his last two years in which he really did lurch to the left, by which time there was little detriment to his doing so. Following that we had the 2016 election which gave us Donald Trump in a really odd election and politics have just stayed odd ever since.
It's almost hard to look back on prior elections and feel that they even occurred in the same country.
This started spreading into Wyoming 2008 but it's really in full flower now, and for the first time in my memory we're seeing some really odd campaigning including some truly negative campaigning.
Harriet Hageman, aware that Mark Gordon is in the presumed lead in the Gubernatorial race, has been going after him in every debate with the argument that he's a closet liberal and has done heinous things like support the Sierra Club. Some organization that clearly backs here is now sending around mail flyers to that point, including the point that he was born in New York and grew up, the flyer claims, back East (I think he was sent to an Eastern prep school). On that latter point, it's interesting that Republicans would aim that at one of their own as it would also take, in this race, every single member of our Congressional representation (Senate and House) out of consideration for election.
It also strikes the wrong message with a lot of Wyomingites and, at least by my observation, among those just looking at voting for the first time, who are not yet burdened with the concept that their own lines of work define moral goodness, it's doing the polar opposite. I heard one conservative Wyoming young voter ask "Why does Hageman hate the Earth?" I'm sure that person isn't alone in that view, and among sportsmen there's a real red flag up now regarding Hageman. Without knowing for sure, I suspect her chances are declining.
Not according to the Laramie Boomerang, however.
In a recent poll by the Boomerang Hageman came out on top over the other candidates, although she still polled less than 50%. Indeed, what that call in poll revealed is what we might call the Cheney Effect, where two other front runners, Galeotos and Gordon are splitting the majority of the GOP vote and the third choice might therefore slip in. That's exactly what allowed Cheney to win the 2016 GOP primary. The difference here is that the Democrats are running a fairly strong candidate on their own right, Mary Trauner, who might then pull off getting in against the odds.
On getting in against the odds, but not against the current of history, this reminds me that this past week I saw a letter to the editor in which the pro Hageman writer compared Hageman to "Nellie Taylor[sic] Ross" apparently due to gender alone. Students of history might recall that Ross, who served only one term after having been elected to fill the term that her husband had previously been elected to, was not from Wyoming, was a Democrat, and went on to have a position in the Franklin Roosevelt administration.
Nellie Tayloe Ross in later years, on her farm in Maryland, at which time she was the Director of Mints under Frankly Roosevelt. I doubt that she and Hageman would have seen eye to eye on very much . . .if anything.
Anyhow, raising the Ross banner is a little odd, in context, as that flag would seem to be flown higher for Throne.
On raising banners, Gordon is now pitching to outdoorsmen, which is smart. Unlike most of the local politicians who do this, moreover, he actually looks comfortable and genuine in the part, which says something. He's now saying he'll fight to keep public lands in public hands, which is an evolution in his previously really vague statements which left him room to maneuver. He still has that room, but not as much as before. Wyomingites are overwhelmingly opposed to transferring the public lands and it would seem that the candidates are beginning to actually realize that.
On raising banners, Gordon is now pitching to outdoorsmen, which is smart. Unlike most of the local politicians who do this, moreover, he actually looks comfortable and genuine in the part, which says something. He's now saying he'll fight to keep public lands in public hands, which is an evolution in his previously really vague statements which left him room to maneuver. He still has that room, but not as much as before. Wyomingites are overwhelmingly opposed to transferring the public lands and it would seem that the candidates are beginning to actually realize that.
- Fighting to keep public lands in public hands & protect multiple-use management
- Maintaining & enhancing access for hunters, anglers and recreationists
- Working to responsibly grow Wyoming’s outdoor recreation economy
- Defender of Second Amendment
- Advocate for grizzly hunt & responsible wildlife management
Gordon campaign flyer aimed at sportsmen.
Whatever they are realizing, recent materials arriving here at the door would also suggest that at least Galeotos has realized that embracing Trump is maybe not such a good idea, while Foster Freiss seems to be assuming the opposite. Indeed, Freiss' advertisements read as if he's running for some Southern state, as they emphasize not only his conservatism but how appealing he thinks he is to Evangelical voters. I have a dormant post on this that I should revive, but frankly there is not Evangelical voting block in Wyoming. There are plenty of Protestants to be sure, but the role of religion and even the story of religion in Wyoming is distinctly different from most of the United States. If a person was going to aim for voters who decide about candidates who are strongly informed by their religion here, you'd pitch to Catholics and Mormons, both of which are minority faiths in the state but both of which are well represented in the population and who do have large blocks that decide on social issues based on their religious views. Pitching to Evangelicals on the other hand, while it will influence some, is not going to make enough of a difference to do all that much. That tends to show that Freiss really doesn't grasp the state he's running to administer.
August 10, 2018
Last night Casper College hosted a debate sponsored by the Wyoming Wildlife Federation of the Gubernatorial candidates.
I really wanted to go to this, but at the time that this kicked off I was between Sheridan and Buffalo, so that was a no go. I was encouraged when I therefore logged on to Facebook this morning and saw that a video of the debate was on the site.
To be followed by immediate discouragement.
This is the third of the various debates that have shown up on the net (one was a county commissioner's debate) in which the audio quality is 100% crap. It's a lot easier to sit through bad video than audio. Indeed, bad audio makes something like this nearly useless.
