Political Myth No. 10: “Single-member districts have made legislators more accountable”
This “myth” is utterly false. Because of single-member districts (created despite the legality of at-large representation by county that was the method for more than a century), accountability no longer exists. The current system, intended as a reform, has created a class of entitled politicans who hold legislative seats for life. With the ready hand of gerrymandering, they’re able to choose their voters rather than having voters choose them. One good measure of how this system eliminaates accountability is to ask a voter anywhere in Wyoming 1) what House District or Senate District does he live in; 2) who is your representative and senator and where in the district do each of them live? Easy when legislators were elected at large by county (before 1992) because each district included reference to a particular county–“State Senator from Washakie Coiunty” for instance. Now, it is State Senator from District whatever” with no identifier as to where it is. Reason probably is that the district, because of gerrymandering, stretches across three or four counties or it snakes its way around within the boundaries of one county while including s couple of small pieces of adjacent ones. How can there be “accountability” when you don’t even know what coiunty the legislator represents? “One-person, one vote” has become a recipe for “one legiislator, life incumbency.”
Political Myth No. 9: “The Wyoming Way” in Politics Stresses Civility
Until recently, this was not a myth, but usually true. Decades ago, political figures not only respected one another, but often teamed up to work for proposals that were best for Wyoming. Further, party loyalty and personal ambition never trumped what was best for the people of the state. It is not to say there never were dirty, personal campaigns fought in Wyoming because they did occur. However, it was rare when the perpetrator of the ugly campaign actually won the election. Usually, the more civil the candidate, the more likely the people of Wyoming favored his/her campaign.
Political Myth No. 8: Pragmatism Can’t Win in Wyoming
The answer is not known.When the writer of this column tested the possibility in 2012, he discovered that an independent candidacy likely would not prevail for federal offices (U. S. Senate and U. S. House) in times when the two political parties are so polarized. On the other hand, for gubernatorial and other races where there is much less national involvement by the two national parties, by national PACs and big money donors, the possibility still exists. Watch this space for future developments.
Political Myth No. 7: “Big Government” Is the Enemy of Wyoming
The myth, generally speaking, is untrue even though instances exist where a federal agency or regulation did adversely affect our state.
The first way to explore the truth or falsity of the myth is to define just what constitutes “big government.” Some of the most important “government workers” in Wyoming are public school teachers. Public schools have been the bedrock of American democracy and over the years, Wyoming’s teachers have been among the best. On a personal note, this writer is a product of (mostly) Wyoming public schools. When it came to me as the student, they didn’t get a whole lot to work with. Nonetheless, by the time I was through the state’s public schools (in Lusk, Torrington, Thermopolis, Worland, Cody, Northwest College, and the University of Wyoming), they had done a pretty good job. I was an informed citizen and competitive academically with students from anywhere. And this was because I had been taught by those “big government workers,” my teachers in the public schools.
What about other components of “big government” in Wyoming? How about the Wyoming Highway Patrol? I know….I wasn’t that happy to be snagged for speeding on my birthday a few years ago by one of them, who in ripping the ticket out of his book, said, “Happy Birthday,” but I can tell you I was extremely grateful for them when I was in a serious traffic accident back in September 1985. Had that “big government” guy not been there, I probably wouldn’t be here writing this.
And that leads to another component of “big government” in Wyoming–all of those hospital workers around the state. I avoid them as much as possible, but when I’m injured or sick, where would I be without them?
Might we define local police as part of “big government”? Sheriff’s offices, search and rescue units?
Just the federal workers who are the faceless bureaucratic enemies of our state? Would these include the forest service people who keep our state’s forests from burning down? The park rangers in Yellowstone and Grant Teton National Parks who keep those out-of-state visitors from trashing the places we proudly claim? And what about the weather service? The U. S. Air Force at Warren AFB? The guard trainers at Guernsey? And even though not a lot of them live around here, how about the people who keep mice droppings out of our cereal and month old roadkill out of our lunch meat?
