Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
In these columns, I have generally tried to avoid politics, but this column will be an exception, so if you are averse to that type of writing then read no further.
Every couple of weeks, I drive over to my mother-in-law’s house and collect her recycling: paper, aluminum and tin cans, plastic and corrugated cardboard. Then, I bring it back to my wife’s and my house where it is mixed with our own recycling to be taken out to the recycling center at the landfill when the receptacles are full.
While performing that task a few days ago, I happened to glimpse a political mailer in the cardboard box that serves to collect her discarded paper. What caught my attention was an image somehow different from those commonly found on just about every political mailer one receives in the mail.
The image depicted two men, obviously photoshopped, in sheep’s clothing. Wait, I thought. I think I know those guys. After fishing it out from all the other paper items, sure enough, there were Cale Case and Lloyd Larsen in an image not at all flattering.
After viewing its ridiculous images and reading its outlandish text, I could only think that the content of the mailer could only have been written and approved by a committee of middle school bullies.
Gladys informed my wife that the mailer was given to her by a young man who came to her door, although a NO SOLICITING sign can be easily seen on her front door.
To paraphrase, the mailer accuses both individuals of voting against legislation meant to allegedly protect women and children, which I thought was outrageous because I’ve known both men for many years.
Cale and I attended school together all the way from Kindergarten through our senior year in high school when we graduated from LVHS in 1976. We’ve run into one another occasionally over the years…enough that I have a pretty good idea of his character, which I have yet to find any reason to believe that he would want to purposely put women and children into situations that might cause them harm. For someone to suggest that is ludicrous.
He even provided a job for my older daughter during a couple of her college summers and breaks, and I don’t just trust anyone with my children.
Just a couple of months ago, I invited him into our home so that we could discuss a topic about which I feel strongly, which is the legislature’s reluctance to advocate for a benefit increase for retired state employees. He gladly set a time that was convenient for us both and arrived with a well-used hard copy of the Wyoming Constitution and explained why it prohibited an increase in benefits in the manner that had been approved by the Wyoming House of Representatives. He then suggested an avenue for which an increase in retirement checks might be a possibility.
Occasionally, I’ll see Cale in his beat up diesel truck driving by our house or when we are walking in the neighborhood. At 2:00 on Sunday afternoons he pulls up to a house three doors down in which resides a long time community member who is afflicted with dementia. Cale donates at least an hour of his time each week, taking this individual for a ride in order to get him out of his house.
Doesn’t seem like wolfish behavior to me.
I’ve known Lloyd for over two decades. He and I crossed paths when our children were both in high school participating on the LVHS Nordic ski teams. At the time, the Lander Nordic Ski Association (LNSA) was in the early stages of creating a Nordic ski venue near Beaver Creek south of town, a place for community members and visitors to recreate and where our high school and middle school’s boys and girls ski teams could practice and compete against other ski teams from around the state.
Lloyd and many other community members and volunteers donated countless hours to make that happen. At the time, Lloyd was part owner of an oil field construction company and had access to heavy equipment that helped create an inviting and family friendly place where, over the ensuing years, thousands of folks of all ages have enjoyed “slapping on the slats” for some wholesome and vigorous cardio exercise.
In addition, thousands of spectators from around the state have descended on the venue to watch their favorite middle and high school athletes compete against the best Wyoming has to offer.
Because of his generosity, there was some talk among the ski community then about naming a ski trail after Lloyd, but when he caught wind of that discussion, he put the kibosh on the idea straight away.
For many years, when our children were on the high school Nordic ski teams together, the committee responsible for organizing and putting on the high school races would meet in Lloyd’s office periodically for weeks before the event, and I remember thinking at the time, This guy is setting an outstanding leadership example for everyone in the room.
He’s even a leader in his church.
Sounds like a real scoundrel, right?
The mailers are misleading at best. I haven’t spoken with either Cale or Lloyd since viewing their contents, but I can’t help wondering what was in the legislative documents that caused both men to vote against them. My feeling is that the proposed laws were so poorly written or so blatantly unconstitutional that, in good conscience, neither man could support it.
A few days after finding the offending mailer in my mother-in-laws recycling, while I was putzing out in our garage, a young man (the same one, I’m guessing) came to our front door offering my wife the same mailer and another one which was advocating for four statewide candidates because “WYOMING DESERVES CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP.”
Wyoming is the most conservative state in the union, so I’d venture a guess that our leadership is also of the conservative variety, but apparently not conservative enough for an outside organization willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in our state passing out misleading and deplorable information in order to advance their agenda.
This is what politics has sunk to in Wyoming: continually misleading voters until they start to believe the crap they find in their mailboxes or is passed out to them by someone who comes to their doors.
Both mailers were paid for by a political action committee based in Virginia called Make Liberty Win (MLW). So I did a little research into the organization and found out that it specializes in targeting Republican incumbents who don’t measure up to their Conservative standards.
During the last election cycle, Make Liberty Win spent over $370,000 in the state of Wyoming trying to get rid of longstanding, dedicated legislators like Cale and Lloyd and replace them with politicians whose ideology more closely aligns with that of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which from all outward appearances, at least in my view, is less about advocating for freedom for everyone and more about attacking institutions and individuals who don’t practice the same ultraconservative ideology as do members of its organization.
To be fair, the mailers offer a disclaimer that their publications are not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committees. But also to be fair, none of the four candidates supported by MLW in the additional mailer given to my wife have publicly condemned the disparaging content contained in the first one, which in my opinion is the same as silently approving of it.
I think as Wyoming citizens, we should be more discerning and more than a little suspect when it comes to outside money flooding into our state from well funded political action committees located thousands of miles away telling us for whom we should vote…or for whom we should not vote.
But on the other hand, I figure MLW did me a little favor. Now I know of four candidates that will not get my vote on August 18th; and so I’m kind of hoping the organization drops off a few more mailers advocating for its preferred candidates, which will help me whittle down the list of hopefuls deserving of my vote so that when I mark my preferences, the choices are easy.