And this is an important topic.
Comments, I'll note, on this video support by view. People were upset by the lousy audio. They should have been. A lot more people can view this on the net, and wanted to, than can attend in person. What was started as a really valuable service in terms of this debate has been pretty much wasted unless this can be addressed in some fashion, and this isn't the only instance of this.
On other news, for two days running I've received campaign mail from an organization styling itself "Protecting Our Constitution". This one was more extreme than the last and makes the tenous connection that; 1) Mark Gordon was a member of the Sierra Club; and 2) the Sierra Club (it asserts) is taking some role in the current hearing hearings on the Kavanaugh nomination (it asserts) and 3) Planned Parenthood is taking some role (it asserts) so, therefore, Mark Gordon supports Planned Parenthood.
The logic train is really derailed on that one.
I don't have a clue who "Protecting Our Constitution" is, but they're really acting like bullies. I suspect that they're accidentally helping Gordon as its hard not to sympathize with him having to put up with a bunch of stupidity of this type and its focusing attention on him that might otherwise be split between him and Galeotos.
August 10, 2018
Last night Casper College hosted a debate sponsored by the Wyoming Wildlife Federation of the Gubernatorial candidates.
I really wanted to go to this, but at the time that this kicked off I was between Sheridan and Buffalo, so that was a no go. I was encouraged when I therefore logged on to Facebook this morning and saw that a video of the debate was on the site.
To be followed by immediate discouragement.
This is the third of the various debates that have shown up on the net (one was a county commissioner's debate) in which the audio quality is 100% crap. It's a lot easier to sit through bad video than audio. Indeed, bad audio makes something like this nearly useless.
And this is an important topic.
Comments, I'll note, on this video support by view. People were upset by the lousy audio. They should have been. A lot more people can view this on the net, and wanted to, than can attend in person. What was started as a really valuable service in terms of this debate has been pretty much wasted unless this can be addressed in some fashion, and this isn't the only instance of this.
On other news, for two days running I've received campaign mail from an organization styling itself "Protecting Our Constitution". This one was more extreme than the last and makes the tenous connection that; 1) Mark Gordon was a member of the Sierra Club; and 2) the Sierra Club (it asserts) is taking some role in the current hearing hearings on the Kavanaugh nomination (it asserts) and 3) Planned Parenthood is taking some role (it asserts) so, therefore, Mark Gordon supports Planned Parenthood.
The logic train is really derailed on that one.
I don't have a clue who "Protecting Our Constitution" is, but they're really acting like bullies. I suspect that they're accidentally helping Gordon as its hard not to sympathize with him having to put up with a bunch of stupidity of this type and its focusing attention on him that might otherwise be split between him and Galeotos.
August 15, 2018
Mark Gordon received former U.S. Senator Al Simpson's folksy endorsement in today's Casper Star Tribune.
How much that helps Gordon I can't say, but it sure can't hurt him. Simpson is generally well liked and in his retirement he's been particularly willing to say some blunt things, albeit in a generally friendly, if oddly put, way.
In his endorsement he takes some wide swings at Gordon's opponents, dismissing Galeotos and Freiss as well meaning businessmen with no governing experience. Harriet Hageman drew his folksy ire, and earned a nickname of "Hang-em Harriet".
Gordon has also picked up from the Wyoming Hunters & Anglers Alliance. This is the endorsement that, I think, I confused with the Wyoming Wildlife Federation the other day. In fact the WWF doesn't do political endorsements due to its IRS status (501c3). But the WH&AA does, and they came out for Gordon. The organization is one of the sportsmen's groups that opposed any transfer of public lands and that figures in their endorsement. Assuming its the same one I read the other day, it doesn't find Gordon perfect, but it does find him to be better than his competitors.
I suspect an endorsement like that has some teeth to it and reflects a building trend. Sportsmen and outdoor folks were energized by last year's effort at public land grabbing by the legislature and have remained active. Unfortunately, the GOP fielded no candidates at all that were really great on this issue, although Gordon has really been coming around, and it has two candidates that are really bad on this issue, with out, Taylor Haynes, simply off the charts (Haynes is one of those individuals who subscribed to an incorrect view of the Constitution in this area, a view that's infected a certain hard right element in the GOP in spite of the view being flatly wrong). Those concerned about public lands have been really watching this race as a result and this may have an impact on the race.
Indeed, not only might it have an impact on the primary, but it will have one in the general election if Hageman manages to pull off a victory. If she does, it will because Gordon and Galeotos are splitting the majority of votes against her, if you choose to look at it that way. Indeed, at this point Dahlin and Friess really ought to drop out of the race as they're doing nothing other than to serve as spoilers in aid of a candidate they really don't share any views with. Anyhow, if that did occur, Throne will be the default candidate in the general election for those with strong views on the public lands.
August 16, 2018
Friess in the lead (or just bad polling)?
According to a Tribune telephone poll, Foster Friess has pulled ahead in the final days of the campaign and is now in the lead, barely, with 21% of the votes. Gordon is right behind him, within the margin of error, with 20%. Harriet Hageman, whom the Tribune calls a "natural resources lawyer" has jumped up to 16.2%, riding a wave of late season nasty campaigning. Galeotos has fallen way down to 9.5%. Haynes is down to 5.7% and Dahlin is at the bottom with a completely hopeless 2.2%.