Throughout the state, buildings still stand from the New Deal era, constructed by the PWA or WPA. Most Wyoming airports had origins in New Deal civil aviation construction programs. Schools and post offices in many towns were built by those agencies. So were the Arts and Sciences Building and the Student Union Building (original portion) at UW. Lots of construction workers were employed in Wyoming towns in those years when no one else was building anything. I guess they were “big government” workers.
Prior to Social Security, a “big government” program, how many elderly people either lived alone in poverty or as extra mouths to feed by their children? Sending out those Social Security checks must require at least some “big government” workers. Collecting withholding must require a few more.
Even though, technically speaking, the post office no longer is a “government agency,” what about, even if you live in the most remote place in the state, having your checks, medicines, gifts delivered right to you? (By the way, as many postal employees know, FedEx and UPS might carry packages between profitable delivery points, but when it comes to getting the box to your door, in small Wyoming places, they rely on the post office to do it). How are postal workers, in that “semi-government, big government” agency, enemies of our state?
As indicated at the top of this comment, there are some “big government faceless bureaucrats” who sit around and do nothing but work against the intersts of Wyoming. Members of this last Congress seemed to fit the definition fairly well.
Political Myth No. 6: In Wyoming, “Politics is Personal”
This time, it is not entirely a myth. Wyomingites do elect people to political office based on what they know of the person–not always on their political affiliation or their stand on the issues.
As the state becomes more populated (hey, the 2000 census put us at more than a half million), the importance of direct personal connections has somewhat faded. In former times, politicians like Ed Herschler relied on his long-time American Legion friends who didn’t know him as a politician but as a fellow war veteran. Gale McGee expected continuing support from the vast cadre of students he taught in his popular courses in American history at UW. Consequently, personal associations often trumped an individual’s stand on particular issues.
Nowadays, however, Wyoming is becoming more like lots of other states. Knowing a politician personally is still commonplace, but more and more, the successful candidate will be the one with the highest name recognition, gained through the media or from party promotion. A few issues still separate the two parties in Wyoming, but the divide probably isn’t as strong as elsewhere in the country. In such an environment, the incumbents inevitably have a strong edge. Barring a catastrophic blunder, it is not the officeholder’s stand on the issues that defeats him/her. iIt comes down to consistent constituent service or perceptions of it.
Gale McGee (and others) used to tell the story about the old rancher in a Wyoming county. The senator made a campaign stop in the closest town and saw him on the street. “Tom, great to see ya! I’m in town campaigning for re-election. I know I can count on your support again?”
“I’m not sure I’m votin’ for you this election,” the rancher replied. The politician, surprised, said, “But, Tom, don’t you remember that I helped get you that loan from the FHA and I voted for the beef import quotas? And I nominated your son to West Point? And got your mother taken care of when Social Security was giving her a problem?” The rancher replied, “Well, yes, I know you did all of those things. But what have you done for me lately?”
Political Myth No. 5: Religion Matters in Wyoming Politics
This is one of the easiest myths to dispel, looking back at Wyoming history and politics. Since territorial days, Wyomngites generally have elected representatives regardless of religious persuasion. In religious censuses over the years, Wyoming normally comes out at the bottom or close to the bottom in percentage of church-goers. But even among those who are devout church-goers, there is a tolerance for others holding different religious views. Voters judge candidates on political grounds–not on religious ones.
During the 1920s, when the Ku Klux Klan was strong in the neighboring state of Colorado (where the organization primarily went after Catholics, Mormons and Jews), the Klan had virtually no support in Wyoming. Catholics have held leadership positions in both parties throughout the statehood period. Even in recent years when the rare third-party candidate surfaces (often from another state) and advocates religious bigotry, he gains votes counted in single or double digits and no more.
