Walter "Big Train" Johnson, April 11, 1924.
Yes, the 2024 Election hasn't even occured yet, and the 2026 one is clearly on, at least locally.
What we can tell for sure is that Chuck Gray is running for the office of Governor. He always was. The Secretary of State's office was very clearly a mere stepping stone in that plan, and the plan probably goes on from there. By coming to Wyoming, a state with a low population and a pronounced history of electing out of staters (we nearly have some sort of personality problem in that regard), it was a good bet, particularly when combined with his family money, although it was never a sure bet that he'd make the legislature and on from there. His plan requires, however, or at least he seemingly believes it requires, that he keep his name in the news, which he's worked hard to do, being involved in lawsuits, which is probably unconstitutional on his part, and releasing press releases that are extraordinary for his role, and for the invective language they contain. Mr. Gray has probably used the term "radical leftists" more in his two years of office than all of the prior Wyoming Secretaries of State combined.
This explains something that was otherwise a bit odd that we noticed recently, which was Secretary Gray's appearance in Casper in opposition of something he'd otherwise voted for:
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
The environmental populists?
Politics, as they say, makes for strange bedfellows. But how strange, nonetheless still surprises.
Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who rose to that position by pitching to the populist far right, which dominates the politics of the GOP right now, and which appears to be on the verge of bringing the party down nationally, has tacked in the wind in a very surprising direction. He appeared this past week at a meeting in Natrona County to oppose a proposed gravel pit project at the foot of Casper Mountain. He actually pitched for the upset residents in the area to mobilize and take their fight to Cheyenne, stating:
We have a very delicate ecosystem, the fragility up there, the fragility of the flows … the proximity to domestic water uses. All of those things should have led to a distinct treatment by the Office of State Lands, and that did not happen.
I am, frankly, stunned.
I frankly never really expected Mr. Gray to darken visage of the Pole Stripper monument on the east side of Casper's gateway, which you pass by on the road in from Cheyenne again, as he's not from here and doesn't really have a very strong connection to the state, although in fairness that connection would have been to Casper, where he was employed by his father's radio station and where he apparently spent the summers growing up (in an unhappy state of mind, according to one interview of somebody who knew him then). Gray pretty obviously always had a political career in mind and campaigned from the hard populist right from day one, attempting at first to displace a conservative house member unsuccessfully.
We have a post coming up which deals with the nature of populism, and how it in fact isn't conservatism. Gray was part of the populist rise in the GOP, even though his background would more naturally have put him in the conservative camp, not the populist one. But opportunity was found with populists, who now control the GOP state organization. The hallmark of populism, as we'll explore elsewhere, is a belief in the "wisdom of the people", which is its major failing, and why it tends to be heavily anti-scientific and very strongly vested in occupations that people are used to, but which are undergoing massive stress. In Wyoming that's expressed itself with a diehard attitude that nothing is going on with the climate and that fossil fuels will be, must have, and are going to dominate the state's economy forever. The months leading up to the recent legislative session, and the legislative session itself, demonstrated this with Governor Gordon taking criticism for supporting anything to address carbon concerns. Put fairly bluntly, because a large percentage of Wyoming's rank and file workers depend on the oil and gas industry, and things related to it, any questioning on anything tends to be taken as an attack on "the people".
Natrona County has had a gravel supply problem for quite a while and what the potential miner seeks to do here is basically, through the way our economy works, address it. There would be every reason to suspect that all of the state's politicians who ran to the far right would support this, and strongly. But they aren't.
The fact that Gray is not, and is citing environmental concerns, comes as a huge surprise. But as noted, given his background, he's probably considerably more conservative than populist, but has acted as politicians do, and taken aid and comfort where it was offered. Tara Nethercott ran as a conservative and lost for the same office.
But here's the thing.
That gravel is exactly the sort of thing that populists, if they're true to what they maintain they stand for, ought to support. It's good for industry, and the only reason to oppose the mining is that 1) it's in a bad place in terms of the neighbors and 2) legitimate environmental concerns, if there are any. But that's exactly the point. You really can't demand that the old ways carry on, until they're in your backyard.