20% remain undecided.
Or are they?
I think I may actually have been called on this poll, but I hung up. Yes I did.
Assuming it was the same poll, it was automated, and I don't speak to machines, so I didn't bother to answer. I suspect anymore with a lot of these polls that approach is pretty common. So we go un-polled.
Indeed, I quit responding to a poll that would call here regularly for awhile that had a real human being behind it as it was somewhat slanted and I don't like slanted polls. I don't know that this one is, but the outfit that took it does apparently have reputation for being hard right. . . .but accurate.
This is the second poll in a couple of weeks that showed a big jump for Hageman, but the first, from the Laramie Boomerang, was just a call in. Hageman was pulling twice the percentage in that one compared to this one. In this one, she's up about 6 points from where she was earlier in a Tribune poll, however.
Assuming this is accurate, which I'd frankly question, the big story might be the huge percentage of undecided voters. Statistically, literally anyone could win in this race. However, we know that Dahlin and Haynes will not. Indeed, at this point, all Haynes is doing is acting as a spoiler for Hageman and all Dahlin is doing is taking up a tiny percentage of voters who should be going to somebody other than Hageman, likely Galeotos.
But if Galeotos has actually fallen to 9.5% (and if he's like most serious candidates, he has internal polling data and knows where he is. If his own data confirms that, he likely ought to serious consider pulling out. Almost all of his voters would go to Gordon and that that addition would almost certainly put Gordon over the top.
That might seem like a lot to ask a candidate, but in this really odd election year there are some seriously strange political winds. I think it safe to say that Gordon, Galeotos and Friess all have a much different vision of the future of Wyoming than Hageman and Haynes. If they're serious about their convictions, certain losers at this point ought to do a service to their views and bow out. Otherwise they risk creating a Cheney result in which the least popular major contender wins because the two more popular ones split the vote.
In other news, Harriet Hageman, who went after Galeotos for taking government contracts turns out to have taken government contracts.
Former Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank, a Republican who served in that capacity under Democrat Dave Freudenthal, came out noting that. I'm not sure that Crank has a dog in this fight but he's made some correct statements about Hageman having taken a couple of legal projects with the state early in her career. Hageman is trying to distinguish them noting that such legal work is not out of the norm for lawyers.
Nope, it's not. But that's the entire point. I already noted it, but a lawyer going after a businessmen for taking anything from the state is flat out weird. We're licensed officers from the state to start with so we've taken our entire career from the state. When I heard her make those statements I thought her vulnerable to that sort of criticism, and she turns out to be more vulnerable than I'd supposed.
August 17, 2018
The Wyoming Sportsmen for Public Lands has ranked the political candidates running this year. Their post, which appears at least on Facebook, is as follows:
One of the really interesting aspects of this post is that the group made this statement in it.
The reason that this is fair is that the entire primary system is incredibly stupid and has given us the institutional two party system which is also incredibly stupid.
Wyoming's primaries, like most in most places, are blended between real elections designed to narrow down the candidates for an office, and party elections that serve only the respective parties. When Wyomingites go to the polls next Tuesday they'll be voting for non partisan positions in some instances, and simply narrowing the field for the general election in the fall, and for members of a political party so that party can choose its candidate who will compete in November. It makes no sense whatsoever to spend the public dime on a party election.
Political parties don't actually need to choose their candidates to run a person in a general election. Indeed, the third parties, i.e., those parties too small and therefore poor to feed at the public trough in this fashion, don't. They just pick a candidate by their own means and run them. But the Democrats and Republicans, being the big parties, make use of the primary system.
A person could argue that there's good and bad to this. If candidates were simply chosen by the parties by their own devices the public would have less say, for example, in who a party ran for office, and that would be bad. But at the same time we have to be honest that if its just thrown open to the voters then anyone must and should have a right to decide what party they're in at any one time.
Indeed, in recent years in Wyoming its been right wing Republicans who have really complained about this, but its well known that it works both ways, depending upon where you are. And the death of the Democratic Party as a really viable party in Wyoming, and its repeated botched efforts at resuscitating it here due to the party always going fruity left when ever it starts to revive, has meant that the GOP has nearly become the only party (although frankly I think Mary Throne has a pretty good chance of pulling a Mike Sullivan this year). That being the case, people who want a say it what happens have every right to register Republican and frankly maybe they ought to. The Democrats are a lot more to blame for not being able to keep registered voters in their party than the GOP is, due to their slipping into the political grave over the past couple of decades, and that means that what would have been moderate Democrats probably only really have a home in the GOP. Most of those who complain about this are hard right Republicans who have no real claim to their own party's traditional center and can be blamed just as much for seizing it away from the traditional GOP base. Indeed, while I'm skeptical it will occur, there is a lot of speculation out there this year that nationally the GOP may be headed for the political emergency room due to it falling into disfavor with many over the past two years.
Anyhow, people who still register as Democrats most years in Wyoming are, I suspect; 1) people who just moved here and registered as Democrats from where they came from; 2) people who started registering as Democrats when they were young and have just stuck with it, even if it no longer reflects their politics; 3) people who are shocked by how hard right some elements of the GOP have become in the past decade and don't want to associate themselves with that and; 4) a few real Democrats.