Some Wyoming counties are notable for the numbers of churches while other counties are known for having multiple times more bars than houses of worship. Heavily churched counties of Platte and Goshen have large numbers of Protestant denominations and adherents; Big Horn and Uinta, large numbers of Mormons. Catholics make up significant proportions of the population in Sweetwater and Carbon counties. But even in these counties, religion does not factor into the majority of political races. Statewide, candidates who have emphasized their religiosity almost invariably lose.
The Wyoming Constitution may be one factor in the state’s historically rigid separation of church and state. In no fewer than four places, the Constitution specifies that religious views should not be a factor in governing the state.
Such “live-and-let-live” attitudes toward religion represent the best of what the founding fathers of the nation had in mind when they warned of the dangers inherent in mixing religion and politics. As long as both political parties in Wyoming continue to base their platforms on political grounds and not become enmeshed in destructive wrangling over religion, the state will continue its long tradition of religious toleration. It will be to the continuing benefit of the “churched” and “unchurched” alike.
Political Myth No. 4: Wyoming Elects Mavericks to Congress
The news earlier this year that Sen. Mitch McConnell and the Republican Senate leadership stiffed Senator Mike Enzi on a prize committee assignment underlines the fact that, for the past two decades, the GOP nationally has displayed little concern with Wyoming. After all, what will Sen. Enzi do–defy his party leadership by exercising some independence in voting against the Iraq War or not want to grant immunity for the telephone giants who helped Bush violate privacy of who knows how many Americans? Will it cost Enzi the election in the fall? Not hardly. Despite the snub, he’ll gain reelection, but they go back to remain solidly supporting what the party leadership decrees.
Historically, Wyoming’s representatives in Congress (with a tiny few exceptions) have been “go-along” politicians. F. E. Warren polished the skill in 37 years in the U. S. Senate. While Republican senators elsewhere in the West backed Theodore Roosevelt in his insurgent campaign against stalwart President William H. Taft in 1912, Warren was Taft’s main cheerleader. (In the election, Taft finished third behind Woodrow Wilson and TR). Milward Simpson, independent pragmatist when he was governor (opposing the death penalty, supporting Wyoming’s civil rights bill), turned solidly party man when he went to the Senate. The same thing happened to Malcolm Wallop.
Of course, Dick Cheney is legendary for his devotion to the executive branch–as long as it is in the hands of his own party, of course–now, as well as when he was in Congress from Wyoming. And Democrats were not exempt. Gale McGee followed LBJ’s Vietnam policy straight down the tubes.
Indeed, it is curious that neighboring Nebraska could elect mavericks like George Norris, Bob Kerrey, and Chuck Hagel; Idaho could send William Borah and Frank Church to the Senate; Montana, Burton Wheeler and Jeanette Rankin; Oregon, Wayne Morse.
Mavericks in Wyoming? They’re as scarce in congressional politics in Wyoming as they were among the cattle herds on the open ranges of territorial Wyoming the day after the roundup.
PHOTO BELOW: Senator F. E. Warren, Gov. Nellie Tayloe Ross, Sen./Gov. Robert Carey, Senator John B. Kendrick–two Republicans, two Democrats–standing on the steps of the State Capitol about 1925/
Wyoming Legislators, 1981. (Left to right): William McIntosh, George Salisbury, Tom Trowbridge (all Carbon County), Rodger McDaniel (Laramie County).
Political Myth No. 3: Wyoming governors want to be senators
(The following commentary was broadcast on Wyoming Public Radio in June 2007).
Governors used to get restless in Cheyenne and want to move to Washington. It doesn’t happen any more.
Back when Wyoming became a state, we started with two vacancies and the legislature began by selecting former territorial delegate Joseph M. Carey as the state’s first U. S. Senator. But they were more divided on who ought to fill the second seat. Popular initial choice was the governor—Francis E. Warren, formerly territorial governor and then the state’s first governor. Would he want to go to the Senate? It turned out that he did and just a couple of weeks into his term as Wyoming’s first governor, F. E. Warren resigned to become U. S. Senator, a position he held for most of the next 40 years.
