The Buzz: Wyoming who?

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

By Grace Hammond

This was going to be the year of the Republican caucus.

And in a way, it was. Instead of fast-forwarding through Wyoming during their trips across the nation, Republican presidential candidates paused here, rubbed elbows with local folks and endeared themselves - Romney, in particular - to the state GOP. Sacrificing delegates in order to caucus early was worth it, to some members of the party, even if things didn’t pan out as planned once Romney dropped out.

This year, to their surprise (and everyone else’s), the outnumbered, shoegazing Wyoming Dems ended up in the bigger spotlight when they landed on candidates’ short lists. Not one, not two, but three Clintons campaigned in the state in the days leading up to the caucus. Obama showed up, cowboy hat and all. Humble living room caucuses became convention center affairs. It was like the chess club threw a party and the football team and the cheerleaders decided to crash.

Wyoming Democratic party spokesman Bill Luckett told the Casper Star-Tribune, “We couldn’t have imagined or contrived a more delightful scenario.”
Voters, for their part, overwhelmed caucus headquarters while people outside of Wyoming tried to make sense of it all.

The Capitol Hill gossip blog Wonkette described the phenomenon from an out-of-state point of view:

“The Wyoming Caucus is crazy! There are thousands of people trying to get inside tiny barns or whatever, because there are 18 delegates at stake. … Nobody has noticed a Democratic Caucus since 1960, which is like a half-century ago.”

One commenter remarked: “I keep hearing about all these red states where Democrats are outnumbered 2-to-1 will never vote Democratic in a general election, but then they have Democratic governors! Sure, gun-loving libertarian-type centrist governors, but still. We’ve got to stop acting like these places will never vote for someone with a (D) next to their name.”

At the Daily KOS site, debate centered on whether or not it was “a little silly to pay this much attention to a few thousand people.”
One user from Albany County noted that 1300 Dems voted in the county this cycle compared to 100 the last time around. One commenter replied: “I guess there aren’t actually that many people in Wyoming … but hey, here’s for 1300 percent improvement [in Albany County]!”

There were more than 2,000 new registered Democrats in the state and 1,300 registered within three days of the Feb. 22 deadline for caucus participation, Luckett told the CST.
The Sweetwater caucus was described as “raucus,” one of the few that Clinton won, with 14 out of 24 county delegates. Teton County was the lone county left to report as of 5 p.m. MST, when national news networks had already called the race for Obama. The county emboldened his declared victory: Senator Clinton received 231 votes, or 20 percent and 3.5 delegates; Obama received 919 votes, or 80 percent and 13.5 delegates.

Caucus chair Andy Schwartz announced that less than an hour into the voting period registration had already topped 1,000 - almost five times the number of democrats who caucused in this county during the last election cycle.

“We’ve probably got more than they had in Cheyenne,” said state rep. Pete Jorgensen.

In 2004, only 675 democrats caucused in the entire state. 1,150 registered Democrats caucused Saturday in Teton County.
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The Buzz: Wyoming who? | Planet JH News Article: General News

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