Save perhaps for the fourth category (and I wouldn't even "save" that), registering as Republicans at the polls on Tuesday makes perfect sense and is perfectly fair.
This is, of course, even more the case for Independents. Independents in Wyoming are basically the center and in prior years would have largely been Republicans. They were driven out of both parties as they grew disgusted with the extremes. Arguing for them to register as Republicans in the primary gives them a chance to participate in an election that was set up to be open and narrowing in the first place, on the public dime, and in actuality operates to return the GOP more to the center right where it traditionally has been.
I'm sure there will be some howling over this. But if either party doesn't like it, then they should require their candidates to be certified in a convention to run, and this wouldn't happen. But then, some of the extremism we've seen in recent years likely wouldn't happen either.
August 17, 2018, part two.
Senator John Barrasso has come out with a television advertisement featuring President Theodore Roosevelt and praising his "cowboy courage".
I suppose its the historian in me, but I'm often just floored that current Republicans will pay homage and try to draw some vicarious glory from Theodore Roosevelt.
Don't get me wrong, I love Theodore Roosevelt. He was one of the greatest Presidents we ever had, and beyond that, he was a great man.
But Republicans who think he would have been impressed with a lot of the current GOP are flat out, out to lunch.
Indeed, Roosevelt battled with the conservative elements of his own party at the time. And I frankly doubt that he'd be too impressed with the GOP today.
Roosevelt was not a conservative. And I'm saying that as a person who isn't a died in the wool liberal (I'm highly conservative on some things, somewhat liberal on others, in the middle on others). By the end of his days, he was beyond being a liberal, he was a radical. He proposed Federal intervention in the economy on an ongoing and continual basis at a level that's far, far beyond anything the Untied States has ever approach. He championed liberal causes. . . rights for women, civil service exams, rights for blacks, well before it was popular.
And he was a diehard conservationist.
TR would have found John Barrasso's insertion into the last Republican platform of language transferring the Federal domain to the states a horror. Indeed, Roosevelt withdrew land from homestead entry for conservation purposes with aggressive abandon. I suspect that Roosevelt would have had unique Rooseveltian biting words for both Liz Cheney and John Barrasso, had he lived at the same time.
Now, before this goes to far, TR woudn't have been too impressed with the modern Democratic Party either, which nationally looks more and more like a Parlor Pink Trostskyite Tea Society, which is why that its probably setting itself up for failure in the Fall.
And I do think that we moderns ought to look at back at Roosevelt both with admiration and for guidance. Indeed, it can be argued that he was the last truly great President we had (although his cousin Franklin Roosevelt, for all his failings, deserves that consideration as well). And certainly most of us moderns could stand to consider The Strenuous Life as something we ought to live. I think Roosevelt would be disappointed in us, and indeed I suspect that he is, looking down at us from his Final Reward.
But cite to him simply because he was a rancher and outdoorsman?
Hmmm.. . . if you are going to do that, well, perhaps following his example in numerous ways might be in order?
August 18, 2018
The Star Tribune endorsed Dave Dodson for the U.S. Senate in the primary race.
I don't know how much attention, if any, people pay to newspaper endorsements anymore. At one time, they certainly did. Indeed, some newspapers actually named themselves after political parties at one time. For example, there was a Laramie Republican paper that competed with the Laramie Boomerang.
Be that as it may, the Tribune, even if it isn't what it once was, is still the largest paper in the state and its determination to endorse Dodson is really remarkable.
Dodson, to his credit, has run a really good campaign. Sounding like a rich gadfly at first, he put out a lengthy item on his economic views, as the Tribune has noted. And the Tribune, in a much more soft spoken way, basically agreed with Dodson that Barrasso, while he deserves accolades for his background, has focused more on his career in the GOP than on the concerns of the state.
It'l be really interesting to see how Dodson does on Tuesday. Over time, quite a few sportsmen have come around to viewing him favorably, even if many of them won't vote for him. Some definitely will, perhaps a lot will. Earlier this week one of the news channels interviewed both Dodson and Barrasso. I didn't see Dodson's interview, which was first, but it sounded like he had answers for Barrasso's attacks on him, which have mostly been that Dodson contributed money to Democratic candidates (Dodson apparently stated that a partner did it in their name). Barrasso was very halting in his interview and was obviously way off his game, sounding flat footed and nervous. He came around to the stock answer that Dodson had supported President Obama and what about "Obamacare", which by this point, two years into the Trump Administration, is pretty much a dead political letter. What about Obamacare, Senator Barrasso? The Republicans are in charge. . . .
All of this makes Barrasso seem pretty vulnerable, but we'll see. The charge that he hasn't done much is starting to stick and he's seen by many as an enemy of public lands.
Where the campaign hasn't gone very far, so far, is on social issues. Dodson hasn't committed on where he stands on life and death, pregnancy and the like and he appears to be avoiding it. If he was wise, he'd come in right where Barrasso is, or perhaps a little to the right. \
August 19, 2018
And today, the Tribune endorsed Sam Galeotos.
This is frankly a surprise because, if poll results are correct, Galeotos' campaign has been flagging. He was doing really well earlier, neck and neck with Gordon, but according to the last poll the Tribune reported, he'd slipped into fourth place recently. Of course, that's not reason not to endorse him, but if we assume that reporting to be correct, that would mean that there's a real risk that Galeotos will serve to pull a Cheney in this race and boost Hageman over the bar (which in turn might put Throne over the bar in the Fall).
