Forgotten (by the GOP) Wyoming: The Delegate Watch

You know, even as a progressive, come election time, I still watch the GOP. Maybe not as closely as some, and maybe a little more closely than others. Why? Not just to see what progressive are up against, but also to see what moderate, not as progressive dems will be up against.

And thus, when states jockeyed to increase their importance, Wyoming sandwiched itself inbetween the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries. How’d it work out? Well, I don’t think so good.

You see,  there are several problems with the new time. Most particularly, the early January caucus in Wyoming is for the GOP only, the democrats caucus later. That’s problem one.

Problem two, other than a few drive-bys, the candidates didn’t stop and do their schmoozing. Not enough time between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries.

And problem three. The media could give a shit. Seriously, unless you live in Wyoming, what has any of the big media outlets said about the January 5, 2008 GOP caucus in Wyoming? There’s been a giant silence. Perhaps it’s becasue the Wyoming GOP went against the party and tried to gain some prominence, and thus they are being treated as bad little boys.

Until after the fact, and that seems to be the obligatory, well so-and-so got the most delegates, article. This year that so-and-so is Romney.

 Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who is locked in an intense primary battle in New Hampshire, captured the majority of Wyoming’s delegates to the Republican National Convention as the state’s Republicans met at county conventions.

Mr. Romney won eight delegates, former Senator Fred D. Thompson of Tennessee won three, and Representative Duncan Hunter of California won one.

Note, though, that Iowa hasn’t elected their delegates. So, if we are going to keep track, which I’m sure some pundit or other will be keeping track, Romney has 8, Lazy Freddie eeked out 3 and Duncan Hunter has 1. Duncan Hunter’s wife is from Wyoming, so really I think this is more of a supporting “one of our own” delegate.

Because Wyoming GOP went against party rules and moved up their caucuses, they forfeited half of their delegates. Will this ultimately hurt the GOP? Probably not.

While Ed believes 8 delegates won’t tip the scales, for the GOP hopefuls, these are the first delegates to be elected. More interestingly, Ed thought the Wyoming GOP would have gone for Ron Paul, and from the results, that was a no go.

Personally, I think it looks as if the GOP folks from Wyoming are looking at leaning towards a continuation of what we’ve experienced during the last 7 years – lack of reality, laziness, and most importantly a Daddy-lead nation. If that is so, it should be really easy to put a democrat in the WH this fall, assuming the nominee is not Hillary Clinton, who, as I have noted before, is the most polarizing democratic candidate for the presidential contest.