Truth be known, given their nature, a lot of big environmental concerns are in everyone's backyard right now.
The old GOP would have recognized that nationally, and wouldn't be spending all sorts of time back in DC complaining about electric vehicles. And if people are comfortable with things being destructive elsewhere, they ought to be comfortable with them being destructive right here. If we aren't, we ought to be pretty careful about it everywhere.
There actually is some precedent for this, FWIW. A hallmark of Appalachian populism was the lamenting of what had happened to their region due to coal mining. John Prine's "Paradise" in some ways could be an environmental populist anthem.
Right about the time I noted this, Rod Miller, opinion writer for the Cowboy State Daily, wrote a satiric article on the same thing:
We have no idea, of course, who his opponent will be, unless it's Gordon, who is theoretically term limited out, but we already know from prior litigation that the restraint on his running again is unconstitutional. And Gordon clearly doesn't like Gray, a dislike that's not limited to him by any means. Gordon would have to challenge that in court, however, unless 1) a group of citizens does, and 2) the court ruled they'd have standing.
As voters, they should.
If that happens, I wouldn't be surprised to see Gordon run again, and to be asked to run again. While he was a candidate initially I worried about him, as he was further to the right on public lands issues than any candidate since Geringer, but he's actually acted as a very temperate Governor, something made difficult by 1) the intemperate level of our current politics, and 2) the occasional shortsightedness of the legislature.1
Anyhow, if you've ever had the occasion to see, Gordon and Gray together in an official setting, it's clear they don't get along. Indeed, on the State Land Board, it's clear that Gordon isn't the only one that's not keen on Gray. Gray for his part reacts back, as he did recently when he sent an unprecedented lengthy letter to the Governor on his vetoes.
Gray, like Donald Trump, has some feverish admirers.2 Indeed, this seems to be a hallmark of the populist right. They not only run candidates, but they develop personality cults routinely.
Rod Miller, again, in a recent column noted a real problem that Gray has. As, so far, they haven't really been able to advance their agenda without the help of conservatives, they have an advantage there as they always portray themselves as besieged by the numerous barbarians, the last legionnaire on Hadrian's Wall. Trump has actually, at a national level, worked to keep that status by ordering his party to defeat immigration legislation that was probably a once in a lifetime conservative opportunity.
Anyhow, as noted, Rod Miller recently noted a problem that Gray has. He's not married.
Is this actually a problem?
It shouldn't be, but it might be.
Indeed, without going into it, there was a figure in Wyoming decades ago whose marriage was questioned by whisperers on the basis that they believed he married just to end the speculation on why he wasn't married. The marriage lasted a very long time, so presumably the rumors were without foundation, but there were questions, which is interesting and shows, I guess, how people's minds can work.
Another way to look at it, I supposed, was prior to Trump if a person was a conservative people would ask about things that appeared to be contrary to public statements about conservatism. Not being married, for a conservative, was regarded as odd, and for that matter there are still people who whisper about Lindsey Graham, while nobody seems to worry about AOC being shacked up with her boyfriend or whatever is going on with Krysten Sinema.
And then there's Gray's age. It will make people suspicious of him at some point, or people will at least take note. Indeed, some of his critics from the left already have, but in a really juvenile way.
Actually determining Gray's age is a little difficult, and indeed, knowing anything about his background actually is. But Cowboy State Daily, a conservative organ, managed to reveal about as much as we know.
Gray was born in California and raised outside of Los Angeles. According to somebody close to the family, or who was, he was homeschooled by his mother.3 He felt uncomfortable about his birthplace, and stated in the campaign
I come from a divorced family, like many people in our country. A judge said I was to live in a different place, but my dad lived here, built a business here, and I spent my summers here during the time that was allocated by the judge.