The Tribune endorsed him as he seems, in their view, the most realistic on the economy. And they may well be right. He made at least one unfortunate campaign gaff, in my view, in trying to tack himself to Trump, which Friess has also done. Friess, however, is shooting for a different set of voters than Galeotos. Doing that may have very well cost Galeotos support in some quarters, with that supporting going over to Gordon.
August 21, 2018
And even on this election day we have an update, this being the final one for this edition.
The same sportsman's group that endorsed Gordon above came out yesterday with an endorsement for Kristi Racines for State Auditor.
The organization noted that as the State Auditor she'll sit on the board that makes decisions regarding public lands and that she's been a public lands supporter. She's also a fourth generation Wyomingite who hunts and fishes. Significant for the job, she's also an accountant.
Her competitor is Nathan Winters who is a legislator but who in his private life is a Baptist minister. His qualifications seem limited to that. As a legislator he apparently voted for a bill that favored land transfers to the state, according to the organization noted above.
This would seem, therefore, to set a pretty clear contrast between Racines and Winters.
In other news, Charles Hardy dropped out of the Senatorial race and endorsed Dodson.
Hardy's race had been so low volume that I'd actually forgotten that he was running. The real contest has been between Dodson and Barrasso and it's become that, a real contest. Dodson, in spite of having a huge uphill battle, has picked up a lot of support, it seems, and now is really challenging Barrasso who has come out with a set of advertisements recently basically accusing Dodson of being a Democrat in disguise, which Dodson has countered.
One hopes that this was Hardy's final race. He's run again and again and his switch to the Republican Party from the Democratic only tends to amplify the pathetic character of his repeat efforts. As a really aged candidate and fairly liberal one he also, at this point, tends to amplify an aspect of American politics that is chaffing at various levels.
Mark Gordon received former U.S. Senator Al Simpson's folksy endorsement in today's Casper Star Tribune.
How much that helps Gordon I can't say, but it sure can't hurt him. Simpson is generally well liked and in his retirement he's been particularly willing to say some blunt things, albeit in a generally friendly, if oddly put, way.
In his endorsement he takes some wide swings at Gordon's opponents, dismissing Galeotos and Freiss as well meaning businessmen with no governing experience. Harriet Hageman drew his folksy ire, and earned a nickname of "Hang-em Harriet".
Gordon has also picked up from the Wyoming Hunters & Anglers Alliance. This is the endorsement that, I think, I confused with the Wyoming Wildlife Federation the other day. In fact the WWF doesn't do political endorsements due to its IRS status (501c3). But the WH&AA does, and they came out for Gordon. The organization is one of the sportsmen's groups that opposed any transfer of public lands and that figures in their endorsement. Assuming its the same one I read the other day, it doesn't find Gordon perfect, but it does find him to be better than his competitors.
I suspect an endorsement like that has some teeth to it and reflects a building trend. Sportsmen and outdoor folks were energized by last year's effort at public land grabbing by the legislature and have remained active. Unfortunately, the GOP fielded no candidates at all that were really great on this issue, although Gordon has really been coming around, and it has two candidates that are really bad on this issue, with out, Taylor Haynes, simply off the charts (Haynes is one of those individuals who subscribed to an incorrect view of the Constitution in this area, a view that's infected a certain hard right element in the GOP in spite of the view being flatly wrong). Those concerned about public lands have been really watching this race as a result and this may have an impact on the race.
Indeed, not only might it have an impact on the primary, but it will have one in the general election if Hageman manages to pull off a victory. If she does, it will because Gordon and Galeotos are splitting the majority of votes against her, if you choose to look at it that way. Indeed, at this point Dahlin and Friess really ought to drop out of the race as they're doing nothing other than to serve as spoilers in aid of a candidate they really don't share any views with. Anyhow, if that did occur, Throne will be the default candidate in the general election for those with strong views on the public lands.
August 16, 2018
Friess in the lead (or just bad polling)?
According to a Tribune telephone poll, Foster Friess has pulled ahead in the final days of the campaign and is now in the lead, barely, with 21% of the votes. Gordon is right behind him, within the margin of error, with 20%. Harriet Hageman, whom the Tribune calls a "natural resources lawyer" has jumped up to 16.2%, riding a wave of late season nasty campaigning. Galeotos has fallen way down to 9.5%. Haynes is down to 5.7% and Dahlin is at the bottom with a completely hopeless 2.2%.
20% remain undecided.
Or are they?
I think I may actually have been called on this poll, but I hung up. Yes I did.
Assuming it was the same poll, it was automated, and I don't speak to machines, so I didn't bother to answer. I suspect anymore with a lot of these polls that approach is pretty common. So we go un-polled.
Indeed, I quit responding to a poll that would call here regularly for awhile that had a real human being behind it as it was somewhat slanted and I don't like slanted polls. I don't know that this one is, but the outfit that took it does apparently have reputation for being hard right. . . .but accurate.
This is the second poll in a couple of weeks that showed a big jump for Hageman, but the first, from the Laramie Boomerang, was just a call in. Hageman was pulling twice the percentage in that one compared to this one. In this one, she's up about 6 points from where she was earlier in a Tribune poll, however.
