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.
When Liz Cheney first ran for Wyoming’s lone seat in the House of Representatives, I didn’t have many objections to her political views, aside from privatizing public land. I did have a big problem with her physical address in Virginia.
Many of us had a good laugh when a Wyoming Game and Fish Warden ticketed her for an illegal fishing license. She was our only representative in Congress, but she hadn’t met the residency requirement of living in Wyoming, so the warden rightfully wrote her up.
We like to think that we do things differently in Wyoming. Maybe we do, and maybe we don’t. As the smallest state, with the largest portion of any of the 50 states percentage-wise in federal funds flowing here at the rate of almost 3 to 1 over what we pay in federal taxes. Many would consider us a “welfare state.” In many ways, we are dependent on money generated by citizens in other states, most of the “Red States” are.
That goes against the grain of our image of “rugged individualism,” but it’s the truth. Without federal highway funds, we’d be driving on gravel roads. There wouldn’t be electric power, telephones, bridges, dams, cell towers, irrigation districts, or public grasslands and forests without those dreaded “Feds” back east. It’s a fact of life that serious, responsible citizens already know. Too bad it’s not reaching the new East Coast right-wing extremists desperately trying to claw their way into the state house in Cheyenne.
We are a conservative state, though we’ve had many Democratic governors, senators, and representatives. We’ve never had a majority of Democrats in either the state house or the Senate. That’s not indicative of a swing to the left by Wyoming voters, but rather voting in the right man or woman no matter the party affiliation.
It’s hard for the MAGA crowd to understand, but a Wyoming Democrat is more conservative than a real Republican in almost any other state (aside from Utah and Texas.) Aside from a few outliers in Jackson and Lander, we don’t have many left-wing, alphabet soup lettering, gender-confused, militant-vegan, commie, pinko (did I get all the name-calling rhetoric?) in the Cowboy State. No matter what the out-of-state sponsored extremist right-wing candidates who are afraid to debate the issues claim, it’s not a problem.
What is a problem are groups like the Gun Owners of America (GOA) with their offices in Virginia picking and choosing candidates for us. They don’t review positions, background, education, or involvement at lower-level political offices like school boards, or city councils they just get a list from the most virulent neo-Nazi sources and endorse them.
If you’re like me you’ve been polluted with political mailers, like the one from the Wyoming Freedom PAC, whatever that is. I wish they’d come up with a way to grind this garbage and turn it into mulch before it hits your mailbox. If a candidate wants to spend their own money on mailers and signs, more power to them.
It’s not how we do things here in Wyoming. We don’t like to let Virginia, California, or New York make our decisions for us.
In looking back to the 2022 election, outsiders and their secretly funded schemes played a big part in state races. You don’t have to look much farther than the Secretary of State race two years ago between Tara Nethercott and Chuck Gray.
Tara was born, raised, educated, and practiced law in Wyoming. Her grandfather was a hunting guide in Jackson, the old Jackson Hole before the billionaire elite took over. Her father was a US Army officer, a deputy sheriff in Sublette, Big Horn, and Fremont Counties, and her two brothers were in the military. He middle brother Troy served multiple tours with the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, and her older brother Todd, recently retired as a captain in the US Navy after commanding nuclear attack submarines. What could be more Wyoming than that?
Evidently, it wasn’t enough. Little Chucky’s campaign, organized by out-of-state political teams began to paint her as a liberal, a “RINO.” When Chucky had someone pay the Trump organization for an endorsement, that’s all it took. He was elected.
He is a transplant, but outside political hacks put him into the secretary position.
His performance has been underwhelming, but it was funny to watch him at the Republican convention with his ill-fitting comical cowboy hat peaking over the lectern.
His only platform was claiming voter fraud. In Wyoming where everyone knows each other and the County Clerk is one the most respected positions in each of our 23 counties? It didn’t matter, it was something that rang through the voters thanks to the clanking bell rung by outside interests.
He’s at it again, attempting to disrupt the primary election with last-second demands to the county clerk offices across the state.
Any time I hear someone whine about voter fraud in the 2020 election it makes me laugh. These clowns claiming the presidential election was rigged, never claim the same ballots that put them in office were also illegal. Somehow the evil geniuses that run elections were able to alter the presidential election while ignoring the house, Senate, and state races. It would have been so much easier for those evil liberals if they had majorities in both houses as well. It is laughable.
After working at the polls for our county clerk, Julie Freese, I was amazed at how thorough, professional, impartial, and effective Julie is in conducting elections in Fremont County. She is a professional who takes her job seriously. I’ll bet the 22 other county clerks are just as forthright.
But that’s walking the walk. The Freedom Caucus Clown Car loaded with people who are afraid to debate doesn’t do that. They just talk the talk, but not in a public setting.
If gun rights are an important issue to you, I suggest you pay attention to who the NRA endorses, or ask someone who volunteers with Pheasants Forever, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, or Hunt with Heroes. They are all locally based with a national office. The GOA has no local affiliates, they’re entirely a Virginia-based lobbying firm. It smacks of a cult because it is.
I’m not sure why gun rights are such a big issue in Wyoming, to begin with. Estimates are that there are over a million firearms in Wyoming distributed among our 500,000 citizens, yep two for one on average.
What is a HUGE issue, one ignored completely by the “Freedom Caucus” is health care or in our case, the almost complete lack of it, and economic stability. Why don’t they have a plan to help the citizens of the county? Why? Because it doesn’t fit the national song and dance, they march blindly to, that’s why.
The mailed propaganda full of lies about people we know and respect, the hack jobs on social media, and the other nasty national political tricks offered up by some in the Freedom Caucus are not what we are in Wyoming. Don’t believe any of them, and don’t risk your vote on someone who refuses to debate or make their positions known.
In the Old West, they called that a “pig in a poke,” which meant accepting something blindly, not knowing what it was worth or whether it was good or bad.
These wannabe politicians who won’t present their agenda are hoping you’re dumb enough to believe in what they offer without offering anything.
Don’t fall for it tomorrow at the polls. Vote for what you know not what some out-of-state organization wants you to think you know.