According to the same source, he didn't seem all that happy in Casper, Wyoming as a kid, but the circumstances could well explain that. The same source, who probably isn't a family friend anymore, reported to the Cowboy that Gray's father had a focus on the family owned radio station impacting legislation at a national level. Photos have been circulated of the father with President Reagan.
Gray graduated from high school in 2008 and the respected University of Pennsylvanian in 2012, which makes it all the more remarkable that he's been a success in Wyoming politics.4 If we assume the norm about graduation ages, he would have been 22 in 2012, which would make him 34 now.
In Wyoming, the average age for men to marry is 27.8 years on average, while for women it's 25.6. Gray's now notably over the median age, but that is a median. I was over it too when I married at age 31. My wife was below the female one. That's how averages work.
My parents, I'd note, were both over the median, although I don't know it with precision for the 1950s. In the 50s, the marriage age was actually at an unusual low. My father was 29, and my mother 32.
So his age, in the abstract, doesn't really mean anything overall, although it might personality wise.
As has been noted elsewhere on this site, Gray is a Roman Catholic and indeed I've seen him occasionally at Mass, although I would never have seen him every weekend as there are a lot of weekend Masses and my habits aren't the same as his. I have no reason to believe that he didn't attend weekly as required by the church.5 Catholics are supposed to observe traditional Catholic teachings in regard to sex and marriage. I'm not really going to be delving into that, but again we have no reason to believe that Gray isn't observant, in which case, as he is not married, he should be living as a chaste single man, and he probably is (something that has casued juvenile left wing ribbing).
Wyoming, however, is the least religious state in the union and while Catholics, Orthodox, Mormons and Protestants of traditional morality observe that morality, here, as with the rest of the United States, the late stage mass casualty nature of the Sexual Revolution means that a lot of people in these faiths don't, and the society at large does not. We've gone from a society where such outside the bounds of marriage behavior was illegal in varying degrees, to one where, nationwide, society pushes people into things whether they want to or not.
Be that as it may, save for Casper, Laramie, and probably Cheyenne, sexual conduct outside the biological gender norm is very much looked down upon. Indeed, in a really dense move, a Democratic Albany County legislator went to a meeting in Northeast Wyoming a while back on homosexual issues and was shocked by the hostile reception she received. She shouldn't have been.
No, I'm not saying this applies to Gray. I have no reason to believe that, and indeed I believe the opposite.
However, we've gone from a state whose ethos was "I don't care what you do as long as you leave me alone" to one in which, largely due to the importation of Evangelicals from elsewhere, a fairly large percentage of the population really care about what you do, particularly if they don't like it.
Indeed, at the time that Matthew Shepard was murdered, I was surprised when I heard an anti-homosexual comment. Such comments do not surprise me now, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear one now in the context of a murder. As noted, the exceptions seem to be Laramie (where Shepard was murdered, but which has never been hostile to homosexuals), Casper (which has had a homosexual 20 something mayor and which has a lesbian city council member) and Cheyenne (which has a homosexual member of the state House, as does Albany County). Well, I omitted Jackson and should include it here too.
At any rate, being an open homosexual and aiming for major office probably is impossible, although for minor ones it hasn't proven to be. The point is, however, that Miller is right. At some point, people are going to start wondering why staunchly populist Gray isn't married.
Maybe it's because he is in fact a staunchly populist out of state import. There aren't that many women in that pool. Indeed, having a one time vague contact with our staunchly populist Congresswoman, I was very surprised when it turned out she was a populist, or even a conservative. I'm not saying that she's not, I'm just surprised.
Gray is in a sort of oddball demographic. Not being from here, he wouldn't be in any circles in which women from here, professionals or otherwise, would be in. He appears to really be a fish out of water in terms of the local culture. When he appears at things, he does wear cowboy boots, but you can tell they've never been in a stirrup, and he otherwise is, at least based on my very limited observation of him, always dressed in what we might sort of regard as 1980s Denver Business Casual. I'd be stunned if I saw him on a trout stream or out in the prairie with his bird dog, Rex. I've seen him at a bar once, for a grand opening of something, but I don't imagine him walking up to the tender at The Buckhorn or The Oregon Trail and ordering a double Jack Daniel's either.