Assuming this is accurate, which I'd frankly question, the big story might be the huge percentage of undecided voters. Statistically, literally anyone could win in this race. However, we know that Dahlin and Haynes will not. Indeed, at this point, all Haynes is doing is acting as a spoiler for Hageman and all Dahlin is doing is taking up a tiny percentage of voters who should be going to somebody other than Hageman, likely Galeotos.
But if Galeotos has actually fallen to 9.5% (and if he's like most serious candidates, he has internal polling data and knows where he is. If his own data confirms that, he likely ought to serious consider pulling out. Almost all of his voters would go to Gordon and that that addition would almost certainly put Gordon over the top.
That might seem like a lot to ask a candidate, but in this really odd election year there are some seriously strange political winds. I think it safe to say that Gordon, Galeotos and Friess all have a much different vision of the future of Wyoming than Hageman and Haynes. If they're serious about their convictions, certain losers at this point ought to do a service to their views and bow out. Otherwise they risk creating a Cheney result in which the least popular major contender wins because the two more popular ones split the vote.
In other news, Harriet Hageman, who went after Galeotos for taking government contracts turns out to have taken government contracts.
Former Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank, a Republican who served in that capacity under Democrat Dave Freudenthal, came out noting that. I'm not sure that Crank has a dog in this fight but he's made some correct statements about Hageman having taken a couple of legal projects with the state early in her career. Hageman is trying to distinguish them noting that such legal work is not out of the norm for lawyers.
Nope, it's not. But that's the entire point. I already noted it, but a lawyer going after a businessmen for taking anything from the state is flat out weird. We're licensed officers from the state to start with so we've taken our entire career from the state. When I heard her make those statements I thought her vulnerable to that sort of criticism, and she turns out to be more vulnerable than I'd supposed.
August 17, 2018
The Wyoming Sportsmen for Public Lands has ranked the political candidates running this year. Their post, which appears at least on Facebook, is as follows:
WE RANK THE GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATES AND RECOMMEND A "VOTING STRATEGY" FOR NEXT TUESDAY! After considering candidate statements submitted to us directly as well as information from other sources including newspaper interviews, written surveys, public appearances, and television advertisements we have ranked Democrat Mary Throne and Republican Mark Gordon as the gubernatorial candidates most favorable to public lands (see rankings below along with a short explanation).
The best case scenario for public land advocates would be for Ms. Throne and Mr. Gordon to advance to the November election. That would almost guarantee the new governor of Wyoming will be someone who is public lands friendly.
Unlike the Democratic race where Mary Throne, is almost certain to win Tuesday's primary, there's a lot competition in the GOP race. And a victory for one of the lower ranked GOP candidates could be catastrophic for public lands.
To help assure a friendly GOP face in the November election, we urge Democrats and Independents to consider voting Republican next Tuesday. We have checked with the Elections Office, and have confirmed it is possible to change party affiliation on primary election day and then switch back to your preferred party shortly thereafter. Changing party for the primary will enable you to vote for Mark Gordon with the additional benefit of being able to vote for Rod Miller and Dave Dodson who are strong public land advocates. PLEASE CONSIDER TEMPORARILY SWITCHING PARTIES! If you don't, there is good chance one of the unacceptable GOP gubernatorial candidates will advance to the November election.
Here are our rankings:
#1. MARY THRONE (D): Ms. Throne stands solidly against federal land transfer. She also understands the importance of federal lands in promoting a tourism economy. Perhaps most importantly, as a Democrat, she wouldn't be obliged to conform to the regressive GOP platform on federal lands.
#2. MARK GORDON (R): Mr. Gordon is the GOP candidate that best represents those who care about federal lands. He seems to understand that with careful planning we can have economic development and at the same time protect the wildlife, tourism, historic and scenic values our federal lands offer. We think he is the most sportsmen friendly GOP candidate.
#3. SAM GALEOTOS (R): Mr. Galeotos' intense focus on business and economic development may not bode well for federal lands. Some of his comments suggest he might not strike a good balance between conservation and development. For example, his TV commercials have repeatedly emphasized economic development while chastising EPA and BLM.
#4. FOSTER FRIESS (R): Mr. Friess supports the Federal Land Freedom Act currently being considered by Congress. That bill, if it passes, would essentially transfer federal lands minerals management to the states which would not be good for outdoor recreation. Furthermore it would exempt states from following the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. Exemption from the Administrative Procedure Act would likely reduce opportunity for public comment.
#5. HARRIET HAGEMAN (R): Ms. Hageman is proposing to transfer management of one million acres of federal land to the state as an "incremental" approach to resolving land management issues. One million acres is roughly equivalent to the size of Medicine Bow National Forest. And the word "incremental" suggests she may want to transfer more at a later date.
#6. TAYLOR HAYNES (R): Mr. Haynes is an all out transfer advocate. Claiming highly questionable constitutional authority, he proposes transferring most of our 30 million acres of federal land to the State of Wyoming. He has even suggested that eventually that might include Yellowstone National Park.
#7: REX RAMMELL (I): It was a toss up between Mr. Haynes and Mr. Rammell as to who should be ranked last. Since they are both aggressive federal land transfer proponents, both are equally unacceptable.In looking at their rankings, on this issue, I'd have to agree with their assessment.