Over the next 75 years, a host of Wyoming governors followed Warren’s lead—resigning to “move up” to the U. S. Senate. John B. Kendrick, the third of historian T. A. Larson’s “grand old men of Wyoming politics,” started as governor and resigned to go on to the Senate. Robert Carey got there after losing reelection as governor. Hunt, Barrett, Hickey,, Milward Simpson and Hansen followed the same path.
Then, suddenly, it stopped in the late 1960s. Stan Hathaway served two full terms as governor. His successor, Ed Herschler, did him one better and went three terms. Mike Sullivan and Jim Geringer, two full terms each. Not one jumped to the Senate (although Sullivan tried unsuccessfully, but only after his second gubernatorial term expired).
And its pretty easy to see why this changed. Who wants to live in Washington now when you can live in Wyoming and be your own boss?
Washington and the Senate once had a certain allure—an escape from the dusty roads, precarious budgets, chronic demands for infrastructure, a fairly unimposing, drafty governor’s “mansion” back in Cheyenne.
It was hard to resist being part of America’s most exclusive club where you and some 100 colleagues deliberated the most important issues of the times.
But the city of Washington itself became more congested and more expensive. Some members of Congress “live” in their offices. And Congress ceded more of its power to the President and locked itself into meaningless partisan gridlock. The late Senator Craig Thomas once set off a ton of media speculation when he wistfully mentioned how nice it would be not to have to fly back and forth from Washington to Wyoming every week.
Little wonder running the state looks a lot more attractive. Who wants to take a “hardship post” when you can enjoy the outdoors a few minutes from home, breathe clean air, preside over a strong economy, and travel the most beautiful state in the nation—and its called “work”? Remarkable that 31 Republicans sought the job in Washington in the summer of 2007 following the death of Senator Thomas. And Governor Freudenthal seemed only too happy to send one off. Like his immediate predecessors, it’s easy to see why.
Political Myth No. 2: “Cowboy State” and “Equality State” are contradictory nicknames
By Phil Roberts
Cowboy State? Equality State?
The new Wyoming quarter, officially unveiled in September 2007, shows Wyoming’s license-plate bucking horse and next to it are three words: “The Equality State.”
It’s not the only place where the seemingly contradictory nicknames seem to joust for dominance. The legislature designated the state officially as “the Equality State” back in the early 1900s, but even Wyoming Public Radio refers to Wyoming with the more “tourist-friendly” nickname, “The Cowboy State.”
The cowboy is an image that has been with us for a very long time. The bucking horse went on the license plate in 1935—the first logo on any license plate in America.
If a state has a “self-image” (something I often question), are we more drawn to one than the other? “Cowboy State?” “Equality State?” Doesn’t one cancel out the other? Are these contradictions?
I say the two nicknames represent remarkably compatible concepts. In modern times, the image of the cowboy has taken a beating, becoming stereotyped, for good or bad, as a term denoting reckless foreign policy, for instance, or fiercely intolerant and destructive acts against the environment. Cowboys, in Hollywood film, have been gun-toting, fighting, hard-drinking white guys who showed educated sophistication when it came to dealing with women, the law and the community–the ones wearing white hats anyway.
But like all stereotypes, this one is mostly wrong when you look at history. Open-range cowboys in frontier Wyoming came from every racial and ethnic group. Most didn’t have anything except a saddle and a backpack—and sometimes, his own horse. Few had even rudimentary education. They were mostly the floating transient population of their day.
That is not to say they lacked understanding of their environment. Unlike farmers who tried to change the landscape by clearing land and digging irrigation ditches or miners that dug big ugly holes in the ground, the cowboy lived with the environment. He put on a slicker when it rained, tied his hat down tight with a bandanna to keep the winter winds at bay, and tried to protect his charges from thirst, snow-blindness, and wolves. He knew he couldn’t change the environment; he just had to live with what it dealt him.