I was once told by an out-of-state lawyer who had been born in the state but who had moved to Denver after graduating from law school, regarding Wyomingites, that "you have to be tough just to live there". People who live here probably don't realize that, but there's more than a little truth to it. I'm often shocked by the appearance of populist legislature Jeanette Ward, as it's so clear she just doesn't belong here. She's not the kind of gal who would be comfortable sitting next to the ranch girl chewing tobacco who has the "Wrangler Butts Drive Me Nuts" bumper sticker on her pickup truck.6 Gray probably isn't comfortable with such a gal either. "Tomboys", as they used to be called, are sort of the mean average for Wyoming women.
Gray is well-educated, of course, which is part of the reason that I suspect a lot of his positions are affectations. I don't think he really believes the election was stolen, for example, unless he's doing so willfully, which would mean that he really doesn't believe that. Recently he's taken on the topic of firearms arguing, as part of the State Facilities Commission, that the state needs to open up carrying guns at the capitol, which is frankly absurd. While I don't know the answer, I suspect that Gray isn't really a firearms' aficionado.
Up until very recently, Wyomingites knew a lot about the people they sent to the legislature and public office, often knowing them personally to some degree. We actually knew the Governor and the First Lady on some basis other than politics, quite frequently, and our local reps we knew pretty well. The populist invasion defeated that to some degree, and in some cases, a great deal. The question is whether this is permanent, or temporary. It wasn't until the last election that people looked at Gray's background at all, and they still have very little. People haven't really grasped until just now that many of the Freedom Caucus are imports, not natives. We don't know much about some of them or their families, and chances are an average Wyomingite, or at least a long term native, would regard them as odd on some occasions. Chuck Gray just ran an op ed that was titled something like Only Wyomingites Should Vote In Wyoming's Elections. Most long term and native born Wyomingites feel that strongly, and wouldn't actually regard a lot of our current office holders as being Wyomingites.
There's evidence that the populist fad is passing. We'll see. This and the 2026 election will be a test of it. 2026 is a long ways off. For that matter, it's sufficiently long enough for these candidates to evolve if they need to. Some are probably capable of doing that. Others, undoubtedly not. The question will be if they need to.
Footnotes
1. There are numerous examples of this, but a really good one is Gordon's effort to buy the UP checkerboard, which the legislature defeated. It would have been a real boon for the state, but fiscal conservatives just couldn't see it that way.
Recently, Gordon hasn't been shy about vetoing highly unadvised bills that have come out of the legislature, or shutting down bad regulations that come out of the Secretary of State's office.
2. And not just Gray, Harriet Hageman does as well.
3. Homeschooling, for whatever reason a person does it, can be developmentally limiting. I don't know about Gray's case, but its notable that some on the far right have done it, as they believe that schools are left wing organs and there are things they don't want their children exposed to them. The problem this presents is that children who are homeschooled grow up in a very narrow environment, whereas, at least here, those who go to public, and for that matter religious schools, do not.
4. There used to be a school interview of him from the University of Pennsylvania, in which he expressed a desire to become a lawyer. He's clearly not going to do that now, unless of course his political career ended, which is perfectly possible.
5. As noted here in prior posts, lying is regarded as a potentially serious sin in Catholicism, and lying about something like who won the 2020 election would be, in some circumstances, a mortal sin if you were a political figure.
6. Ward is from Illinois and openly calls herself a political refugee. At the time of moving here, she posted something about her children not having to wear masks in our public schools, adopting the far right wing view that trying to protect others in this fashion is somehow an intrusion on liberty. I suppose it is, but not relieving yourself in public is as well. Anyhow, at some point, presuming those children remain in public school, she'll be in for a shock as Casper's schools truly have a really wide demographic and are not exactly made up of an Evangelical populist sample of the population.