One of the really interesting aspects of this post is that the group made this statement in it.
To help assure a friendly GOP face in the November election, we urge Democrats and Independents to consider voting Republican next Tuesday. We have checked with the Elections Office, and have confirmed it is possible to change party affiliation on primary election day and then switch back to your preferred party shortly thereafter. Changing party for the primary will enable you to vote for Mark Gordon with the additional benefit of being able to vote for Rod Miller and Dave Dodson who are strong public land advocates. PLEASE CONSIDER TEMPORARILY SWITCHING PARTIES! If you don't, there is good chance one of the unacceptable GOP gubernatorial candidates will advance to the November election.That's the sort of thing that just sends diehard Republicans screaming into the aisles, but frankly that's a solid argument and makes perfect sense. It's also perfectly fair. And apparently there's two groups running pleas of this type on Facebook now, with the other group urging the same thing on broader lines.
The reason that this is fair is that the entire primary system is incredibly stupid and has given us the institutional two party system which is also incredibly stupid.
Wyoming's primaries, like most in most places, are blended between real elections designed to narrow down the candidates for an office, and party elections that serve only the respective parties. When Wyomingites go to the polls next Tuesday they'll be voting for non partisan positions in some instances, and simply narrowing the field for the general election in the fall, and for members of a political party so that party can choose its candidate who will compete in November. It makes no sense whatsoever to spend the public dime on a party election.
Political parties don't actually need to choose their candidates to run a person in a general election. Indeed, the third parties, i.e., those parties too small and therefore poor to feed at the public trough in this fashion, don't. They just pick a candidate by their own means and run them. But the Democrats and Republicans, being the big parties, make use of the primary system.
A person could argue that there's good and bad to this. If candidates were simply chosen by the parties by their own devices the public would have less say, for example, in who a party ran for office, and that would be bad. But at the same time we have to be honest that if its just thrown open to the voters then anyone must and should have a right to decide what party they're in at any one time.
Indeed, in recent years in Wyoming its been right wing Republicans who have really complained about this, but its well known that it works both ways, depending upon where you are. And the death of the Democratic Party as a really viable party in Wyoming, and its repeated botched efforts at resuscitating it here due to the party always going fruity left when ever it starts to revive, has meant that the GOP has nearly become the only party (although frankly I think Mary Throne has a pretty good chance of pulling a Mike Sullivan this year). That being the case, people who want a say it what happens have every right to register Republican and frankly maybe they ought to. The Democrats are a lot more to blame for not being able to keep registered voters in their party than the GOP is, due to their slipping into the political grave over the past couple of decades, and that means that what would have been moderate Democrats probably only really have a home in the GOP. Most of those who complain about this are hard right Republicans who have no real claim to their own party's traditional center and can be blamed just as much for seizing it away from the traditional GOP base. Indeed, while I'm skeptical it will occur, there is a lot of speculation out there this year that nationally the GOP may be headed for the political emergency room due to it falling into disfavor with many over the past two years.
Anyhow, people who still register as Democrats most years in Wyoming are, I suspect; 1) people who just moved here and registered as Democrats from where they came from; 2) people who started registering as Democrats when they were young and have just stuck with it, even if it no longer reflects their politics; 3) people who are shocked by how hard right some elements of the GOP have become in the past decade and don't want to associate themselves with that and; 4) a few real Democrats.
Save perhaps for the fourth category (and I wouldn't even "save" that), registering as Republicans at the polls on Tuesday makes perfect sense and is perfectly fair.
This is, of course, even more the case for Independents. Independents in Wyoming are basically the center and in prior years would have largely been Republicans. They were driven out of both parties as they grew disgusted with the extremes. Arguing for them to register as Republicans in the primary gives them a chance to participate in an election that was set up to be open and narrowing in the first place, on the public dime, and in actuality operates to return the GOP more to the center right where it traditionally has been.
I'm sure there will be some howling over this. But if either party doesn't like it, then they should require their candidates to be certified in a convention to run, and this wouldn't happen. But then, some of the extremism we've seen in recent years likely wouldn't happen either.
August 17, 2018, part two.
Senator John Barrasso has come out with a television advertisement featuring President Theodore Roosevelt and praising his "cowboy courage".
I suppose its the historian in me, but I'm often just floored that current Republicans will pay homage and try to draw some vicarious glory from Theodore Roosevelt.
Don't get me wrong, I love Theodore Roosevelt. He was one of the greatest Presidents we ever had, and beyond that, he was a great man.
But Republicans who think he would have been impressed with a lot of the current GOP are flat out, out to lunch.
Indeed, Roosevelt battled with the conservative elements of his own party at the time. And I frankly doubt that he'd be too impressed with the GOP today.
Roosevelt was not a conservative. And I'm saying that as a person who isn't a died in the wool liberal (I'm highly conservative on some things, somewhat liberal on others, in the middle on others). By the end of his days, he was beyond being a liberal, he was a radical. He proposed Federal intervention in the economy on an ongoing and continual basis at a level that's far, far beyond anything the Untied States has ever approach. He championed liberal causes. . . rights for women, civil service exams, rights for blacks, well before it was popular.
And he was a diehard conservationist.