And the equality part? Mostly, he judged other cowboys by how well he rode, whether he paid you back if you loaned him a quarter for cigarettes, how hard he worked, and whether you can count on him to watch your back in a fracas. Every man had to prove himself, regardless of race or ancestry. It didn’t matter how great one’s family was. It was what he was that counted. As my grandmother used to say, “Every tub sits on its own bottom.”
But there are awful lapses in how Wyomingites have dealt with “equality.” From the Rock Springs massacre to the Black 14 and Mathew Shepard, some would say “equality” isn’t a nickname Wyoming deserves. I disagree.
“The cowboy state” ought to reflect the non-stereotypical past—when being a cowboy meant honor, capacity for hard work, and respect for the individual. In some ways, it is “historical”—a touchstone to look back to for inspiration. It is retrospective—even a mythical way for us to identify with the past.
And the “equality state”—that nickname is aspirational—a goal toward which we ought to be striving. While we likely will continue to come up short, being mindful of striving for equality ought to continue to make us not only a more humane society, but conscious of our state’s reputation for friendliness to visitors, for dedication to community, for tolerance of other’s views—and for valuing individual differences.
And the two nicknames aren’t contradictory. As we aspire to greater equality, we need to remain true to the “cowboy” way that brought us this to this point—not just the Hollywood version, but what came from the reality of the Wyoming cowboy of the open-range days.
After all, they are both on the same coin.
Political Myth #1: “Wyoming Always Has Been a Red State”
Wyoming has gained a reputation in recent years for being a “red” state politically–indeed, even a “deep red” state. This is a dramatic departure from the state’s history. In fact, for more than half of the state’s history, the governor has been a Democrat. Until 1977, it was common for U. S. Senators to be from opposite parties. But it wasn’t until the “Clinton era” (1993-2001) that Wyoming went longer than six years without having a Democrat represent the state in national office or in at least one of the five statewide offices. What happened that turned Wyoming so politically one-party “red”?
Part of the answer comes from historical factors that diminished the large numbers of railroad employees and coal miners who made up an essential element in the pre-World War II state Democratic Party. Historically, political scientists referred to the five counties along the south as “the Union Pacific counties” (Laramie, Albany, Carbon, Sweetwater, Uinta). It was the Democratic Party heartland. Meanwhile, counties in the Big Horn Basin and along the eastern border, settled by small ranchers and farmers, were the dependable Republican base. A North-South split developed in the state’s politics with elections often determined by the counties in the center of the state–Fremont and Natrona, particularly. By 1976, this division was diminishing in significance although to the present, Sweetwater County remains the most solidly Democratic while Park County in the Big Horn Basin, and Crook and Niobrara along the eastern edge of the state are the most Republican.
Changing demographics are not the sole answer, however. Statewide, ranching and agriculture are not significant in modern Wyoming and, indeed, have not been since territorial days. The industry represents less than 2 percent of state domestic product and even a lower percentage of residents are engaged in it. Yet the Republican Party properly recognized the power of the agricultural myths in the state–the image of the cowboy, the ideology of individualism and hatred of big government. In 1976, patrician rancher Malcolm Wallop, a distant relative of the Queen of England, nonetheless, was able to position Gale McGee as the “outsider.”
In the 1970s, national Republicans poured money into Western states to assist with party building. Another reason for McGee’s loss came with this new Republican strategy. Two years later, Teno Roncalio retired and the Democrats lost that seat to Ford administration refugee Dick Cheney, a man who had not lived in Wyoming for a decade. Roncalio held the state’s only House seat for five terms. Had he not voluntarily retired in 1979 (citing advancing age), the common view was that the decorated World War II hero could have stayed in Congress for another five terms. As it was, Cheney, thrown out of work when Ford lost the Presidency to Carter, learned of Roncalio’s retirement and returned to Wyoming, after more than a decade living in Washington (working for members of Congress from Wisconsin and Illinois–Rumsfeld–and the Ford White House), to win his first House race.
