Democrats should embrace the state’s symbols
Wyoming Democrats in recent years often belittle the value of embracing the state’s symbols, ceding them to the GOP who redefine their meanings without contradiction. It is an odd development given that Democrats were responsible for nearly all of the state’s symbols. A Democrat introduced the women suffrage bill into the territorial legislature, culminating in Wyoming becoming the first government to give women equal political rights. The first women elected governor of any state, Nellie Tayloe Ross, was a Wyoming Democrat. Even the “bucking horse” symbol that universally identifies Wyoming on its license plate as well as the recently released state quarter, was commissioned by a Democrat, Secretary of State Lester Hunt. Add to that list the first organization in America to provide health care to its members (the frontier–era Fetterman Hospital Association) and the fact that Wyoming was one of the most ethnically diverse territories in America in the 19th century and it is clear that Democrats can embrace nearly all of what Wyomingites cherish in their past