TR would have found John Barrasso's insertion into the last Republican platform of language transferring the Federal domain to the states a horror. Indeed, Roosevelt withdrew land from homestead entry for conservation purposes with aggressive abandon. I suspect that Roosevelt would have had unique Rooseveltian biting words for both Liz Cheney and John Barrasso, had he lived at the same time.
Now, before this goes to far, TR woudn't have been too impressed with the modern Democratic Party either, which nationally looks more and more like a Parlor Pink Trostskyite Tea Society, which is why that its probably setting itself up for failure in the Fall.
And I do think that we moderns ought to look at back at Roosevelt both with admiration and for guidance. Indeed, it can be argued that he was the last truly great President we had (although his cousin Franklin Roosevelt, for all his failings, deserves that consideration as well). And certainly most of us moderns could stand to consider The Strenuous Life as something we ought to live. I think Roosevelt would be disappointed in us, and indeed I suspect that he is, looking down at us from his Final Reward.
But cite to him simply because he was a rancher and outdoorsman?
Hmmm.. . . if you are going to do that, well, perhaps following his example in numerous ways might be in order?
August 18, 2018
The Star Tribune endorsed Dave Dodson for the U.S. Senate in the primary race.
I don't know how much attention, if any, people pay to newspaper endorsements anymore. At one time, they certainly did. Indeed, some newspapers actually named themselves after political parties at one time. For example, there was a Laramie Republican paper that competed with the Laramie Boomerang.
Be that as it may, the Tribune, even if it isn't what it once was, is still the largest paper in the state and its determination to endorse Dodson is really remarkable.
Dodson, to his credit, has run a really good campaign. Sounding like a rich gadfly at first, he put out a lengthy item on his economic views, as the Tribune has noted. And the Tribune, in a much more soft spoken way, basically agreed with Dodson that Barrasso, while he deserves accolades for his background, has focused more on his career in the GOP than on the concerns of the state.
It'l be really interesting to see how Dodson does on Tuesday. Over time, quite a few sportsmen have come around to viewing him favorably, even if many of them won't vote for him. Some definitely will, perhaps a lot will. Earlier this week one of the news channels interviewed both Dodson and Barrasso. I didn't see Dodson's interview, which was first, but it sounded like he had answers for Barrasso's attacks on him, which have mostly been that Dodson contributed money to Democratic candidates (Dodson apparently stated that a partner did it in their name). Barrasso was very halting in his interview and was obviously way off his game, sounding flat footed and nervous. He came around to the stock answer that Dodson had supported President Obama and what about "Obamacare", which by this point, two years into the Trump Administration, is pretty much a dead political letter. What about Obamacare, Senator Barrasso? The Republicans are in charge. . . .
All of this makes Barrasso seem pretty vulnerable, but we'll see. The charge that he hasn't done much is starting to stick and he's seen by many as an enemy of public lands.
Where the campaign hasn't gone very far, so far, is on social issues. Dodson hasn't committed on where he stands on life and death, pregnancy and the like and he appears to be avoiding it. If he was wise, he'd come in right where Barrasso is, or perhaps a little to the right. \
August 19, 2018
And today, the Tribune endorsed Sam Galeotos.
This is frankly a surprise because, if poll results are correct, Galeotos' campaign has been flagging. He was doing really well earlier, neck and neck with Gordon, but according to the last poll the Tribune reported, he'd slipped into fourth place recently. Of course, that's not reason not to endorse him, but if we assume that reporting to be correct, that would mean that there's a real risk that Galeotos will serve to pull a Cheney in this race and boost Hageman over the bar (which in turn might put Throne over the bar in the Fall).
The Tribune endorsed him as he seems, in their view, the most realistic on the economy. And they may well be right. He made at least one unfortunate campaign gaff, in my view, in trying to tack himself to Trump, which Friess has also done. Friess, however, is shooting for a different set of voters than Galeotos. Doing that may have very well cost Galeotos support in some quarters, with that supporting going over to Gordon.
August 21, 2018
And even on this election day we have an update, this being the final one for this edition.
The same sportsman's group that endorsed Gordon above came out yesterday with an endorsement for Kristi Racines for State Auditor.
The organization noted that as the State Auditor she'll sit on the board that makes decisions regarding public lands and that she's been a public lands supporter. She's also a fourth generation Wyomingite who hunts and fishes. Significant for the job, she's also an accountant.
Her competitor is Nathan Winters who is a legislator but who in his private life is a Baptist minister. His qualifications seem limited to that. As a legislator he apparently voted for a bill that favored land transfers to the state, according to the organization noted above.
This would seem, therefore, to set a pretty clear contrast between Racines and Winters.
In other news, Charles Hardy dropped out of the Senatorial race and endorsed Dodson.
Hardy's race had been so low volume that I'd actually forgotten that he was running. The real contest has been between Dodson and Barrasso and it's become that, a real contest. Dodson, in spite of having a huge uphill battle, has picked up a lot of support, it seems, and now is really challenging Barrasso who has come out with a set of advertisements recently basically accusing Dodson of being a Democrat in disguise, which Dodson has countered.
One hopes that this was Hardy's final race. He's run again and again and his switch to the Republican Party from the Democratic only tends to amplify the pathetic character of his repeat efforts. As a really aged candidate and fairly liberal one he also, at this point, tends to amplify an aspect of American politics that is chaffing at various levels.
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