During those same years, Democratic Gov. Ed Herschler, a Kemmerer attorney/rancher, did what no previous Wyoming governor of either party had ever done–he won three four-year terms (1974, 1978, 1982. )Wyoming voters embraced the taciturn governor’s philosophy of handling the energy resource boom of the late 1970s –“growth, but on our terms.” The connections with keeping Wyoming wild ought to have been the Democrats’ sole domain. But, oddly, at a time when “tree-huggers” were being lambasted by the GOP, some of the state’s foremost environmentalists were Republicans. For many knowing the national party’s attitudes in recent years, this fact was almost unthinkable.
In 1979, for the first time since the early 20th century, a Democrat did not represent Wyoming in the Congress. Despite the loss, Democrats still held statewide offices, including the governorship with Herschler. He was followed, in 1986, by Democrat Mike Sullivan who upset Dr. Pete Simpson, the popular son of former governor Milward Simpson and brother of Sen. Al Simpson. (By almost all measures, Simpson was more progressive in his political views than Sullivan, but that is a subject for a later essay).
For the decade of the 1980s, it seemed that Republicans would represent the state in Washington, but Wyoming voters preferred Democrats in the governor’s office. But that all changed in 1994. Sullivan, not term-limited, decided not to seek reelection, but ran against the state’s sole U. S. Representative, Craig Thomas, for the U. S. Senate seat. Secretary of State Kathy Karpan ran for governor. Both Democrats, and State Supt. of Public Instruction Lynn Simons, were swept out in the Republican tide of ’94. Sullivan lost even though he had been the first sitting governor to endorse Bill Clinton two years earlier in the 1992 Presidential primary race. Some observers believed, in fact, that his close affiliations with the President, unpopular in Wyoming, contributed to his Senate loss in ’94. Late in Clinton’s presidency, Sullivan finally gained a reward for his support of Clinton. He was appointed the U. S. ambassador to Ireland. Karpan won appointment to an Interior Department post and Simons, to a job with the U. S. Department of Education’s regional office.
The Republican strategy seemed to be working–spend freely on elections in the West, always field candidates for every slot, and paint Democrats as somehow foreign to the state. But some of the blame for what followed in the next eight years has to fall on Democrats, too. Even though many of the party’s candidates had good ideas and solid credentials, they often failed to connect with Wyoming voters by ignoring state history and disregarding important cultural symbols. Defining what those symbols mean politically is an important part of the game of electoral politics and the Republicans did it very effectively in the 1990s.
At the same time, during the Clinton years, the national Democrats essentially wrote off Wyoming to the GOP. Assertive Republicans falsely claimed Wyoming as their one-party state. National Democrats seemed as taken in by rhetoric that Democrats and party positions were alien to Wyoming. This was stated by such Republicans as Texan Dick Cheney (after 1992 when he abandoned Wyoming physically as he had largely done politically a dozen years earlier).
Within the state, Democrats dismissed the cynical pigeon-holing without confronting the obvious flaws in it. Republicans, well-financed from national sources and embracing the symbols that continue to resonate with Wyoming voters, won elections. This confirmed for national pundits the false story that this was entirely predictable because the state had been “one-party Republican” throughout its political history. National Democrats bought in to the myth and even a few state Democrats and local media seemed to go along with the false narrative.
Because the GOP had so consistently re-defined many of those Wyoming symbols, DC consultants and pundits started believing the state contained mostly red-neck cowboys. The consultants, apparently ignorant of the state’s Democratic Party history, told Wyoming candidates to pose in city parks wearing khakis and toting shotguns. The silly misuse of stereotypes didn’t work. Instead, Democrats should have been correcting the historical record. Rugged individualism, in a Wyoming sense, has always implied a sense of equality. It is what a cowboy supposedly told a wealthy English aristocrat visiting his newly purchased manor-ranch in the 1880s. “I’m your new lord,” the Englishman is said to have announced to his new employee, as he sat on his English riding saddle looking down at the cowboy standing next to the horse. He was surprised when the cowboy demurred. “Nope,” the cowboy replied, “That man ain’t been born yet.”
Outside consultants, many of the Democratic stripe, underestimated the Wyoming voter. They failed to recognize that Wyomingites of all stripes value the state’s individualistic image. They despise government regimentation, even when it comes from delusional leaders obsessed with fears about security. But this doesn’t mean that Wyomingites aren’t equally concerned with community. Because the Wyoming population is so small, people actually do vote for the person in all elections–statewide as well as local–who they believe is most responsive to the community’s needs, but who also seem to value similar symbols and beliefs (non-religious). When campaigns are run for state offices, this fact is always foremost. Who best knows us and our communities? When national fundraisers and operatives get involved, however, it is a different story. Media buys trump personal contact.
With the national Republican Party’s new alliances with the most extreme of evangelical Christians, some may be misled into thinking that fundamentalist religion gave the GOP a leg up in Wyoming in the 1990s. Such an assumption would be false. Religion plays almost no role in the politics of Wyoming and this has been true throughout the state’s history. Examples are numerous. Many pioneer LDS (Mormon) families are Democrats. One not so insignficiant reason, articulated by a descendant on a recent TV documentary on Wyoming history attributed it to an act by President Grover Cleveland restoring voting rights to former polygamists. More important is that church/state separation always has stayed strong in Wyoming. Like all Wyomingites suffering from the economic dislocations of the Great Depression, many Mormons embraced the New Deal programs.
Fanatics of all political stripes never have been welcome in the state. Take, for instance, the Ku Klux Klan, organizing in neighboring states in the 1920s and 1930s. In many of those places, the Klan represented opposition to Catholics, particularly those seeking public office, Wyoming voters continue to elect Catholics from both parties and the few Klan adherents in Wyoming were locally discredited.
In an earlier era, when William Jennings Bryan was evangelizing for Democrats, the Southern evangelical organizations never had influence in the state. Any authoritarian-based ideology loses out to the libertarian/liberal individualism of Wyomingites who refuse to be told how to think on social or religious issues. The state has elected ranchers, lawyers, businessmen, doctors, even a rocket scientist and a history professor to statewide office, but not once in its long history has it elected a minister or a priest. The Wyoming Constitution still makes clear the separation of church and state. The ban on a religious test for holding office is still respected by both parties.
Unlike the Republican party nationally, Wyoming Republicans, historically, have been economic conservatives and, until very recently, social progressives–at least, to a degree. While the recent Republican office holders haven’t been above using divisive social issues for electoral gain, past GOP office holders have been pro-choice (former Sen. Al Simpson), anti-death penalty (Simpson’s father, Milward Simpson who served as governor from 1955-59), and supportive of spending for higher education and health care (State Sen. Thomas Stroock, a Casper oil man and ambassador under the first George Bush who was a long-time appropriations chair in the state legislature).
The state remains the least populated in the country. Consequently, nearly everyone is personally acquainted with a member of Congress or a statewide office holder. Politics is still personal in the state. In 2002, when Democrat Dave Freudenthal defeated the Republican candidate (and won re-election four years later), it wasn’t the first time that national pundits were proven wrong–that a Democrat COULD be elected in a state where more than half of the voters had become registered Republicans, largely through Republican recruitment, but also from Democratic mis-steps. Freudenthal’s win was hardly unprecedented. Two-term governor Mike Sullivan (1987-1995) accomplished a similar feat. Nonetheless, it represents a resurgence of sorts.
If history is any indicator, Wyoming will continue to move away from “deep red” and elect Democrats but only if the party does not allow outside consultants to try to mold its image. As long as personal politics continues to have a resonance in the sparsely populated state, Republicans hewing too close to the Trump or national party line likely will find themselves in political jeopardy. Pundits who understand Wyoming will not be surprised.